Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal editor, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, marketing consultant, legal consultant, business development

Marketer Dan Toombs and I had lunch in Summit, NJ, recently and he shot the video below, which mentions Fast Firms, a new marketing magazine that will be out in late July. I'll be writing for it and you can subscribe here.

The video also discusses new LexisNexis research that found that 3 out of 4 clients go online when they look for lawyers.  This is a social sea change, indicating that people want to find lawyers prefer the privacy of their laptops rather than to discuss their legal issues with neighbors and coworkers.

Were you a member of the famous LawMarketing Listserv when they hired a bus to take us to Tavern on the Green in New York for a party just for us?

That was awesome. It was one of many amazing events in the life of the LawMarketing Listerv. But after 17 years it has been retired and relaunched on Yahoo Groups. John C. Ford, Director of Editorial Services of Hellerman Baretz Communications covered the highlights in an interview with me:

Back in 1996 there was no place online where legal marketers could get quick answers to questions like, “Are you doing a client survey?” “How much does that new job pay?” “Do you know about a good graphic design shop?”

So two colleagues and I in Chicago started the LawMarketing Listserv when this was whiz-bang technology. At the time, I was the marketing director for Sidley in Chicago and needed to be able to send an email to dozens of marketing colleagues quickly and easily. This listserv was the answer and it quickly grew to 1,000 members worldwide by word of mouth alone.

We got so big, that The American Lawyer magazine hosted a party for Listserv members at Tavern on the Green in Central Park in New York. A bus picked us up at the hotel where the LMA conference was, and we went to our own special, fancy event. It was a magic event where people who had become fast friends on the Listserv got to meet each other in person. We had door prizes, free drinks and special black “G4P” buttons. Ostensibly, G4P mean “going for profit.” But if you were in the know, it stood for “gluttons for punishment,” which is how many law firm marketers feel.

Read on about the LawMarketing Listserv in Quick Questions for . . . Larry Bodine, where the interview covers:

What was the impetus for starting the listserv, and what was the initial reaction to it?

Do you have a favorite memory from your time moderating the listserv?

If you were to create something like the listserv today, what format would you choose?  A Twitter chat?  A LinkedIn group?  Something else entirely?

What is the biggest mistake you see firms making in their social media efforts?

By the way, the LawMarketing Listerv has risen from the ashes in a new Yahoo Group that you can join for free at Groups.yahoo.com/group/Lawmarketing.

Mitch Jackson and I just presented a live video Spreecast on "Market Your Plaintiff's Practice Like Lady Gaga."  There is no question the pop singer Lady Gaga is a marketing genius. Whether she’s wearing a meat dress or shooting sparks from her chest, she knows how to promote her act and reach her target buyers.

Believe me now or believe me later, there are a lot of tactics that a plaintiff lawyer can use from her playbook to distinguish yourself in the market and reach potential clients. Click to play the Spreecast and follow the 8 points we covered below.

1. Lady Gaga is a business. She grossed $90 million in 2011 with her integrated entertainment, promotion and performance company, which includes Haus of Gaga fashions and Glam lipstick. Her act may look like a crazy musical spectacular, but it’s all about the bottom line.

Ask yourself: are you treating your law practice like a business?

• Have you identified the legal work that will go on your greatest hits album?
• Do you know which of your legal services causes you clients to ask for multiple encores (repeat business)?
• Do you take your legal show on the road and present it to big crowds of potential clients?

2. She knows her customer. Her musical vision is to combine glam rock with simple melodies that people like. Her lyrics appeal to her core of admirers – anyone who “doesn’t fit in.” Haven’t you ever felt that you didn’t fit in during some point in your life? She is targeting you and everyone else like you, and that’s why she’s so successful.

For lawyers, this means you need to identify your target demographic. This is completely different from deciding which services you want to market. Instead, you should identify the kind of people you want to attract.  

3. Lady Gaga is all about what’s new. You expect to be surprised by her. Whenever you see her, you know it’s going to be unexpected. She’ll suddenly appear on stage with a cage on her head, 11-inch high heels, or a see-through dress of bubble.

For lawyers, this means marketing what is new in your practice. A good example is the Injury Law Legal News section on the website of Louisiana lawyer Chad Dudley. It’s updated almost every day with stories like “JetBlue Pilot Ruled Fit to Stand Trial” and “1-800-GET-THIN Clinics Put Patients at Risk, Lawsuit Alleges.” In order to attract new business, you have to say more than you’ve been in business for the last 20 years. Clients are attracted by what you are doing right now and the novel ways you can assist them.

4. She has talent and built on it. Lady Gaga began playing piano at age 4, wrote her first song at age 13 and performed in public a year later. She started a band in New York at age 19, got invited to the Lollapalooza music festival at 21, and had her first hit album The Fame at 22. The girl has talent and she maximized it.

Plaintiff lawyers can do the same thing. Ask yourself:

• Where do you get the best results? Railway accidents? Employment? Drug side effect cases??
• Of all the things you do, what are you especially good at? Oral argument? Discovery? Negotiating?
• What comes naturally to you in marketing? Networking? Seminars? Articles? Social media?

5. Pick a constituency and stick up for it. Lady Gaga lovingly calls her fans “little monsters” and refers to them as kings and queens, portraying herself as the jester. She is on center stage on behalf of anyone with who felt like a freak, and her fans love her so much they dress like her to come to her concerts. 

This approach works for lawyers too. Chad Dudley gets into his community and hosts a blood drive in the summer, an Alzheimer’s walk in the fall, a toy drive at the holidays and a school supply campaign when classes are out. He sticks up for his fellow citizens and they appreciate it.

6. Lady Gaga talks to the news media. This is a proven formula for marketing success. When you get a call from the news media, drop what you’re doing and talk to them. Cultivate a relationship with individual news reporter. Did you know that Lawyers.com features an interview with a lawyer in every news story we publish at blogs.lawyers.com? We always quote a lawyer by name, include their color photo and add a link to their profile. If one of our reporters calls you, do yourself a favor and respond immediately.

7. Lady Gaga actively markets online. She is #1 on Twitter with more than 24 million followers and she writes her own Twitter messages. Her Facebook page has more than 46 million ‘likes.’ Lawyers can similarly use social media to stand out in a crowd. Lawyers can get expert help with LexisNexis Social Media Visibility. Lawyers nationwide are using the most trusted name in legal marketing to harness LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more.

8. She actively courts bloggers. Part of her early success is owed to the community of music bloggers to whom she reached out. Lawyers can rapidly boost their marketing by writing a blog, and again, LexisNexis can help by creating a custom blog for you, customized content, submission to blog directories and link building to increase your search engine ranking.

While you’re at it, subscribe to our free Best Practices in Lawyer Blogs. It’s published every two weeks and you can sign up here.

So you can relax, knowing that you won’t have to wear a meat dress or a cage over your head as Lady Gaga does. But you can profit by taking a page from her marketing playbook. You don’t need to do anything unorthodox but you can’t sit still. You do need to market, and you’ll be glad you did.

Dale Tincher has an informative post on his Law Web Marketing blog about the new importance of Google in getting good reviews of yourself and your law firm. Here's an excerpt:

Google has once again changed the rules for law firm marketers. Google+ and Google profiles are a must for collecting positive reviews that show up in Google’s local listings.

In the latest change from the online search engine giant, Google accounts and reviews from clients are now firmly linked. Anyone who wants to leave a review for your law firm must have a Google+ account.  Google+ Local FAQ number 14 states: “Reviewers need to be logged in to Google+ to leave a review. The review will be public and attributed to their Google+ name.”

Reviews are an integral part of Google+ Local, and you’ll want your firm listed there – with positive comments from satisfied clients — for search engine visibility. Positive reviews can increase your law firm’s business while negative online reviews can cause significant harm.

According to one study, an increasing number of people (69%) trust the opinions of online strangers as much as recommendations from people they know. If two law firms appear to be equal, a Web visitor is likely to choose the firm with the best reviews.

Techniques that work well include:

• Ask for the review at the time of the successful case result.  The client is happiest at that time and inclined to thank you with a review. If the client has a Google+ account, provide the link to Google’s review section.
• Advise your clients to join Google+ if they have not.  Doing so will allow them to leave reviews and will provide several benefits including free access to Zagat’s review section.  Informative Google+ Local videos and FAQ’s by Google are available.
• If you do not have a database of your clients, set one up ASAP.  
• If you have not obtained reviews from prior clients, contact them and request a review.
• Encourage and make it easy to provide reviews on your website.

For more info read Google+ Is No Longer Optional For Law Firm Marketing; Reviews Are Increasingly Important

A compensation survey conducted jointly by the Law Firm Media Professionals and Hellerman Baretz Communications revealed that the average salary among all respondents was $130,391.

This is down nearly $8,000 from the 2010 survey. The most interesting findings of the survey included:

• Only 59% received a raise, as compared to 76% in 2010.
• West Coast and Northwest respondents had the highest average salary: $160,000. Respondents from the Northeast reported an average salary of $133,627.
• $135,650 is the average salary for a respondent whose firm budgets for social media, compared to $132,643 for a respondent whose firm doesn’t budget for social media.
• $152,582 is the average salary for a respondent whose firm uses an outside PR/communications agency, while that of respondents whose firm doesn’t use an outside PR/communications agency was $102,535.
• $132,047 is the average salary for a respondent whose firm maintains at least one blog ($150,720 for those who blog three or more times a week), while that of respondents whose firm doesn’t maintain a blog was $125,322.

The survey was conducted from February 13 to February 24, 2012. LFMP members were polled, and there was a total of 76 respondents. Zoomerang.com collected the confidential data, which was analyzed using Microsoft Excel and third-party analytics software.

Full details are in the Law Firm Media Professionals / Hellerman Baretz Communications Compensation Survey.

America's 79 million Baby Boomers are going online, making purchases and leaving comments as much as any other generation, according to new research. Born during the 19 years from 1946-1964, this generation makes up 34% of the US population and 33% of the Internet population, according to the Creating Results marketing agency.

Boomers are a hot demographic because they control 67% of the country's wealth and outspend younger generations, according to Immersion Active. They are target clients for lawyers because Boomers need legal advice about contracts, leases, employment law, wills, estate plans, copyright, patent and yes...divorce.

As the infographic below shows, Boomers use search engines, and go online to read news, watch videos, book travel, use social media and get health information.

• That said, far more Boomers watch TV every day than use email, and far more of them use email than social networks.
• Younger boomers (aged 45-54) are more likely than their elders to use comments on blog posts and articles, but older boomers (aged 55-64) are most likely to post user reviews -- both positive and negative.
• Younger boomers make up 32% of the Facebook user base, 24% of the Twitter user base, 

LinkedIn confirmed that 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were subject to a security breach. A Russian hacker stole encrypted passwords and posted them online (without usernames) to prove his feat.

According to Mashable, “Link” was the number one hacked password. But many other LinkedIn users also picked passwords — “work” and “job” for example — that were associated with the career site’s content. Religion was also a popular password topic — “god,” “angel” and “jesus” also made the top 15. Number sequences such as “1234″ and “12345″ also made the list.

I met the CEO of Approach the Bench on Twitter and he wrote me about this neat chess set for legal professionals.

The chess set began as a gift idea for my father who is an attorney that has been inundated with briefcases, coffee mugs, desktop scales of justice, Vanity Fair lawyer prints and other law-related gifts over the years.  Looking for something original and unique yielded no satisfactory results, and as he is an avid chess player, I began to seek out a legal-themed chess set. 

Finding nothing to my satisfaction, I decided to produce one myself and the result is a unique gift that can be a impressive showpiece for any lawyer or law firm that is now available to the public. Elegant and austere, “Approach the Bench: The Chess Set for Legal Professionals” makes a great gift for a judge, lawyer or anyone in the legal profession. The iconic courtroom figures (King/Judge, Queen/Blind Justice, Bishops/Attorneys, Knights/Bailiffs, Rooks/Stack of Law Books with a gavel, Pawns/Jurors) the set is uniquely “stepped” to resemble a courtroom.

Hand-made in the USA from cold-cast bronze, Travertine tile and walnut, the boards can be personalized with up to two brass plaques engraved with a personalized message to congratulate your favorite lawyer on passing the bar, getting promoted, retiring or as a “Thank You” for hard work.

The sets are a nice addition to a home or office, complementing a waiting room, private study or workspace.  Measuring 18x19x5, “Approach the Bench” has been featured in the ABA Holiday Gift Guide, is available in Hammacher Schlemmer and the Supreme Court Gift Store, as well as in For Counsel and other exclusive outlets and online (www.approachthebench.com).  The colors of the pieces are black and gold, but can be cast in any type of metal or colored to represent one’s alma mater.

Now you know why can't fit into your clothes: practicing law makes you fat, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com. Even worse, so does being a law firm marketer.

Certain occupations that had a higher incidence of workers reporting weight gain, often tied to more sedentary or high stress positions. #2 on the list is being an attorney or judge.

More than half of workers (54 percent) attributed their weight gain to sitting at their desk most of the day, and roughly the same amount (56 percent) stated they eat their lunch there as well. Other culprits causing extra inches around the waist line include:

• Eating because of stress – 37 percent
• Eating out regularly – 23 percent
• Having to skip meals because of time constraints – 19 percent
• Workplace celebrations (potlucks, birthdays) – 18 percent
• The temptation of the office candy jar – 16 percent
• Pressure to eat food co-workers bring in – 10 percent

Other fat-prone professions travel agent, social worker, teacher, artist/designer/architect, administrative assistant, physician, protective services (police, firefighter), marketing/public relations professional, and information technology professional.

One of Lady Gaga's secrets to success is that her name is short and memorable. I discussed this at my talk "How to Market Your Law Practice Like Lady Gaga" at the Missouri Bar last week. Her real name is Stefani Germanotta, which conveys an image of germs, bratwrust and linguine. Not a good personal brand.

Lady Gaga got her stage name from the Queen song, 'Radio Ga-Ga,' when a music producer compared her singing to that of Freddy Mercury. Lawyers should take note: the name of your law firm is a brand, and unless you're nationally famous, your own name isn't helping to market your practice. If ethics rules permit you to take a trade name, you should change your law firm name to something catchy.

I compiled a list prominent law firms in Missouri. If these firms were to market like Lady Gaga, here is how I would change their names:

Lathrop & Gage – It's already concise, but I can be shortend to LaGa.

Blackwell Sanders Matheny Weary & Lombard – These are a lot of names to say when answering the phone. I recommend BlackSand.

Thompson Coburn – ThomCo.

Armstrong, Teasdale, Schlafly & Davis – Try saying that fast four times. An alternative is ArmTea.

Husch & Eppenberger -- HuschBerger.

Bryan Cave -- B-Cave (has a nice hip-hop sound to it)

Monsees, Miller, Mayer, Presley,  Amick -- Let's go with a modern art reference like Mo Mi Ma.

Bartimus, Frickleton, Robertson & Gorny -- I like Bartickleton.

Simmons Browder Gianaris Angelides & Barnerd -- This was hard. My first idea was SB-GAB, but that's probably the internal nickname for the firm. SimBrow came to mind, but it's too formulaic. I settled on the name that the firm actually uses: The Simmons Firm.

How would you shorten the names of law firms in your city? Add a comment and try your hand at shortening law firm names.

When accidents happen, clients may not be watching a TV commercial or reading a magazine advertisement about legal legal services. Clever law firms around the country have created smartphone apps that enable them to capture case information on the spot -- and engage clients immediately.

"When you don't want to be on the back of a bus or some cheesy commercial in between Jerry Springer and Oprah, you need to come up with innovative ways to help clients and help market your services," Steven D. Silverman said in an interview by the Daily Record, Maryland's legal and business newspaper. His law firm in Baltimore offers its app "Crash 911" to clients.

Michael A. Freedman also launched an app for his personal injury practice in Owings Mills, just last month. "We see so many situations where, when an accident happens, the scene cannot be recreated accurately by the client," Freedman said.

Both apps have a camera option to take photos and record video. It has a GPS for marking locations and a form to fill out all the relevant information in a car accident.

For Freedman's app, an "Accident Intake" button prompts the user to a screen for collecting all necessary information witness phone numbers, the name and badge number of the responding police officer, license plate numbers and more.

The app asks if air bags were deployed, what damage was done to the cars, which insurance companies cover each car or driver and what the policy numbers are. There are even two buttons at the bottom of the app's welcome screen for taking photos and video of the site. All the information, including photos and video, can be sent directly to Freedman's email account.

Freedman's app was designed and produced by a Houston-based company, Stratopy. The company contacted Freedman asking if he wanted to create an app for his firm. Now, 65 percent of the company's business comes from law firms, according to president Chris Reichard. The company has created about 80 law firm apps in different practice areas, but the most popular are personal injury and DUI and DWI.

Stephen Heisserer, the vice president of operations at Bizness Apps in San Francisco said law firms make up 15 percent of the company's clients. "We have noticed a growing interest," Heisserer told the Daily Record.

AB Small Business Marketing in Kalamazoo, Mich., created "Ask a Lawyer: Legal Help," for Willis Law, a business law firm in Michigan, according to Martin Lyons, who works at the app company. With more than 10,000 downloads, it is easily the most popular law firm app on the Android system.

Attorney Freedman said he thinks apps will soon stretch across the legal profession. "There is no question that it is the future," Freedman said. "The question is how quickly the future gets here."

Get the slides for today's presentation at http://slidesha.re/Bodine

I'm beautiful in my way, Cause God makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way."

This pearl of wisdom is one of the secrets of success for Lady Gaga, America's favorite sexy, costume-changing singer and dancer.

Believe it or not, she's got a lot of practical advice for solos and GPs who want to build their law practices. You just need to market your law practice like Lady Gaga, which is the presentation I'll make Friday June 8, at the Missouri State Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference in Branson, MO.

• Will you have to wear see-through bubbles?
• Will you need to wear 11-inch heels?
• Will you need to shoot sparks from your chest?

Maybe. But probably not. However you can adapt her targeted marketing strategy, adapt her unique selling proposition and capitalize an her talent for dressing distinctively to generate new business, as she has done for herself.

This has been the presentation that has been the most fun for be to research. Join me June 8, at the Missouri State Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference in Branson, MO, to share the joy that is Gaga.

The latest edition of LexisNexis' Best Practices in Lawyer Blogs newsletter is now available. I started this newsletter to distribute the best ideas from legal bloggers across the Web. It's free, and you are welcome to subscribe at http://bit.ly/wguekl

Get your free subscription by clicking the button.

Using Your Blog to Drive Business Leads

Your blog is an essential tool in marketing your practice and your law firm, says Jason Weingarten, LexisNexis^® Website Marketing Solutions Product Manager. But it isn’t enough to simply have a blog. You must ensure it has visibility, looks polished and helps convert visitors into clients.
Learn more …

 How to Track Social Media Traffic with Google Analytics™
What do you know about your blog’s visitors? With the help of Google Analytics™ free tools, you can learn a lot about your readers, help them become more engaged with your site and ensure that the end results align with your blogging and business goals.
Learn more …

6 Tips for Creating a Better Blog Post

Once you’ve finished writing an article, do you simply hit the “post” button? Not so fast! A few simple tweaks can dramatically improve the quality of your content.
Learn more …

Everything Bad Is Good for Your Blog

There’s a lot of bad advice floating around the Internet. Have you taken it to heart when writing blog posts? Blogger Joey Strawn suggests that many writing don’ts may actually work to your blog’s advantage.

19 Ways to Build Relationships with Blog Comments
Social media outlets—such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter—allow you to engage with your readers. But how do you encourage people to comment? Social media consultant Marcus Sheridan offers 19 tips to help connect with commenters.
Learn more …

Don't forget to click the button and get your own free subscription to Best Practices in Lawyer Blogs.

On one of my regular trips to the New Providence, NJ, headquarters of Lawyers.com I went to get a soda in the company cafeteria. There were several drink options and the two diet options were Diet Coke and Coke Zero. "Brilliant niche marketing," I thought. Coca Cola had expanded the presence of its brand by offering two versions of the same thing. Lawyers can learn a marketing lesson from this.

In my opinion, there is no difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Both taste the same, contain a little caffeine and omit sugar. Maybe there is a taste difference, but I cannot articulate it.

However there are two important distinctions: one has a white label and the other has a black label, and each has a different name. In other words, they are identical except for the packaging and branding. Coca-Cola expanded its market share by simply calling something by a different name and labeling it with a different color.

Lawyers can do the same thing. For example, if you offer "estate planning," describe it on a web page with a green color scheme. You can slightly revise the description and call it as "elder law" and display it on your website with a light blue color scheme. The possibilities are endless:

• Promote your divorce settlement service as "divorce mediation," with a slight twist in the description. For colors, choose navy for one and dark red for the other.
• Bankruptcy can also be described as "debt relief," "stop bill collectors," "financial renewal." Pick any colors you want.
• Real estate can be niche marketed as "stopping foreclosure," "tenant rights," "fight your landlord," "buy or sell a house."
• Labor and employment can be rebranded as "Your Job," or "After you've been fired," or "fight workplace harassment."

Lawyers will ask themselves what is the best alternate brand to call their practices. After all, lawyers are not advertising copywriters, so I suggest this. Listen closely to how your clients describe their problems to you. Use the terms your clients are saying to name and describe your niche practice.This will also improve your search engine rankings, because you'll know the keywords that clients use when they are searching for a lawyer online. For further reading:

Dan Schwabel: Brand the Lawyer, Not the Firm

Bingham Runs an ad in Yes, The New Yorker

Guerrilla Marketing with Snowbranding

My friend Stacy West Clark, a sales coach for lawyers in small firms, published a terrific list of business development tips from four million-dollar rainmakers she knows. She has been helping Pennsylvania lawyers and law firms expand their practices or 25 years. She is a former attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and was its first marketing director. Here are a few tips from the field:

Bring in business to the firm and your partners — not to yourself. More than anything else, lawyers who look to cross-sell a client to other sections and lawyers in their firm quite simply make more money. It’s easy to understand why. There is only so much you can bill as an individual.

Million-dollar rainmakers all decided to pursue a hobby, which they use for selling legal services. For the last decade, the golfer has scheduled golf dates months in advance with clients at top courses at which clients are excited to play. The tennis player has had a regular standing game with three other professionals and also plays challenge matches to meet more people. Because they chose endeavors they really loved, each was able to use the activity very successfully to develop business.

Help clients find a new job. These rainmakers had clients over the years who lost their jobs or whose jobs were changed because of mergers, bankruptcies and more. Each made a point to help any client who lost his or her job — sending their resumes around, speaking to contacts and arranging meetings for the client. When the client landed on his or her feet, a pattern developed: The client would try very hard to steer legal work to the lawyer who had been there for him or her over the years.

Over the years, all four report being told “no” by prospective clients. And none of them cared. They did not suffer feelings of rejection. In fact, it made them want to get the target even more. So they kept trying. That’s right: The target said “no,” but they kept in communication in ways that were useful to the target. One reported to me that it took 10 years to bring a Fortune 100 company in to the firm — but he did — and he did it by learning everything he could about its operations and how it made money, and by constantly bringing to its attention legal news that could affect its business. Persistence paid off.

Keep your business antennae up — no matter where you are. These rainmakers assess everyone they meet and every situation they are in to spot possible new business. In short, they are rarely “off” because they have changed their DNA to think about people in a new way. They were not born like this — they made a decision to be like this.

Dress the part. Throughout their careers, to a letter all four of the rainmakers — whether on a casual day or otherwise — deliberately made sure they looked “well-dressed.” They bought their clothes at nice, but not ridiculously expensive, stores, and they made sure they always looked highly professional. Ready for a serendipitous encounter with a client — they always looked the part of being smart. Don’t ever forget that appearance does matter — a lot.

Go where clients are in your personal and professional life. If you want corporate clients, hang out where professionals “live” — their trade associations, their alumni reunions, their charitable endeavors, their pastimes. If you want consumer clients, be active in your community; talk up what you do with the local barber, your pharmacist and others who can be walking ambassadors for your practice.

You can read all of Stacy's great rainmaking tips in her article My Night With a Few Multimillion-Dollar Rainmakers.

This just in from Neilsenwire: Facebook had 152 million unique U.S. visitors in March 2012— or, more than two out of three Americans who were active online visited Facebook. This rate is even less than in other markets, including Brazil, New Zealand and Italy, underscoring Facebook’s global reach.

Facebook is an effective way to reach consumer clients. Users spend an average of 7 hours and 45 minutes per month on Facebook. More Time is Spent on Facebook than Any Other Website.

Since its founding in 2004, the social network has passed many milestones as it skyrocketed from a few million U.S. users to nearly one billion users around the world. Here are some of the key moments in Facebook’s story:

• Facebook passed Myspace in 2009 to become the top social network for the first time, a position it’s held in the U.S. ever since.
• Facebook doubled its traffic each year between 2005 and 2009in the U.S., surpassing 10 million unique visitors for the first time in 2006 (11.6M).
• Facebook connected friends around the globe quickly: reaching 10 million unique UK visitors by April 2008. In 2009, the French, Spaniards and Germans followed suit, with 10 million visitors apiece in January, May and November, respectively.
• As recently as August 2011, Facebook overtook Orkut as the top social networking site in Brazil; it has continued to grow its audience since then.

Facebook continues to grow around the world, with consumers in each market finding unique uses for social media sites. While Facebook is the top social network globally, many netizens visit multiple social media sites; in Japan blog sites are more popular in the social media category (Facebook is ranked 5th), and in Brazil sites like Tumblr and Google+ are growing quickly as well.