Adrian Dayton is a lawyer, speaker on social media for the legal profession and author. His book Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition (Ark Group, 2012) is in its second edition. See his Web site, adriandayton.com, or contact him at info@adriandayton.com.
A lot of lawyers had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to LinkedIn.com. Now that they are there, many realize not only that is it an effective tool to connect with old colleagues and new prospects, but also that it is dead easy to use.
"I will never use Twitter, though," one such lawyer convert to LinkedIn told me a couple of weeks ago. "It just doesn't seem to serve any business purpose."
I want to ask you to give Twitter a chance, just for a moment. Set aside your preconceived notions and just take these three simple steps.
Try Twitter as a search engine
The most common reason people give for not wanting to try Twitter is that they have no interest in hearing about what some stranger had for lunch. What they mean is that they have no time for irrelevant information. But Twitter has a search feature that allows you to go straight to what you are looking for. You don't even need a Twitter account! Just go to https://twitter.com/search.
Look familiar? It's just like searching Google, except that now you can search all of the conversations about a specific topic in the entire world in this very moment.
Look for "Affordable Care Act" if you are a health-care lawyer; "payroll tax increase" if you are a corporate lawyer; "death tax" for estate lawyers. You find out what is being said and reported about these issues—and which articles are generating the most buzz.
What are your clients talking about? What is keeping them up at night? Try the Twitter search, and you may find the answer.
Take 15 minutes to create an account
Have you Googled yourself lately? If you have a LinkedIn account, it will show up as the first or second result when you Google your name. Twitter will likely show up third. If you have a decent firm website it will show up first.
The great thing about a Twitter bio is that it doesn't take hours to write, like your LinkedIn bio does; it really only takes a few minutes, because the key to Twitter's success is brevity.
All you need to create a complete Twitter account is six things: a picture to upload; a 160-character bio (about two sentences); a Twitter handle (or @johnhancock) that you want to go by; a link to your law firm bio or website; and what city you live in. With that you are done.
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