Social media has become “the next big thing” for those of us involved in Internet legal marketing. Because most attorneys are late adapters, there aren’t a lot of law firms getting clients from social media. When law firms do use social networks, it’s deemed worthy of a Wall Street Journal article. But I believe I can show you how attorneys can successfully use social media in a mass tort legal marketing campaign.
I’ve used the Internet for legal marketing in mass tort cases for over 10 years, and I’ve used online video as part of my legal marketing for 2 years. But I didn’t add Twitter and Facebook to my toolbox until the last year. It’s one thing to read books about social media marketing; it’s another to actually do it. Most of the really valuable experience I’ve gotten with social media has come in the last 7 weeks as I’ve blogged, Tweeted and used Facebook to interact with people about the Gulf oil spill.
To read this entire article, go to our Social Media Marketing for Mass Tort Attorneys page.
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The FTC finally got around to issuing guidelines for bloggers and “guerrilla marketers” who hype products in exchange for products or money. If you have the time and interest, or if you need something to read before going to sleep, check out the 81-page- long Text of the Federal Register Notice.
Adweek notes: “The FTC chose not to make a distinction between professional bloggers and amateurs. It also does not differentiate between paying cash and providing product samples. Violators face fines of up to $11,000 per infraction.”
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Online Media Daily reports that Texas lawmakers passed a bill intended to crack down on cyber-bullying. The new “online harassment” statute makes it a felony to create phony profiles on social networking sites with the intent to “harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten” others. The bill now awaits the governor’s signature. The Texas statute, if signed by the governor, will surely be challenged on First Amendment grounds. [click to continue…]
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An interesting article in Online Media Daily discusses a report released Wednesday by The Nielsen Co. Charles Buchwalter, SVP of research and analytics at Nielsen Online, said “In recent years, the Internet has changed dramatically as people seek more personalized relationships online. In particular, time spent on social networks and video sites has increased astronomically.”
More from the article: ” Internet users today tend to prefer sites that contain more specialized content, according to Nielsen. This change in preferences is seen in the fact that video and social networking sites have moved to the forefront, becoming the two fastest-growing categories in 2009.
The number of U.S. consumers who frequent online video destinations has climbed 339% since 2003, while time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000% over the same period. In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10%, while the number of streams grew 41%, the streams per user grew 27%, and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71%.”
With these numbers, it’s not surprising that we are seeing some lawyers turning to online video as part of their marketing efforts.
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Bloggers who take compensation for recommending a product may be held liable for any false statements they make about the product, if the Federal Trade Commission follows through with its proposed plan to start regulating viral marketing and blogs, according to Ad Age. The article says the regulations would also apply to content people post on social-network sites such as Facebook.
One of the things I found most surprising in the article is the amount of money spent on this type of marketing. The article says product marketers, including Microsoft, Ford and Pepsi, spend billions on word-of-mouth and social media. PQ Media projects that marketers will spend $3.7 billion on word-of-mouth marketing in 2011.
The FTC will vote on the proposed regulations this summer, after a period for public comments. So, the FTC wants guerilla marketing to be factual? I don’t have any problem with that.
Should lawyers Twitter? For those who haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on in the “social media,” Twitter is what some call a micro-blog service that lets you post 140-character messages any time you feel like it. The Wall Street Journal’s technology blog Digits reported that Google’s Eric Schmidt referred to Twitter Tuesday as “a poor man’s email system.”
I’ve never thought anybody cared to know what I do all through the day, so I’ve never bothered to Twitter. Nevertheless, some marketing experts are now pushing everyone to Twitter, including lawyers. [click to continue…]
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What can we do together? Since 1999 I've been using the Internet, websites, blogs, online video, Twitter and other social media to help thousands of injured people find great lawyers. We've organized national networks of lawyers in over forty states to take on Pfizer, Bayer, Yamaha and other multinational corporations. We've put consumers on a level playing field, and had fun doing it. If you're a great lawyer looking for more clients, contact me and let's see what we can do together.
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