May Social Media Breakfast Raleigh

The fourth Social Media Breakfast Raleigh was held at Auction Direct (@AuctionDirect) on Thursday, May 28^th. These events are hosted monthly by Kipp Bodnar (@KBodnar32) and held in different sponsor locations each month. If you’re interested in sponsoring and having your company highlighted, you can contact him via Twitter or the SMBRaleigh website.

If you’re not a morning person, this might be a difficult event for you to attend but it is definitely worth the loss of an hour of sleep! Around 40 people attended the breakfast and discussion. At this particular breakfast, Eric Miltsch of Auction Direct welcomed attendees and introduced the social media man who needs no introduction, @WayneSutton. Wayne spoke to attendees about etiquette for use of social media.

Main recommendations on the different social media platforms?

LinkedIn-

• Don’t randomly add people you’ve never met unless you email them first with a note detailing why you’d like to LinkIn to them.
• Attend to this profile just like you would your business card- keep it and your connections updated.

Facebook-

• Use the privacy features.
• Ask people before you post photos of their children to your Facebook albums.
• If you tweet a lot, don’t hook up your Twitter feed to your Facebook status. It inundates your “friends” with Tweets. (I’m guilty of this one! Whoops!)

Twitter-

• If you request a “re-tweet” (RT) from your followers, keep the message to less than 120 characters so that we can put your username in the RT. (highly recommend idek.net for URL shortener—also gives great metrics! @covati is the local developer of this site)
• Don’t auto direct message (DM) your followers! They really appreciate a personal message if you’re going to send something direct. Plus, this technique really helps to build a genuine relationship with followers.
• Hooking up your Twitter account to an RSS feed is bad manners. Followers don’t appreciate being spammed. Insert a teaser with each article you post and you’ll get a much better response.
• Don’t tweet 219 times a day. This desensitizes followers to your message and will easily get you un-followed.

These are just a few of the three dozen social media etiquette suggestions we covered. For more info, visit the Social Media Breakfast Raleigh website and be sure to attend the next event at the end of June! There is also a Social Media Club RDU meeting coming up on June 4th at Edge Office.

You can read all of the comments from today's event by searching the hashtag #SMBRaleigh or clicking here.

Special thanks to @DamondNollan for the photos!

Twitter for the Law Firm

As an avid Twitter user, I was a bit disappointed by the stats in this recent article regarding Twitter's use in law firms, written by Legal Marketing Consultant, Larry Bodine.  He says that Twitter is not effective for "closing the deal" in law firms.  I agree with him on that front but Twitter can also be very effective for building relationships which might help to close the deal or benefit a legal marketer.  After all, isn't building relationships the whole point of Twitter?  I've found and hired freelancers via my followers on Twitter, made new press contacts, met real-life friends, and even received a bit of news coverage from photos posted in my Twitter feed (not the bad kind of coverage, mind you).

Using Twitter can be a bit time consuming.  In fact, I'd say that it is probably the most time consuming social networking tool on the market right now.   Those that don't see the value in this tool are the ones who expect to sign up for an account, post one "tweet" a week and see return on their investment.  It just doesn't happen that way, folks.  You have to interact with followers, pay it forward and share valuable information if you expect to see the benefits of this tool.  If you put a penny in your bank account and let it mature for 25 years, you might have $1.00 in the end, but if you invest $100.00, you're sure to see higher returns.

Take a look at Larry's article, here.  I encourage you to hold off on making a decision on Twitter until you've tried it out for yourself.

Event: Marketing Me

Expanding Our Influence and Increasing Effectiveness as Law Firm Marketing Professionals

Join us for a lunch and learn!

What:
Gaining influence - within our firms, with colleagues and clients, and in our professional community - is a significant aspect of career growth and satisfaction for law firm marketing professionals. In this interactive program, participants will develop strategies they can implement immediately to gain that influence and improve career fit, on-the-job effectiveness and overall satisfaction with work, even in a down economy.

Mary Kaczmarek is a former practicing attorney and has been a law firm marketing professional for the past 15 years. In 2008, she was recognized by lawdragon media.com as being among the top 100 legal consultants in the United States. Mary is the principal of Skillful Means Marketing, LLC, a national coaching, consulting and training company for lawyers and their firms.

When:
Thursday, August 20, 2009
noon-1:30 p.m.

Where:
Manning Fulton
3605 Glenwood Avenue, Suite 500
Raleigh

Sponsors:
NC Lawyers Weekly Percivall Advertising and Huseby Inc.

Cost:
$20.00 for Members
$40.00 for Non-members

RSVP:
For questions or to RSVP, contact Lori Corlis, call or 919.787.8880 no later than August 13th. Space is limited to 40 attendees.