The issue has been joined. Larry Bodine raised quite a ruckus when he concluded that twitter was a marketing waste. He then compounded the challenge when he reiterated his views at Law.Com’s Legal Technology page. It was more than Kevin O’Keefe could stand, and his head exploded all over the front page of Real Lawyer Have Blogs.
Bodine’s post is directed at the areas he considers most fruitful for those who prefer to walk the streets in hotpants.
You could hear the collective groan when Twitter made the cover of Time magazine and marketers realized that they had to become familiar with yet another online medium. There’s Facebook, MySpace, Naymz, Spoke, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Martindale Connected, Legal OnRamp, JD Supra and listservs, to name a few online social networks. It seems overwhelming.Or lawyers can ignore marketers, but that’s just my two cents. Larry then launches into his “things to ignore” mode.
The good news is that marketers and lawyers can ignore most of them.
• Begin by eliminating the time-wasters — and in my opinion, the primary example is Twitter. Consider this. A new study by Pear Analytics found that: 40 percent of the tweets on Twitter were “total pointless babble.”
• 10 percent of Twitter users account for over 90 percent of tweets, according to Harvard Business School.
• Among people with a Twitter account, 60 percent drop out after one month and never come back, according to Neilsen Wire.
• 55 percent have never posted a tweet, according to HubSpot.com.
Lexblog’s Kevin O’Keefe is an unabashed cheerleader of twitter. He loves it. He believes in it. He promotes it with a vigor that most men reserve for marital bliss. Maybe even more vigor than that.
The first third of the article went way out of its way to belittle the power of Twitter as a relationship building and networking tool. This should comes as no surprise as the author of the article is making a name for himself in bashing twitter.
Based on the results I am hearing lawyers are getting by building relationships through Twitter, and getting clients as a result, I am beginning to think that Twitter offers the highest ROI of any networking/relationship building tool.
I suppose if Legal Technology News were around in the days of Alexander Graham Bell, they’d be siding with the lawyers who thought a lawyer’s use of a phone in rendering legal services was clearly unprofessional and, of course, unethical. A small group of radical lawyers decided to use the phone, probably for perceived mindless babble.
Perhaps I shouldn’t get worked up about misguided advice from someone who I don’t believe understands Twitter, but Legal Technology News decided to the run the story. A story that will passed around by managing partners and chief marketing officers clinging to the past. A story that will needlessly keep the legal profession lagging behind the industries, corporations, and consumers we serve. That’s a disservice to the American lawyer.
Enter Monica Bay at the Common Scold, who also happens to be the editor of Law Technology News for ALM. Monica jumped into the middle (fully clothed, however), with this:
Oh please.1. For starters, get your facts right, Kevin: This article never ran in Law Technology News. It did, however, run in an ALM newsletter, and was picked up on Law.com’s Legal Technology site.
2. Larry Bodine (who Kevin declines to ID in his post) is a member of the LTN Editorial Advisory Board, and often writes controversial articles that get everybody talking and thinking. This is a good thing.
3. As for whether LTN — or any other ALM entity — should have run the article: The last time I checked, LTN (and ALM) readers [lawyers, IT professionals, paralegals, GC, vendors, et al] are smart, savvy, and like to debate.
In fact, I WANT all points of view in LTN, because that’s how we best serve the entire spectrum of our wonderful legal community.All points of view includes Kevin’s throw down to Larry, who didn’t ask for any help in fighting off the forces of O’Keefe. Larry’s stance is clearly controversial in the face of the many voices trying to make a buck off lawyers and twitter, or the techno-lawyer-cheerleaders who have enough free time on their hands to travel from conference to conference proclaiming how twitter built them a huge law practice, and how for a very reasonable fee they can do the same for yours.
That’s why I choose a wide array of articles (and opinions). And why I regularly participate in panels discussing important technology trends and issues. Oh yeah, btw, O’Keefe participated on two recent ALM panels that I moderated, talking about how lawyers can use Twitter (LegalTech NY 09 and LegalTech West Coast 09).
For observers of this intramural war, this is hugely amusing. I’ve come to enjoy twitter, which grows on you (fungus analogy intended) provided you don’t get caught up in the whole follower number deal. There is no prize, by the way, for the lawyer with the most followers.Like Kevin, I’ve heard of some lawyers who claim to be making millions off twitter, though their claims seem entirely contingent on a couple of anomalous factors. The first is that they are in a very narrow niche practice in a peculiar place, where lawyers around the country need to find someone to meet unusual criteria and aren’t too picky when it comes to the competence of the lawyers to whom they refer cases. Twitter thus serves as an alternative way of finding the oddballs.
The other factor is that twitter, at 140 characters, prevents lawyers from coming off too stupid. There’s only so much stupidity one can fit into a twit. Blog posts, on the other hand, have enormous capacity for proving that a lawyer is an idiot. Even a half-witted lawyer can feign a modicum of competence by merely retwitting articles within his niche, thus completely concealing any glaring gap by living off the work of others. These lawyers are the remoras free-riding on the backs of sharks.
But there are more “lawyers” who think their futures are bound in becoming social media experts, and twitter is an opportunity for them to rake in the dough by teaching lawyers who are incapable of figuring out how to market themselves in 140 characters.
Personally, I hope Larry Bodine wins the day, not because I believe that he’s right (though I do) but for purely selfish reasons. Wouldn’t it be really nice if there was one online street where you didn’t have to dodge the girls in hotpants asking if you want to go on a date?
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Great post.
I think you have enough for an offshoot-“legalmarketingwatch” blog?
That would be fun!
My God, this is stupid. (Not you, Scott!)
Look marketers, this isn’t hard stuff. Let’s start seeing some cancelled checks.
If a guy wants me to pay him to give me investing advice, I have a simple request: “Hey, buddy, let’s see your tax returns.” After all, if an investment guru knows so much about investing, he should be filthy rich after having invested his own money!
Why is it that lawyers who advocate twitter are not successful lawyers with a huge client base? Why didn’t they generate so much freaking money using social networking for themselves, that they are filthy rich and Twittering from some beach?
Or, maybe they don’t want to practice law, which having clients requires. Fine.
These “rain makers” should associate with a law firm. Refer all those clients you find on Twitter to law firms. Most PI firms I know will give you a third-of-a-third for a referral.
Refer them a PI case, and you’ll get 33% of their contingency fee (usually 33%). That’s real money for simply finding clients and referring them out. Sure, you’re ethically obligated to monitor the case and ensure competency. But you’re not in the office at midnight grinding out yet another motion for summary judgment. You leave the leg work to the firms you refer cases to.
Instead of making real money by brining in whales of cases to rich PI lawyers, these guys sell their marketing services. How silly!
Get your own clients; refer the cases out; make millions. That’s how Jim Sokolove makes $$$$$ each year.
So, yeah, the legal marketing people are frauds; or stupid.
They are either lying about all of these clients they are finidng; or they’re too stupid to, ala Sokolove, to bring in serious coinage by referring those huge cases out for a piece of the action.
I have a business proposal for the legal marketers.
You are obviously able to generate millions in fees through your Twittering. Yet you don’t have a network of lawyers you can refer these cases to. I can help.
I will put you in touch with lawyers who will give you 33% of their legal-fee recovery. So, let’s take the typical $1,000,000 case you get on Twitter. It settles before trial:
Client gets $667,000
Lawyer gets $333,333
Of this $333,333, the referring lawyer (that’s you, legal marketing experts) get a whopping $111,111.
Sure, those are round numbers. Costs must be deducted from the recovery. Still, we’re talking six-figures for you.
Also, some of you legal marketers might not be licensed to practice law. So you can’t sign a referral agreement. But, for the kind of money I’m putting on the table…Let’s get you into law school so that we can make these millions together in three year’s time. I will tutor you during your law school in exchange for your promise to pay me finder’s fees.
Those legal marketers who have law licenses can of course take advantage of this FANTASTIC, ONE-TIME OFFER immediately. You MUST ACT FAST before the other legal marketers (also with their million-dollar cases) beat you to the punch. I’m not a greedy man, after all, and can only foresee myself accepting 4 or 5 finder’s fees each month.
I will put you in touch with lawyers who will give you that sort of deal. They will sign a contract and everything. We’re talking legit firms that can get large verdicts with the right cases. No funny business. I guarantee it.
If the lawyers rip you off, I’ll pay your legal fees if you have to sue them to get your referral fee.
For this valuable service (and indemnification), I simply request a finder’s fee of $25,000. This is a flat fee. It’s still less than 25% of your actual recovery. Not a bad deal, right?
If you can’t afford $25,000 up front (though that wouldn’t make sense, given all of the money you’re making on Twitter), we can finance the deal. I’m flexible.
Since you have all of these millions of dollars on Twitter, you will no doubt be in touch with me soon.
Scott has my e-mail address. Ask him for it so that we may all get rich together for doing nothing more than goofing off on Twitter. No doubt, you should pay Scott $5,000 for my e-mail address. What is 5 grand when you’re going to make an easy six figures for simply typing stuff on Twitter?
HELP ME HELP YOU!!! LET ME SHOW YOU THE MONEY!!!
I expect my e-mail box to explode. Better get in touch with me shortly. Like I said…I can only play deal maker for so many cases before I start feeling sleazy and unethical.
I know…It’s hard to imagine…Some of us have shame.
Only $5 grand? Now I feel cheap and dirty.
You can outsource the work to India, ala the 4 Hour Workweek’s and BigLaw/American Bar Association’s recommendations. Your margins will be HUGE! Monthly: $20,000-$25,000 in PASSIVE INCOME.
Good lord y’all are entertaining, but you do know some of the marketing gurus are bound to take you seriously.
Sure, I’m bitter, as I’m one of those big-case PI and class action guys with a tiny twitter presence. I’m sure it’s just one more measure of my ineptitude, but I can’t seem to crack the code to generate a fabulous stream of 7 figure cases. Come to think of it, I’ve had fairly poor luck with 6 and 5 figure cases too. It’s tough being me.
Marketer2Marketer’s offer is legitimate in that many PI lawyers do pay referral fees based upon percentages. I assume M2M is connected and can deliver the firms to do the work, too. (Hey, if you need a guy in Oregon….)
Got to run–have to buy my lottery tickets before tonight’s big drawing.
You always do a bettter job than I in getting the troops riled up Scott. I think I’ll stay from the third rail of advocating Twitter.
Not sure any lawyer has made a millions of bucks off Twitter, but I find it fun and a good way to get to know folks, both being things lawyers could use.
It is fun and a good way to get to know folks. And there’s nothing wrong with that.