15,740 Social Media Experts On Twitter — What’s A Lawyer To Do?
Blogger B.L. Ochman has been using Tweepsearch to follow the proliferation of social media gurus on Twitter. She found 4,487 of them in May 2009. Seven months later, she found almost 16,000, leading her to write Self-Proclaimed Social Media Gurus On Twitter Multiplying Like Rabbits.
Other bloggers are having fun with her numbers, including one that projected Twitter To Be Nearly Entirely Composed Of Social Media Experts By 2013.
This video also does an amusing job of portraying social media gurus as snakeoil salesmen.
Lawyers would be fools to ignore social media for growing their digital footprint and ultimately their practices, so what is a smart lawyer who needs a little guidance to do? Turning to free sources without a sales agenda like Plugged In Lawyer is an excellent start. 😉 If you need more than do-it-yourself resources, Ochman recommends looking for the following characteristics in a social media consultant:
- Somebody who brings solid social media experience to the table
- Somebody who sells solutions, not formulas
- Somebody who doesn’t promise that social media will provide a quick fix for your bottom line
Still stymied? Email me at pluggedinlawyer @ gmail.com. I am an avid follower of the social media space (with a special eye toward how it impacts lawyers) and I can make suggestions regarding paid consultants.
Plugged In Lawyer 
Nice article and so true!
I think the first tip-off is when a “guru” (hate that term actually) pushes their services on Twitter. If they don’t realize that its not about selling your services but about creating relationships, then it is obvious they don’t know the first thing about using social media for marketing.
I think it can be fairly easy to find the right person for the job by evaluating: 1) the quality of the content they share and 2) their online presence and relationships.
Thanks, Kathleen, for your kind words about the post! I hopped over to your site and see that we share a common interest in Active Rain. Does that platform rock, or what?? I’d sure like to see the legal community try something similar.
So happy to see this enlightened approach. So many lawyers are so stuck in the past.
and thanks for the shout out on my post!
BL
I loved your post, BL, and I loved the fun that other bloggers had with your numbers. I couldn’t resist chiming in. Thanks for starting the fun!