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How Not to Use Twitter as a Law Firm - Brought to you by @mmalaw

Up until this morning I have pretty much kept my mouth shut on how badly some lawyers and law firms are using twitter. This morning I received an email from a friend who told me, “you have to do a post on how bad this firm is using twitter.” And what was amazing, it must have been a sign, because when I went to check my new twitter followers, this firms notice they were following me was in my twitter folder in MailPlane. I received a follow notification from @mmalaw. I fell out of my chair when I went to their twitter profile to check them out.

Yes, I know there are suppose to be no rules on how one uses twitter. However, isn’t there suppose to be some value in how you use twitter? Aren’t we suppose to add some value to the twitter stream if we are going to spill out of our brains tweets to the twitter stream? This is not the way to add to the conversation, add any value or interact with anyone on twitter.

What they are doing wrong

Numbers

This firm is doing so many things wrong that I had a hard time deciding which one to pick first. So I thought I would decide to start with the numbers.

First of all, they have already followed 941 other people on twitter and only have 101 followers. I would imagine the same firm who told them this is how you use twitter is also telling them to use one of those services to gather all of these new people to follow. Of course when you see what they are tweeting, you are going to know why they have that ratio of follows to followers. And then there is the fact they have only updated 14 times. And thank god that is only how many they have sent when you consider what they are tweeting.

Profile

Without a doubt, their profile Bio is one of the worst I have ever seen by anyone, including those get rich quick marketers we all get on twitter. I mean really, what the heck does their Bio tell you other than send us your money so we can handle your case. Here is their Bio: “Free Telephone Consultation! We handle Child Custody/Divorce Issues, Personal Injury and Drunk Driving matters. Credit cards accepted. Payment plans available”

Website URL

And just when I thought the Profile could not get any worse, they send me to their MySpace page as their website URL. I suppose if their main target market is high school children and college students, this “website” might be a good idea. I can’t imagine there are too many clear thinking adults who would be impressed with the MySpace page. I felt like I was watching previews of the TV show “My Name is Earl.”

Tweets and Updates

It gets even better here. I really can’t describe what they are doing here any better than to give you a screen shot of some of their tweets. Actually, I am going to put all 14 of them in this post for you to see.

I am actually sitting here wondering if the marketing firm they are working with told them this is how you should use twitter as a marketing tool in your law practice. There is no value to anyone in the tweets they posted. Other than me of course as it gave me material for this post.

Final Thoughts

Am I being a bit harsh. Well, yes I am. This type of use of twitter is exactly why some people I know call lawyers ambulance chasers. Perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut this morning and let @mmalaw go about their merry way and continue to use twitter this way. But, I couldn’t and my friend who suggested I write this post knows me way too well as they knew I could not let this one go.

Finally, I am not going to tell @mmalaw “the right way to use” twitter until the next post. I promise that I will lay out how this firm and other lawyers should be using twitter to add to the conversation, interact with those they follow and who follow them. And how you should add way more to twitter than you ever expect to receive back.

I know some of you are going to think I stepped over the line too far. And that is OK and I appreciate the fact some of you may feel that way. And I know there are those who will think, Griffiths, who the hell are you to tell this firm they are doing it wrong. And that is OK too. I felt what I said had to be said. And please leave your comments to this post. Let’s keep the conversation going.

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Published by: Grant Griffiths

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Full post as published by Blawg for Profit on May 19, 2009 (boomark / email).