iammcg's posterous

In doing other research, here's the short list of state supreme courts using Twitter that I came up with:

1.  Florida Supreme Court (0 Following, 536 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

2.  Hawaii Supreme Court (and state courts) (0 Following, 313 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

3.  Illinois Supreme Court (0 Following, 613 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

4.  Indiana Supreme Court (and state courts) (10 Following, 306 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

5.  Nevada Supreme Court (168 Following, 85 Followers, Interactive Tweets)

6.  New Hampshire Supreme Court (and state courts) (17 Following, 508 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

7.  New Jersey Supreme Court (and state courts) (2 Following, 795 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

8.  Tennessee Supreme Court (and state courts) (156 Following, 808 Followers, Broadcast Tweets)

Florida, Hawaii, and Illinois aren't following anyone, and the rest range from following 2 to 168.  The state supreme court with 'broadcast tweets' are those that don't have any '@ replies' in their tweet stream or a retweet with a comment to the original tweeter. The 'interactive' category includes those with at least one of the latter in their tweet streams.

As I mentioned in a previous post, state supreme courts, like state bar associations, should have a social strategy that provides information and works to develop rapport with members of the legal profession, related organizations, and the larger community.  And fire-hosing court decisions all day isn't strategy.

Which court is doing it the best?  Nevada.  It's the only interactive user, responding substantively to users' questions, hosting interactive broadcasts/discussions, and thanking users for retweets. 

Disagree?  Did I leave one off?  Let me know. 

A dozen or so people have asked me about social media and public records.  And I've told them the issue's past whether social media posts constitute public records, and onto how federal, state, and local governments are going to archive and manage the posts for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state public records laws. 

Social Media Posts As Public Records Is Hot.

I mean, look what's trending now.  As part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)'s Open Government Directive (which includes social media use), OBM sent a memo in December 2009 to the heads of the executive departments and agencies, instructing them to provide a link to a website that shows how they're meeting the records management requirements.

North Carolina's Best Practices for Social Media Usage explicitly states that "[l]ike e-mail, communication via agency-related social networking Web sites is a public record . . . [and] agencies must assume responsibility for public records and adhere to the schedule of collection for social networking Web site set by the North Carolina State Archives."

Similarly, the Idaho State Department of Education's Social Media and Blogging Policy, provides that all internet postings are subject to the State of Idaho public records law, and all employees must follow Idaho's administrative procedures for responding to requests for examination or copying.  That one, I wrote.

The City of Seattle, in its Social Media Use Policy, likewise makes clear that "City of Seattle social media sites are subject to State of Washington public records laws . . . [and] Washington state law and relevant City of Seattle records retention schedules apply to social media formats and social media content."  The State of Washington even went as far as to preempt the coming blitz of public records requests for social media posts by amending its Public Records Act to allow local governments to respond to records request by providing individuals with a link to where the documents are posted on the agency's website. 

But these governmental entities are ahead of the game.  The National Archives and Records Administration is still exploring records management implications of implementing social media tools, and state and local governments continue to ask how to archive social media posts.

And they should.  The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for discovery of all electronically stored information or other data compilations stored in any medium, and most states, including my home State of Idaho, require record retention at both the county and municipal level. 

Further, the Idaho Supreme Court has held that e-mail correspondence, even though of a personal nature, may constitute a public record if it relates to the conduct or administration of public business and provides an explanation for a public official's action.  If social media posts are treated the same as electronic correspondence for purposes of public records requests, which they typically are, you can add government employee posts on personal social networking accounts related to official business to the mix. And that's kind of big.

You Know What's Also Hot?  Archiving Standardization.

The savviest of governmental entities are testing out the best in the game for archiving public records, and thus far, they're not backing a single outfit.  Rather, consensus is that various third-party tools and plug-ins are golden for now. Check out Microsoft Outlook Twinbox (which allows a person to send a tweet from Outlook and then archive it in a folder), ArchiveFacebook, TweetTake, SocialSafe, BackUpMyTweets.com, Backupify, and others to get an idea what's out there.  What are you using?  Startup hacks, what would you have them use?

Tupac wasn’t on my list of startup resources when I launched lisa mcgrath, llc law firm.  He was on my Jay-Z Pandora channel on a run a couple of nights ago.  I ran, and he rapped that people looked to him to do things for them, to have answers.  His beat was hotter than most of his answers, but Tupac had hustle, and some inadvertent but solid advice for anyone going it alone in business.

‘Peep Game’

Make your business about your clients.  Period.

‘Late Night’

Be ready for them.  A four-hour work week doesn’t exist.  “Get up to get down,” as Tupac said.

‘Never B Peace’

Over two months in, my business plan’s more shot than my Sweet Sixteen bracket.  If your business plan isn’t living, your business isn’t either.  Be willing “to change and look for a better way” because “that’s how the players do it.”

‘Under Pressure’

Entrepreneurial anxiety is your friend.  It’ll get you in your seat, focused, and proposal-producing faster than anything else.  As Tupac said, “when tha pressures on . . . it’s on, never run, throw your gun in tha air.”  You get the point.

‘Don’t You Trust Me?’

Give clients a reason to trust you and your service/product.  And want to.  The latter’s paramount.

‘Never Be Beat’

Will your business to succeed.  You’ll receive unexpected affirmation in critical moments.  Recall it when anxiety sets it, and push through.  And tell yourself, as Tupac did, that “you couldn’t beat me with a mother@$&%#$@ baseball bat.” [optional]

‘My Burnin’ Heart’

When an all-nighter feels like five minutes, you’ve found your passion.  Tupac knew it when he’d “wake up sweaty when [he was] sleeping cause [he was] thinkin of” it.  Mine’s the law as it relates to social media and a new way of lawyering.  And I built my business on it.  What’s yours?

In doing some research on state bar associations' use of social media, here is the list I came up with of state bar associations (local bar associations excluded) that are on Twitter.  Don't blink.

1. Colorado Bar Association (CLE) (430 Following, 653 Followers, Interactive tweets)
2. Maryland State Bar Association (11 Following, 123 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
3. Massachusetts Bar Association (356 Following, 824 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
4. Minnesota State Bar Association (18 Following, 212 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
5. New Hampshire Bar Association (127 Following, 102 Followers, Interactive tweets)
6. New Jersey State Bar Association (23 Following, 128 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
7. New York State Bar Association (4 Following, 381 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
8. Ohio State Bar Association (0 Following, 676 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
9. Oklahoma Bar Association (185 Following, 975 Followers, Interactive tweets)
10. South Carolina Bar Association (0 Following, 686 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
11. State Bar of New Mexico (1 Following, 83 Followers, Broadcast tweets)
12. State Bar of Texas (308 Following, 1,037 Followers, Interactive tweets)
13. Virginia State Bar (0 Following, 246 Followers, Zero tweets)

Ohio, South Carolina, and Virgina aren't following anyone, and Virginia has yet to tweet.  The state bar associations with 'broadcast tweets' are those who don't have any '@ replies' in their tweet stream or a retweet with a comment to the original tweeter.  The 'interactive' category includes those with at least one of the latter in their tweet streams.    

Being one of the 13 state bar associations that have made the leap to real-time might be enough for some, but social media, like everything, is useless without strategy.  And fire-hosing information and retweeting the American Bar Association all day, likewise, is useless because it isn't strategy.  

State bars should have a social media plan that provides its members with strategic member service (and a social media-based referral service), and works to develop rapport with related organizations and the larger community.

Which state bars are doing it best?  Colorado, and Texas, in my opinion.  Their twitter stream are full of a healthy balance of practical and legal information - and conversation.  

Did I leave one off?  Disagree?  Let me know.

The phrase ‘social media for social good’ is underwhelming.  It implies charitable giving to non-profits, which is a good thing – a great thing, even – but it doesn’t account for the other real benefits of a social media campaign to both non-profits and businesses.

And these real benefits are the driving force behind this year’s “Attorneys Against Hunger: Followers for Food” social media drive event, put on by local attorneys to raise money for the Idaho Foodbank. 

How The ‘Followers For Food’ Drive Works

Modeled roughly after the Greater Boston Food Bank’s successful social media drive, beginning at noon on March 12, Idaho attorneys and the Idaho Foodbank will launch an aggressive social media drive that will play out like this:

·         The Idaho Foodbank, together with other states’ food banks, Social Media Club Boise, and local businesses will post to their online social networks that for every new “follower” on the Foodbank’s Twitter site and every new “friend” on Facebook, over a specified period of time, a dollar will be donated to the Idaho Foodbank, up to a maximum cap.

·         Law firms and businesses’ donations will be accepted in increments of $400.00 for an entire hour, $200.00 for a half of an hour, and $100.00 for fifteen (15) minutes.

·         During that period, the law firm, business, or individual’s name and website will be repeatedly announced as the sponsor for that specified time period on multiple social media platforms and networks.

·         Sponsorship also includes tickets to the celebratory “Attorneys Against Hunger: Followers for Food” Cocktail Bash after the social media drive, starting at 5:00p.m. at the WaterCooler.

The Benefits to Non-Profits

·         Low overhead:  Social media drives have low overhead, requiring mainly volunteer man/womanpower, therefore leaving the non-profit with more of what comes in through the event.

·         Network-Building:  Encouraging “friending” or “following” of the non-profit’s social media sites drives traffic to the sites, thereby increasing the non-profit’s social networks and raising broader awareness of its community events.

The Benefits to Law Firms and Businesses

·         Massive Exposure:  Social media is often referred to as social networking on steroids.  The size and nature of social media platforms and networks allow posts to be read by tens of thousands of companies and businesses nationally and internationally, instead of a couple hundred local entities that an offline local event can reach.

·         Diverse Audience:  Social networks are large and diverse, allowing the sponsorship message of laws firms and businesses to reach a broader industry audience, beyond the legal and the local, thereby increasing marketing opportunities.

The Numbers

There are also the numbers.  Seventy-five percent (75%) of people who are members of online communities said they use the Internet to participate in communities related to social causes, up from thirty percent (30%) in 2006.  Eighty-seven percent (87%) of online community members are participating in social causes that are new to them since their involvement in online communities began, and ninety-four percent (94%) have become more informed about social causes as a result.

And this makes sense.  As social media changes the way we market and do business, it will also change the way we raise money for our favorite community non-profits.  We’re embarking on that change here – and we hope you’ll join us.

To become a sponsor, register for a time slot during the social media drive, or if you have questions, please contact me, Lisa McGrath, at lmcgrath79@gmail.com.  Tickets to the Social Media Drive Cocktail Bash at the WaterCooler on March 12, at 5:00p.m. will be provided at the door for a suggested donation of $10.00 that will include drink tickets, appetizers, and a rad party benefitting the Idaho Foodbank. You can RSVP to the Facebook invitation here.  Cheers.

When I was ousted as the Mayor of Dawson Taylor Coffee Roasters, I can’t say I didn’t double up on stops and Americanos at my local java haunt purely in an effort to regain my title.  I was driven by social gameswomanship, and for many businesses that are employing geolocation-based enterprise in the form of Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and Loopt – it’s what they’re hoping for.  Others, like Zagat and Bravo, who have already inked out partnerships with Foursquare, are betting on it.  

And location-based platforms go beyond gaming.  Businesses like The Lobby bar in Boise offer the Mayor happy hour-priced drinks all night.  Restaurants and bars in bigger cities pack their places by offering the same deal to the Mayor’s network of friends.  Many of the biggest businesses are likewise taking advantage of “Specials Nearby,” a Foursquare service that serves coupons on users checking in near the participating business.  Tasti D-Lite, a user of Specials Nearby, has already reported that the service is driving foot traffic into stores.   

Caring Means Sharing 

Despite this, I’ve heard a ho-hum-vibe out there about Foursquare, but I’ve seen numbers far less spectacular than these.  As of January 12, 2010, only four days after Foursquare went global, it estimated a check-in per second.  Between November 2009 and February 4, 2010, Foursquare traffic tripled.  

Even if you don’t jones over the idea of checking-in and sharing your location, hundreds of thousands of people do.  And if you care about these potential customers and clients, you should care about Foursquare. 

Lawyers, Hip to Be Square 

I can’t tell you how law firms are using Foursquare because they’re not.  I’ve read a total of one line somewhere about law firms’ potential use of Foursquare to market themselves, and it was all about the risks.  Here’s the risk: a client may opt out of checking in at your firm because they don’t want to broadcast that they’re seeing an attorney.  

That’s a risk I’ll take, because in researching how to market my own law/social media consulting firm, I’m looking to the future of business marketing, and it’s geolocation-based enterprise.  And if this recession has taught lawyers anything, it’s that if they weren’t running their firms like businesses in the past, they better be now.         

And part of that is listening to your customer-base, and 93% of Americans believe corporations should have a presence on social media sites.  I’d wager that roughly the same will also want to see those corporations and firms on location-based platforms in the not so distant future.  I’d go as far as to say that law firm and business representatives may even want their clients to know that they’re checking in at a social media consulting firm like mine, because it lets the 93-odd percent of Americans know that they have indeed begun to listen to customers and clients.    

Starting in March, I’ll test my research out by offering the longest-running Mayor of the month of lisa mcgrath, llc an hour of free legal/consulting services.  And in the near future, when local advertising is integrated into location-based platforms based upon where users are, they’ll also have a coupon from me on their screen. 

After that, what comes next is anyone’s guess, but for now, lawyers, it’s not only hip, but smart, to be square.

In the very near future, I can be reached at http://iammcg.com/, and mcg@iammcg.com.  For now, you can get me at lmcgrath79@gmail.com, http://twitter.com/tweetmcg, and http://www.linkedin.com/in/iammcg. 

Sometimes I think I know other kats better than myself, as a couple of recent events in my life have reminded me.  Every once in a while, I've found it useful to hit up a neutral third-party in situations like this to grab some perspective.  Here's what Myers Briggs said about me. Some I agree with, some scares me.  But check it - or yours - if you've got nothing going.  Dominant Extraverted Intuition:

Words, ideas and possibilities spew effortlessly from them. Words are their best friends. They dance around ideas, the more, the merrier. Imaginative, spontaneous, original and enthusiastic, they have a knack for seeing other possibilities, other dreams and options. The world is never as it is but as it could be, as if it were but an artists sketch begging for colour. They initiate change and often are prone to trespassing a few known boundaries to take themselves and others where no one has been before. The status quo tends to lack inspiration.

When inspired, they are fearless and tireless. Their energy will know no limits unless red tape takes over. Routine drags them down. Their faith in possibilities and belief in the benefit of change often inspire others to follow. They are challenging, ingenious and innovative. They will give their best to what appears to be an impossible challenge, a place unknown to man or beast.

They use metaphors, stories, images and analogies to make their point.They love theories and often shape their own. They see patterns emerging. Keen improvisers, they are rarely caught off guard, there is always something up their sleeve. The sky is the only limit.

They are sometimes entertainers, artists or otherwise engaged in public demonstrations that allow their ideas to bloom. Their greatest difficulty is not in initiating projects but in choosing among so many possibilities, setting realistic boundaries, establishing priorities and correctly assessing resources.

In deciding whether to renew memberships in various professional networking associations in the ’10, I wondered if my presence on social media had largely replaced the need for paid memberships in these associations.  The research I did on the topic was quick because there wasn’t much.  One association’s piece on it was so light on the problems presented by social media and so heavy on the reassurance of the association’s benefits to members, it wasn’t even worth linking.

Looking at it independently, however, a solid professional networking association typically offers networking opportunities; professional development courses; directory listing; business advocacy; and relocation information.  Social media offers more, for next to nothing.

On Twitter, for example, there’s no annual fee, your network is easily accessible, and it’s potentially in the millions, not hundreds.  Relationships that take 3-4 months to build in a professional association can be developed in 3-4 hours on Twitter.  Twitter directories are myriad, free, and if you don’t like what you see, create your own list. 

Educational webinars linked on Twitter also kill associations’ educational programs in terms of both substance and free.  The Boise Chamber of Commerce, for example, is offering a basic workshop this month entitled, “I’m on Facebook – Now What?: The Next Step in Social Media,” for 45 bucks.  Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang of The Altimeter Group, on the other hand, are hosting a webinar on the same day on “Understanding Your Customers’ Social Behavior,” discussing how corporations can understand and apply socialgraphics in their social media strategies.  For free.

This isn’t a rant against professional networking associations by any stretch.  The latter have played a large role in my life in terms of both professional development, and more than simply contacts, friends.  This is just something I think about at three in the morning. 

And because these associations, I’m sure, aren’t going to publicly release budgets, membership numbers, or sponsorship levels at any time soon, only real-time will tell.

SOCIAL MEDIA, THE BIGGEST COCKTAIL PARTY ON THE PLANET.

People say Twitter is like one big cocktail party.  And they’re right.  Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”), a micro-blogging site – and other social networking platforms such as Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) and LinkedIn, Inc. (“LinkedIn”) – are the new form of communication.  

And by that, I mean that of the more than 1.6 billion people that use the internet everyday, 44.5 million use Twitter worldwide.  The number of unique visitors to Twitter increased by 959% in August 2009 alone. 

Facebook, a social networking website founded in 2004, had 350 million users as of December 2009, up from 150 million in January 2009, and roughly 45 million Facebook status updates are posted everyday, give or take.  If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.

LinkedIn, a professional networking site launched in 2003, had fifty million unique users as of October 2009, and about one new user per second.  When LinkedIn launched in 2003, it took 477 days – almost a year and four months – to reach its first million members.  The last million took only 12 days.

In terms of popularity, social media beats out e-mail.  The blogosphere is doubling between once and twice a year, and there are over one million blog posts daily.  Ad spending on social media and blogging sites grew 119% in August 2009 alone, and 94% of business continue to invest in social media.

Why the rate of usage? Why the monetary investment?

Ask Dell, Inc. (“Dell”).  Dell started tweeting Twitter-exclusive discounts from the Twitter-handle @DellOutlet in June 2007.  A year later, it had over half of a million followers and had pushed sales to around $3 million by June 2009.  After two and a half years, the company claimed $7 million in total Twitter-based sales.  Why it worked, Dell has succeeded in using Twitter to transform its large corporation into a “mom and pop shop” for millions.

Ask PepsiCo, Inc. (“Pepsi”), who is hoping for the same story when it announced in December 2009 that it’s walking with its $20 million television ad budget for the Super Bowl to invest it in social media instead.  The campaign has been dubbed The Pepsi Refresh Project.

Or ask Pepsi how it recently used social media for crisis prevention.  In Fall 2009, Pepsi released its iPhone application for its AMP energy drink called “Before You Score,” which broke women down into 24 types, suggested “lines” to ensure men had a successful night with them, and then encouraged men to share their exploits on Twitter and Facebook.  Tweets blasting the application as sexist and derogatory quickly went viral on Twitter.  Since Pepsi was monitoring the Twitter stream for chat about its brand, however, it was able to quickly pull the application, apologize, and avert a full-scale public relations nightmare.

If asked, these companies would brush aside suggestions of social media as fad, and say they’ve adopted social media as a business approach.  They’d say they’re opting for a medium where they don’t simply talk to the consumer, but the consumer talks back.  In real-time.  They’re investing in a conversation with us, because what we say on social media sites is the new advertising, as we are the new media.    

LAWYERS WELCOME.

The legal profession, unsurprisingly, lags behind.  In the 2009 Continuing Legal Education (“CLE”) seminars I gave on Social Media and the Law, roughly 80% of attorneys didn’t have laptops with them at the conference.  Even more didn’t know what social media is.  I was even asked to define “real-time,” which Model Rule of Professional Conduct 7.3 currently covers.

The hard numbers, of the American Law 100 Law Firms, only 29 are tweeting.  Worse, just nine of the 29 firms post to Twitter on a regular basis and timely basis, meaning they post news within 24 hours. Translation, social media is becoming a missed opportunity for lawyers. 

And it is an opportunity.  Of the 38 American Law 100 law firms that have embraced two or more forms of social/new media averaged a 6.46% increase in revenue, with the 17 firms using three forms averaging a 5.93% increase, and the 7 firms using four or more, averaging a 6.5% increase. 

Moreover, the best in business use social media.  The fastest growing Fortune 500 companies adopt social media marketing initiatives at much higher rates than other companies.  Of these, 68% monitor mentions of their company name or brand on social media sites, 34% reported that they were social media to communicate with vendors and suppliers, and 26% cited Twitter as an important vehicle for communicating with outside partners. 

Perhaps most important, roughly 93% of Americans believe you should have a presence on social media sites.  

THE AFTERPARTY.

Coming up with a strategic plan that maximizes the benefits of social media (monitoring the competition, brand/reputation management, crisis prevention, customer service, and marketing) while minimizing risks (implementing best practices, enforcing a social media policy), is so last decade.  

What’s now?  Location-based marketing through services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, and the applications they ride on in mobile phones across the globe.  

What next? Lawyers finding a way to use these location-based technologies to market their firm, manage their brand, and offer superlative client service.  How do you do this?  I leave this, and whatever else show up at the party next, to you.