Jaffe Checks Out New Twitter Tools for Lawyers
The June issue of the ABA's journal, Law Practice Management, contained a useful article, "Are You Considering Twittering? Ways to Cut Through the Noise," by Nicole Black, a Rochester, NY lawyer and legal tech pro.
In the article, Black listed a number of new tools that have been designed specifically for lawyers on Twitter. A few of Jaffe's Tweeps (that’s people on Twitter for those new to the service) dug in to investigate how the tools work and whether they're worth checking out and using.
Here are their findings:
Justia’s LegalBirds (www.legalbirds.com): Black describes Justia’s Legal Birds as a “relatively new online directory of legal professionals who are on Twitter that aggregates the Twitter streams of those in the directory.”
Jaffe liked the usefulness of Legalbirds’ searchable database by practice area, location and keyword. It’s a great search tool that helps you find people to follow on Twitter. The tool also helps you get a quick snapshot of what everyone is contributing to the conversation because a list of Twitter posts appears under each profile photo.
We didn’t like the fact that there was no "about me" section. Featured legal professionals, for example, are categorized by statistics. That makes it hard to distinguish between who is worth following and who just wants to be followed. As a test, we looked for folks discussing patent issues and found 15, half of whom had interesting information to share; the rest of the posts were about what they had for dinner.
THE FINAL VERDICT? LegalBirds is best used to find someone in a particular practice area talking about a topic of mutual interest. In addition, because it posts recent Twitter feeds, the content is useful for providing a quick snapshot.
JD Supra JD Scoop Blog (http://scoop.jdsupra.com) In September, 2008, the JD Scoop blog ran a post listing “145 Lawyers (and Legal Professionals) to follow on Twitter.” In May, 2009, the list was amended. Now it contains over 700 lawyers.
We like that the list can be used as a means to find and build a group of legal industry Twitterers to follow. Here are 700 instant-colleagues. The post has garnered numerous comments; many are requests to be added to the list, which suggests that lawyers and legal professionals find being on the list to be valuable.
We wished this list “worked” harder for us. Because this is a blog post, there’s no way to search through the list to find followers strategically, say, those in your practice area or geographic region.
Still, Jaffe Twitterers say that getting onto the list is worthwhile, as is checking it to see who has been recently added. If you are a legal professional on Twitter, it behooves you to ask to be included on this list.
THE FINAL VERDICT? Jaffe recommends using this list as a starting point to building a list of credible and engaging legal industry Twitterers to follow. For those who have been Twittering for a while, it’s worth checking this list regularly to find new followers, since it gets updated frequently.
LexTweet, part of LexBlog, (http://www.lextweet.com/) is another relatively new directory of legal Twitterers that aggregates Twitter streams.
We like LexTweet for identifying attorneys, legal marketers and other industry tweeters who appear to be influential, at least on Twitter. There is a good collection of professionals working in the legal sector here.
That said, a high ranking on LexTweet doesn’t mean that the professional is worth following. Rankings are earned based on the number of followers an individual has, not on the value of their posts. Keep in mind that the number of followers someone has is not necessarily an indication of influence. Followers numbers can be inflated, include auto-follow bots, and are not always an accurate reflection of the value of the content being contributed.
THE FINAL VERDICT? LexTweet has a good collection of legal industry professionals on Twitter, but because the rankings are based purely on follower numbers, it requires some digging to figure out who is worthwhile following. Still, it’s always interesting to know who are the most popular legal tweeters, at least by follower numbers.
TweetLaw.com is a Twitter feed aggregator, directory and social network tool for legal professionals on Twitter.
Jaffe likes Tweetlaw’s plain and simple interface and search directory. Tweetlaw is best used to identify Twitter users from a particular area of law or with a specific professional interest. There is a very good distribution of categories across a wide variety of practices and issues. Another useful Tweetlaw feature is that it allows all users who register to fill out ample profiles, which is a great way to stake another digital marker on the web and fill in the blanks between tweets.
Unlike Lextweet, Tweetlaw does not rank its users, but it does highlight new members and includes featured users. And, because folks opt-in to the network – to post their profile and join the Tweetlaw community - it’s a self-selected bunch.
THE FINAL VERDICT? If you want to find interesting people to connect with on Twitter, Tweetlaw saves time by eliminating the need to do searches on Twitter by keywords. If you use Tweetlaw for research, though, only member tweets show up, so you may be missing information because the universe is limited to those on Tweetlaw.
Finally, here’s the lowdown on Nicole Black’s blog, Legal Tweets Blog www.legaltweets.com mentioned in her story. Legal Tweets is a blog that tracks trending topics amongst Tweeps specific to the legal community. (For those who are interested, Nicole tweets @ nikiblack).
We think that the blog is best used to scan legal content on Twitter. It shows specific legal threads that occur on Twitter, which Black has broken into categories, to make following easier. For example, recent posts have been entitled, “Lawyers Love Affair With Their iPhones”; “How Lawyers Get Information Online”; and “Social Media For Lawyers.” You can also use this blog to see the Twitter play-by-play from legal industry events, most recently for LegalTech West Coast.
But Legal Tweets Blog is not all work and no play. Recently, Black posted all of her children’s tweets and a link to a food blog. Like Twitter, it personalizes her, but you may not necessarily be interested in that side of her life. Just skip it.
Keep in mind that as useful as the blog is, it should not be considered a replacement for actually using Twitter or as forum to correspond with others about Legal issues. It’s only a portal to view ongoing legal discussions. Gaining real value from Twitter requires actual participation and communication. Like Twitter itself, some of the banter included here requires filtering.
THE FINAL VERDICT? As a tool to become familiar with other people using Twitter in the legal community, it’s terrific. It’s useful as a way to monitor legal trends ongoing on Twitter, and as a means to keep track of the people who are instigating the dialogue. The latter is especially important for publicists.
And finally, we know that Twitter success isn’t instantaneous. It takes time, thought and a well-crafted strategy to get Twitter to work for you, to build followers, establish thought leadership, create connections that matter to you and your practice.
Jaffe wants to hear about your experiences with Twitter and how you’re using these tools. Share your thoughts with us on Twitter, using the hashtag #jaffetwitter in your post. We’ll listen in to what you have to say, answer any questions you may have, and join your conversation.
In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter.