CA Social Media Privacy Bill Fails

This article explains that SB 242 deadlocked in the California Senate with a vote of 16-16.  There was a big push by Google, Facebook and others in the emerging social networking industry lobby who were successful in killing the bill that would have made it harder for these companies to collect and retain all the personally identifiable information they use to build their successful ad businesses.

There was no mention in the article about the Federal efforts and the fact that they could preempt this California level effort from the get go.

Why Social Media User Agreements Matter

This article published in the Montreal Gazette discusses users’ enforceable rights on Twitter, Facebook etc.  While these sites require users to broadly agree to their terms of use, they claim to allow users to “own” their own content.  However, in this case the Agence France-Presse published a photographer’s Haitian Earthquake photos without permission from the photographer.  The media company claims the photographer had uploaded them to Twitter so he had consented to having his photos free to re-publish to anyone.

But is that a reasonable expectation for a Twitter user to have about their content?  Are people simply signing away valuable rights without understanding what they are doing?

Twitter: End of Business Cards for Lawyers?

Lets consider the source: an attendee at the ABA Tech show in Chicago.  Jay Shepherd claims that attorneys at this show were trading their twitter handles rather than business cards.

Hype Wary

Social media including Twitter have been around awhile now and this kind of hype typically attends the earlier stages of a new tech development.  What I call the “Gee Whiz!” moment.   These moments are always announcing the death of something and this article is no different.

Still, I get his point – Twitter is a great way to communicate quickly and easily.  It allows attorneys to continue a dialog as a matter of course whereas the business card requires capturing the information and sending out an email to connect.  I do think its time however, to advance the dialog a bit and talk about adding a Twitter handle to the business cards rather than throwing away those dusty boxes altogether.

Twitter Settles Privacy Suit with FTC

The FTC has accepted the final settlement agreement with Twitter over its privacy lapses.  It appears the issue was that Twitter promised a higher level of privacy in terms of consumer’s personal data than they could deliver.

Here is the settlement agreement.

Do Small Firm Lawyers Get Social Media?

Here is an article talking about this report.  The article talks about how these lawyers don’t “get” social media and aren’t using it for marketing.  However, beneath the pie chart describing the various marketing methods they use, they have a section that lists various popular promotional tools and more than a third name online networking and social media as things they do.

Not Listed as Most Effective Marketing

They may not view these efforts as “marketing” because they aren’t paying for them but doesn’t mean that 1. they don’t know what they are or 2. that they don’t find them useful.

Law Firms Are A’Tweeting

This article discusses the recent adoption by law firms of social media outlets such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  The article goes on to say that law firms are basically reposting their news and events as tweeted headlines with links to the articles.  There isn’t the sense that a professional service firm need to engage its audience in the same way a consumer products’ company like Apple or Nike would.

Provide real value

It would take staff time and attorney resources to brainstorm how to create a unique client or prospect experience on Twitter, time and resources that are better spent on more traditional forms of marketing – or so goes the argument.

But I think a firm could take an existing practice or sector newsletter that provides recent developments in a particular niche, create Twitter friendly headlines and provide unique value for clients.  Too often these recent development newsletters are just summaries of recent relevant cases. Attorneys don’t ask a simple question – why does this ruling or legislation matter to our clients?  That simple exercise would add tremendous value to clients and prospects and would be good training for young attorneys.

An Example

The recent settlement between an employee and American Medical Response generated tweets such as, “NLRB Settles Charge Claiming Employee was Sued for Facebook.” But this doesn’t alert an employer to the real issue.   The tweet could read, “Employers should review employee policies in light of NLRB settlement.” This reframing gets the attention of employers.  The recent development article can still be a case summary but at least now Tweeter followers know why they should read it.

 

Twitter Okayed by British Supreme Court

Interesting news from the other side of the Atlantic.  Will this move the U.S. judicial system to a similar adoption?

Twitter a Challenge in the Court

This article is one more sign of just how fundamental a change Twitter and other social media bring  to the legal system.  In this case, its a concern that tweeting the developments in a lurid Canadian criminal trial is providing readers with a crude and inaccurate picture of what is happening in the courtroom.

Tweeting doesn’t allow for the context necessary to make sense of information and the trial participants are asking for a “national debate” to make social media more appropriate and useful in Canadian courts.

Law Firms: No Twitter Better than Bad Twitter

This is according a recent survey of UK law firms which of course includes some U.S. counterparts like DLA Piper.  According to the survey, 66% of the top 50 UK firms had set up Twitter accounts but of those that had set them up, 19 hadn’t tweeted once.  The survey by Intendance states that,

‘The report said the figures suggested that ‘many firms have simply jumped on the social media bandwagon without putting much thought into how to use Twitter to their advantage. By neglecting potential followers, those with dormant accounts could even be damaging their brand’.

I’m pretty sure a similar result would occur it were U.S. firms.  The key is to look at social networking as a strategic investment – if not in dollars then in time and also brand creditability.   If you click on a well-known law firm’s Twitter account and see zero tweets, you are going to wonder if they have their act together.

Twitter vs. Facebook: The Lawyer Edition

Kevin O’Keefe as usual, offer great insight into social networking for lawyers.  He explains that its helpful to think of Twitter as a way to communicate with others about real-time interests, ideas, information and things that you want share while Facebook is more about sharing your lives with people you know or want to know – however you define your sphere of influence.

Auto-feeding

The thing with Kevin is that he gives you plenty of opinion with his posts for which I say, “right on” even when I disagree.  In this case he off-handedly says that neither Twitter nor Facebook should be used to “auto-feed” content.  I assuming he means that one shouldn’t stream blog content to these services.  On this I have to disagree.  I will raise my hand high as an “autofeeder” and I’m proud of it.  Here is why.

1. Establishing a successful niche demands consistent and continued messaging.  Better that people see that you are talking about the same things everywhere than be confused about what you offer and who you are.

2. The beauty of social media is that is a publish once and republish many times kind of medium.  I have different audiences for my blog, Twitter account and Facebook friends.  It is unlikely that the same person will view my content multiple times and if they do they get re-enforced with my areas of interests and expertise.

3. I focus on one social networking hub and let the rest manage themselves.  In this case its LinkedIn.  That’s where I spend what time I have alloted after my blog for social networking.  I answer and ask questions.  I post status updates, I send messages to specific people in my network.  Why should I let my Facebook and Twitter profiles go stale?  I provide valuable content to folks that aren’t friends or followers.

I hope Mr. O’Keefe has a chance to provide the alternative view in some detail as I want hear what he thinks is the big downside to this approach.