So here is a quick example of how an attorney that is active on Twitter was able to find a potential client pretty easily.

Jennifer Cohen, who does some social media marketing for some of our clients from time to time, was recently loading groceries into her car near where she lives on a busy street.

Somebody came by and his her car door while it was open. The insurance company ruled it to be her fault (let’s not turn this into a debate please ), and she had to pay the deductible to get her car fixed.

She was upset and started looking more into it. Here is one message that she tweeted:

This resulted in a direct message from a local attorney who is obviously familiar with Twitter:

I’ll share that attorney’s profile after I publish this post and contact him/her to see if it’s okay.

Anyways, how did this attorney know that Jennifer tweeted that, and how was he able to find her?

Pretty simple. This attorney might not have even had to be on Twitter, Tweetdeck, or anything else, they just had to have e-mail access.

There are Twitter alert services out there like TweetBeep (which just came back up after about a month on hiatus) and Twilert that allow you to setup email alerts based on specified keywords that are relevant to your practice. So this attorney could have had “car accident”, “insurance”, etc. set up as his or her alerts which is how he found Jennifer (who is likely going to hire them by the way, she was impressed that the attorney took the initiative and is tech-savvy enough to find her).

He/she also used the advanced settings feature on either TweetBeep or Twilert to only alert him if these keywords are tweeted by a Twitter user within a certain number of miles from the zip code where he/she practices law.

Then, it’s as easy as sending her an @ message, or going the extra mile to follow her and send her a Direct Message.

It’s obviously worth the time to sit down and create a number of these alerts. Think of anything that someone might tweet about that relates to your practice, set up how often you would like to be alerted, hit save, and wait for the leads to come “flying” in.

Okay maybe not, but even if you only get one lead a year by doing this, it took you a half an hour to set it all up, if that’s not proving Twitter’s potential ROI I don’t know what is.

Oh, and remember to PLEASE build value on your Twitter profile. The idea is to share, not continuously self-promote and only tweet when you have a new blog post.

Myth: Only kids and tech savvy people use social media.
Truth: There are a ton of attorneys, moms, students, social media professionals, companies and others blogging and using social networking. The blogger and networking space is divided into niches and networks of people that share similar interests and the plethora of existing networks is astounding. This allows for a very targeted marketing approach- if you identify your targets, you can find and reach them in the space. Some social media efforts are better than others and it boils down to content and how you market and optimize the opportunities.

Myth: You cannot build strong relationships via social media.
Truth: Relationship building is one of the most important factors in recruiting and retaining new clients. Social media allows us to show our personal and professional selves allowing others to make connections based on our real personality. The ease of constant contact helps us to connect with more than one person at a time and initiate and build individual relationships. This is how people get to know you as a person, form an opinion based on more than just professional references, and trust you, which is the most important consideration when hiring an attorney.

Myth: Social media marketing is not as effective as traditional marketing.
Truth: Using a combination of social media marketing and traditional marketing is the best solution. Traditional marketing methods will still reach targeted audiences and social media allows us to tap into other channels for passing along our message. It is the mix that is proved to be most effective.

Myth: Social media tactics are too time consuming.
Truth: Social media tactics could take hours and days, but they do not have to take that much time to be effective. The simple solution is to allot a certain amount of time each day for social media efforts. Set aside an hour or so and blog on Monday, network using LinkedIn or Facebook on Tuesday, use twitter when you have some down time, etc. Remember to go your own pace and plan what works best according to your personal preferences and goals. If you decide you do not want to take on the responsibilities yourself, hire someone in-house to or outsource your social media campaign to a marketing company.

Myth: Social media is too open-ended and rules for censorship do not exist, which can create problems.
Truth: Although there are not any written rules, the unwritten rule is simply, use your head. When using social media outlets, produce mindful, interesting content and do not write or post anything you would not want your mom to know about. As the line between our personal and professional appearance becomes blurred, keep in mind that you are always (and always have been) representing someone and you want to give the best representation that would make you proud.