At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

Once upon a time I signed up for LinkedIn and Twitter. And then I let the profiles sit and wait...I said that it was because Social Media was just a fad and I told myself that it probably didn't matter that much anyway. Mostly I was just afraid of messing up, a little shy and confused by the jargon. One of the things that has helped me out of the shell is applying practical applications to each of the Social Media Tools. Practical Applications lead to Measurable Results (i.e. the quantity of connections or the quality of a new connection). These little wins each day encourage me to stretch my neck outside my comfort zone each day...Measurable Results lead to further experimentation and bigger wins. Before you know it...you are Social Media. You are no longer a lurker. Here are some Practical Applications for LinkedIn:

• After each business meeting I send a follow-up note to connect on LinkedIn: something to follow-up with and a new way to connect.  
• LinkedIn provides constant updates about my connections. If a prospect gets a promotion, for example, I act on it by sending a handwritten (to stand out but email will work) note of congratulations. Social Media offers a ton of passive avenues to gather information about my network.
• Connect your Personal Life to your Business Life. LinkedIn is the easiest way to marry your personal and work life in order to create new business opportunities. For example, you should connect with the coach of your son's baseball team or the members who sit on an association board with you. This allows you to share with your personal connection "what you do for a living" without pitching them for services. It's seamless. 
• In the same way that LinkedIn allows you to learn more about the activity of the contacts in your network, it allows you to share information about your world. Speaking at a conference? Publish an article? Share it! People will connect with you because they want to know more about you. You no longer have to wonder whether or not it's worth sharing or if you are bothering clients with an email or phone call

Law Firm Marketing Ideas for the taking...

AKA me on a Friday afternoon with too much caffeine.

Take a cue from this Maestro Home Center ad and do some guerilla style client interviews. Ask the clients waiting patiently in your lobby...or those just leaving a partner's office their thoughts on the firm's service.

Find a creative way to Sponsor a Tweet (ie announcing a great win for a client or thanking clients for their business)...or simply make sure your firm has a Twitter profile. You'll be ahead of the law firm pack.

Make up a cool T-Shirt representing an interesting aspect of your firm and give them to attorneys, clients and staff. People love T-shirt.

Jacqueline Le named General Counsel of Stonnington Group

Stonnington Group, a premier financial services firm based in Los Angeles, recently named Jacqueline Le as general counsel.

Earl Lariscy joins DoubleLine Capital

Earl Lariscy joins DoubleLine Capital as Legal Counsel, headquartered in Los Angeles

Somaxon Pharmaceuticals announces leadership promotions

Matthew Onaitis was promoted to Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Piping Hot Buckets of Greasy Fried Marketing

It wasn’t the usual collection of PETA Protesters and their stomach-turning illustrations of animal abuse that caught my eye while passing the neighborhood KFC this morning. The Colonel’s marketing elves must have visited overnight and trimmed the window-front in a bright display of pink buckets…apparently KFC and Susan G. Komen have teamed up to raise money and awareness to the fight against breast cancer.

I am all for brands joining for mutual benefit. I am all for supporting the fight against breast cancer. But doesn’t this partnership seem a little out of balance? I don’t know of any studies that show a line between eating fried chicken and getting breast cancer…but I do know that being healthy and eating a consistent diet of fast-food (especially fried food) don’t go hand in hand. Will the number of pink buckets (0.50 cents a pop) they sell offset the number of clogged arteries? Do you think the people from the American Heart Association are happy with this partnership?

My point, and the connection to law firm marketing, is that as marketers we have a responsibility to remain true to our company’s cause. In this case, KFC is remaining true to their job of selling buckets of fried chicken---someone who might have visited Burger King could be swayed to grab a pink bucket instead. But it seems that the marketers at Susan G. Komen are failing their community by raising money for one part of the body at the expense of another.

Law firms (and marketers) make similar mistakes when marketing things like diversity, women’s initiatives and alternative billing…I mean if it were as great as the ads make it out to be, there wouldn’t be a problem (see the March issue of The American Lawyer for a snapshot of Diversity at big firms).

Happiness is Business Development

Something is in the air....call it change, discipline, follow up or commitment.

Check out: This new book Switch: How to Change things When Change is Hard  For real-time applications, read today's blog post from Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. Think about ways you can apply these deceptively simple tactics to your marketing and business development strategy.

As a sales professional, I can promise you that the best thing you can do to motivate yourself to make sales is to sell something. See item number 6.

ABA Journal Panel- Alternative Billing: Who’s Actually Doing It?

If you haven't spent much time researching alternative billing...this is s great overview. Includes the perspective of both in-house counsel and private practice attorneys with case study discussion.

If you have spent a lot of time in the alternative billing space it's still worth a listen.

In-house Counsel from Cisco, General Electic
Law Firm represented by Foley & Lardner, Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan, Horvitz & Levy, Shook Hardy & Bacon

What Would Law Firms Do

What would you do if you had to bring in 10 new clients in the next 6 months or else...[enter your own awful scenario here or choose a Hollywood Favorite- the rabbit gets it - the world ends - the Grinch wins]

Woud Law Firms start selling instead of hiding sales behind marketing and business development?
Woud Attorneys pick up the phone to call clients? or would they still be too busy.
Would Sernior Partners go on client interviews?
Would law firms stop reading reports, wondering about and dancing around the edges of social media or would they jump in and try it?