1,000 Attendees at LMA
It's hard to believe but this is the 25th LMA national conference. 1,000 people registered to attend here in the deliciously warm and humid fantasy land of Orlando. The first LMA meeting started when the Internet Mail Access Protocol opened the way for E-Mail, and today's began with a Tweet-up social media meeting.
Social media is the dominant theme of the conference. I am currently sitting on the floor at the back of the room for a program on the topic. There are 200 people here, every seat is taken and people are sitting in the aisles.
Josh Fruchter, a lawyer who is head of E-Law Marketing in New York, is moderating. His firm builds blogs which statistics show are the #1 most effective social medium. He recommended using Twitter Feed which takes a blog post and syndicates it to Twitter and Facebook. Further, he advised lawyers to upload articles, pleadings and newsletters to JD Supra, which will re-distribute it to Linked In, Twitter and Face book.
Russell Thomas, National Director of Digital Media & Public Relations of Womble Carlyle, has gone so far as to hire Adrian Dayton, a social media consultant, who coaches their lawyers on how to use Linked In and other social media. The firm also has a staff videographer to create marketing videos for their own channel You Tube. The firm is aggressive in posting videos online and has even gotten its lawyers to record funny skits.
All of the business development and sales people at Womble are skilled in social media. The firm trained the sales people in social media to make sure their time is not wasted.
Andrea Stimmel, Business Development/Marketing Director at Curtis, Mallet-Provost, Colt & Mosle, said that when her firm is involved in an RFP competition, her firm starts feeding information into social media about the relevant industry or type of business, so that the potential client will see the form's name pop up on line.
The marketing staff working with Melanie Green, Director of Business Development & Marketing, Baker & Daniels, is conversant with social media so that they can go into a lawyer's office and instantly show them how to get the biggest payoff. Social media have been integrated into the firm's overall marketing.
When lawyers send out social media messages, Melanie advises lawyers to ask a question, asking them what they think of the post. This has increased interaction between the lawyers and readers.
