I had an idea the other day for a service twitter should offer to corporate/registered accounts.
One thing people have noticed is that twitter seems to have very high search engine ranking; so that if I were to Google my name, one of the top links is my twitter page. That has raised some concerns in the past about how a lawyer can be viewed by potential clients who look the lawyer up online.
My idea is to allow firms to leverage this strong search engine ranking of twitter. A firm can have its own twitter ID, but, as any social media guru will tell you, it’s better to have an individual face people can relate to. So a firm will appoint an individual to be the face of the firm on twitter (and whatever other social network it deems necessary). That’s pretty darn straightforward.

The twist came when I started thinking about personal brands in the context of the firm’s larger brand. What if a firm hires someone with a strong and respected personal brand, such as a lateral hire or — I’ll be completely honestly self-centered — a recent law school graduate who built relationships with other legal professionals using social media.
What if twitter would allow a registered account to link or associate an existing individual account to the firm’s account, thereby allowing a search of the firm’s name to also turn up the individual’s twitter account?
The registered account holder would start the process off requesting an account to be associated with it. Then twitter would have to act as the gatekeeper, requiring proof from the requester that there is a valid rationale to associate the individual account with the registered account. Something like proof of employment should do. Then the registered account holder can determine when it it time to disassociate the individual from the registered account.
Revolutionary? No. but I think it could be very useful.

Dear World,

Social Media.
Social.
Media.
Why do these two words confuse the hell out of so many people? I don’t just mean confuse in the whimsical way your parents might be confused about how to open a file in an email. I mean confused — to the point where people end up doing things completely bass-ackwards and screwing themselves over.

Yesterday, Scott Greenfield and Brian Tannebaum posted excellent, somewhat related and extraordinarily relevant statements regarding the need for lawyers to subscribe to and follow an ethical guideline. The overlap between them lies in a lawyer’s online presence, and since I am so obviously steeped in online reality that I instantly associated those verbs as online colloquialisms (“subscribe” to a feed and “follow” on twitter) I will focus mainly on the online aspect of the issue.

Which brings me back to Social Media. How complicated can it be? Why are there Social Media Gurus for hire, who obviously are certified via Social Media Certificate programs? How on Earth can something that is based on the most natural activity in the world — talking to someone — become so overwhelming that people feel the need to pay for people to do it for them? Networking existed for centuries, long before Social Media came around. Is it the “Media” that’s throwing people off? Do people feel like they need to follow someone else’s instructions or outsource their online presence because they don’t feel comfortable dealing with media?
Because it’s not media. It’s online networking. It’s like walking into a room full of people, except it’s online. There is nothing mystical or confusing or difficult about this concept.
People didn’t have a problem understanding chat rooms; but as soon as it has a Title people drop everything they might have known about social interaction online.

My personal opinion is that Social Media is a straw man. Yes, it is missing a brain; but more importantly, it diverts the attention from the real issue — the issue that Brian Tannebaum focused on in his post.

All too many people, not just lawyers, don’t worry about the ethical considerations of their actions. Social media is just new enough that it’s an environment where these people can slip into what they feel more comfortable doing — trying to game the system.

The sleaziness online won’t last, but it sure is annoying in the meantime.

I know what you’re thinking, “Blogging, twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, indenti.ca, whatever other newfangled applications with mangled English for names are all the rage now.…”

The truth is, I spent about an hour yesterday evening walking around my school’s “Career Exploration Fair”. Employees from large law firms, public interest groups and government agencies set up tables handing out info and tschotchkes to curious law students.

It was not a recruitment opportunity. As a result, I received some solid answers to the types of frank questions I probably would not have asked. It was also an educational experience in immediate networking; unfortunately much less enjoyable (personally) than the online variety and something I expect I’ll be doing a lot more of.