I've been reading Twitter Power by Joel Comm lately. In fact, thats incorrect. I'm a 2.0 reader, so I've been listening to the audiobook.
Image is Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm, Gildan Media Corp, presented by Audible.co.uk
Joel Comm gets to the nubb of social media in the first chapter of his book where he describes traditional media publishers as the few who broadcast their news to the many, as against the new social media phenomenon where the many have the power to communicate the news, views and experiences to each other, resulting in the creation of communities with a common interest.
To me, the community is the most important aspect of social media. And because there are little, if any, barriers to entry into the social media world, its much simpler to become part of your chosen community and influence that community than it is to become part of a community in the offline world, such as, say, falling in with the cool kids at high school, the mums at the school gate or the clique of personnel who might have your CEO's attention. Social media is a great leveller.
But for a community to operate it needs to communicate. Communicating means listening as well as speaking, it means building relationships. You'll read a lot about social media being all about communication and relationship building, but once you truly understand that it actually is, it is an epiphany moment.
And so I was surprised today to come across a tweeting lawyer who followed zero people. Why would you join a social media community and not be part of the conversation? Even if it your goal is to promote yourself as a lawyer or a firm, how can you achieve that goal effectively without monitoring the conversation around you and understanding the impact which your broadcasting/marketing is having?
As an in-house lawyer, through social media you have the ability to become part of a number of communities which feed into your world: the community of the industry which your employing company operates in, or those of your company's suppliers or clients, the legal community, your specialism within the legal community, other in-house lawyers, legal service providers. Communities are being built, and the members of these communities are being generous with their information and advice. In-house lawyers can benefit from this: pop a question into your Twitter status such as "Does anyone know whether there are unfair dismissal rights in Germany?", and you'll receive several tweets in reply from practising employment lawyers pointing you in the right direction. The more you give back to the community, the more you'll receive from it too. There's a lot of good karma in circulation on social media sites.
Hi Melanie.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I agree; being active in one's community can yield tremendous benefits. It's not enough to just sit on the sidelines -- one needs to contribute and "give back" in order to receive the benefits of being part of community.
But what's the best way for an attorney to contribute in the social media world?
We've written a blog post on this subject that has garnered some attention: "A contrarian view of social media for lawyers: You don’t need to be social." http://bit.ly/bo5v8C
Our thinking in brief: Being social is simply not the most important factor in developing business with social media. Sharing great content is.
Worthwhile content is the ticket to community.
Hi Robert - thank you for reading and taking the time to comment, and I've taken a look at your contrarian post too!
ReplyDeleteSharing worthwhile content is an absolute necessity, I agree. And I think that lawyers naturally have good content: this is clearly advantagous to them when it comes to dipping their toe into social media.
So,content will get you onto the social media ladder. But, my belief is, if you want to leverage your position, or your content, you have to get social. Otherwise, its just media.
However, I'd also say that there's no point communicating with other members of your social media community if the content which you're communicating is of little value.
Hi Melanie.
ReplyDeleteWell said. And I couldn't agree more;
"…there's no point communicating with other members of your social media community if the content which you're communicating is of little value."
Lawyers are well positioned to be social media superstars. But, IMHO, the biggest barrier between having social media success and not is an attorney's willingness to readily share their knowledge (through thoughtful, well written content) with the community. Doing so will result in relationships being developed -- and isn't that what every attorney wants; strong relationships?
Thanks for writing such great content! :)