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By Steven G. Mehta
This last weekend I attended the State Bar convention in San Diego. I had the pleasure of speaking with one of a person who was apparently criticized in social conversation about spending time on social media as opposed to business. This question is often asked of people not only in the blogging world, but also in the world of social media. Recently, Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski has uncovered some interesting answers to the question of how can people can make social media commercially viable.
Piskorski has spent years studying users of online social networks and has identified patterns regarding their use and viability. He has also applied many of the insights to help companies develop strategies for leveraging these various online entities for profit.
Do You Know Someone Who Does…..?
Often, people ask each other the question, “do you know someone who does …?” According to Piskorksi, “online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks,” Specifically, Piskorski explains that “if I am looking for someone who can help me with my start up, I would ask my friends if they know such a person, and if they don’t, I would ask them to inquire with their friends. The problem is that those friends of friends don’t always have an incentive to help, so they won’t work on my behalf. But here is where LinkedIn comes in handy—there I can go and search through the network of my friends of friends and find the person I am looking for.”
There’s a second factor Piskorski does not address: Namely that many people like to consider themselves as the expert in a particular field. When their friends call them on a topic that is tertiary to their field, they feel as if they need to continue to be the expert and that their expertise may be diminished if they don’t know the answer to a particular question. For example, if a person is a specialist in corporate law and is asked about a corporate bankruptcy specialist, that person may feel that they are assumed to know the names of bankruptcy specialists even if that is not truly the case. As such, some people will answer the question of “do you know someone who does…,” by stating that they may not personally know of somebody but they can probably find somebody within their network. Then oftentimes, they will then research names of people who may be relevant to the inquiry. In that regard, a person’s appearance on the Internet and on social media will be helpful in developing their reputation.
A Picture says a Thousand Words
According to Piskorski’s research, one of the biggest reasons that people investigate social network sites is “pictures.” “People just love to look at pictures,” says Piskorski. “That’s the killer app of all online social networks. Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people’s profiles.”
Piskorski hypothesizes that people who post pictures of themselves can show they are having fun and are popular without having to boast. Showing themselves to be popular also suggests that they are a valuable commodity. Just as in the dating world, statistics indicated that people who are attached are more attractive to the opposite sex than people who are not attached. The reason: the mere fact of being attached or popular suggests that other people who know you like you and are confident in you.
Another point that was not addressed by Piskorksi is the fact that the social media allows people to feel as if they know the person before they have ever met. For example, on many occasions I’ve had people who are complete strangers to me make comments about my personal life based upon their observations of what information is in my social media. As a result, these people are more comfortable with me as a mediator. This very thing happened yesterday in a mediation.
When I walked into the mediation and introduced myself, one couple – Mark and Jane – stated that I looked just as friendly in person as I did in my pictures. In addition, Jane then inquired about my life in England and how I came to the United States. They were able to have a conversation with me as if we had already been social acquaintances. This sense of familiarity helped me develop rapport with the clients without ever being in the room.
MySpace or is it What Was That Space”
Piskorski also looked at usage patterns of MySpace. According to his research, MySpace probably needs to seek disability benefits.
Although MySpace has 70 million U.S. — a little less than Facebook’s 90 million, it user base is not really growing. One of the reasons cited by Piskorski is that MySpace is primarily being used by people in smaller communities in the south and central parts of the United States. ”MySpace has a PR problem because its users are in places where they don’t have much contact with people who create news that gets read by others. Other than that, there is really no difference between users of Facebook and MySpace, except they are poorer on MySpace.” Piskorski recently explained in his blog.
Monetizing Social Media
According to Piskorski “To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy,” he continues. A good social strategy essentially uses the same principles that made online social networks attractive in the first place—by solving social failures in the offline world. Firms should begin to do the same and help people fulfill their social needs online.
Another issue to consider, is whether or not you need to consider monetizing every aspect of social media. There are many examples in advertising where just the mere presence helps the market continue to use a product. For example, Coca-Cola is the best-selling soda brand in the world. Yet it continues to advertise and market. It is probably very hard for Coca-Cola to monetize any particular one commercial or advertisement. Yet the commercial is a consistent part of its branding message. In my view, social media assists the person, especially professional such as a mediator or attorney, in marketing their brand.
To get a copy of Piskorski’s article, click here.
By Steven G. Mehta
On several occasions, I have been mediation and have needed to calculated date in the future for scheduling a second session of mediation. Fortunately, there are iPhone applications that allow you to quickly calculate future dates. There are several applicationsthat perform this function with varying degrees of functionality.
In this post today, I will identify one such application named date+. This application costs $.99 and is a very simple and easy application that allows you to identify future dates. When you open the program, it will automatically populate today’s date in the section that identifies which date you want to calculate from. After that, it is a simple matter of typing in the number of days, months, weeks, years and pressing the calculate button. And voilà, it will provide you with the future date.
Here are a few screen shots of this application.
The advantage to this program is its simplicity. However, its drawback is also its simplicity.
If you are looking for a simple application that quickly and easily gives you a future date from today, this program is for you. If, however, you need an application to calculate court days, or perform multiple calculations, then I would suggest that you look at one of the other applications out there.
Here is a link to a website called iPhone J.D. that is dedicated to legal iphone applications. It has given a very nice summary of some of the other date calculator programs out there.
By Steven G. Mehta
Previously, I wrote Part 1 of 22 ways for a legal and Mediation Professional to use Twitter. The following is part two of that series.
12. Become A Better Mediator
I can already see that I have become a better mediator because of Twitter. I have learned about different viewpoints, I have seen current news on mediation, I have been given thoughts on mediator mistakes, and a variety of other things. Not everything is about monetizing your time. Sometimes, knowledge for the sake of personal development is a great thing.
13. Become More Connected With The Net Generation Or Millenials
If you want to keep up with the times and remain connected with the Millenial generation, then you need to think about how that generation communicates. It may come as no new surprise to you, but Millenials love to text. You might see two teenagers sitting next to each other texting each other. Like it or not, if you want to understand how that generation communicates, you must play inside their sandbox, and not your own.
14. Real Time News Feed
I am still one to read the newspaper. But it has become so “yesterday’s lunch.” Even CNN is too slow to keep up with news. Sometimes news stories show up on CNN evening news that are hours old. When the swine flu outbreak occurred, I learned about it from Twitter. I saw a “trending topic” of swine flu and looked into it. I learned about the whereabouts of the flu, where it was being reported, and many other facts from twitter. You can look at “trending topics” on twitter to find out what the hot discussion is of the moment. For example, today, I learned that the Netherlands upset England in cricket.
15. It Is Short
Twitter is limited 140 characters per message. So it is short. You don’t have to agonize over writing a thesis. Keep it short and interesting.
16. Free Advertising
What is your advertising budget? I don’t know about you, but when you have the opportunity to have thousands of people learn about your services for free, that’s a pretty good deal.
17. It Will Increase Your Name Brand On Google
Everyone hopes that their name will be high up on google. Equally important is that you have repeated hits on google. For example, you don’t just want to be the number one hit on google, you want to be number 1-30. For example, look my name on google and you will find that I dominate the first 4 pages of google. Twitter helps because google can sometimes feed directly into your twitter feed. Your message remains up there in your google branding.
18. Market Research
Want to get a quick survey on something of interest in your topic. What better way than sending out a quick tweet to your hundred closest followers to find out what their thoughts are on your topic.
19. Promote Your Website Content
Many people worry that no one will know about their website. If you have fresh new content on your website, you can tweet about it and people can be directed to your site. There are hundreds of pages that explain how to drive traffic to your site by using twitter.
20. Finding and Researching Employees
You have probably heard of stories where a person got a job from twitter. You have also heard where a person got fired because of twitter. If you post that you have a job, there is a good chance that someone in your network could refer another person in their network to you regarding the employment. In addition, you can research the possible employee by seeing if they are on twitter and what they say. You’d be surprised to see what shows up.
21. Connect With Clients
More and more people are connected to twitter. Twitter lets you have a quick and easy way to connect to those clients who follow you and who you follow. In addition, you can keep up with any problems that the client may have instantly. If your client tweets about a problem with an employee, you can help immediately with the problem.
22. Connect With Journalists
Many journalists are using twitter as a source of information on topics of interest to them. In fact, one public relations firm suggested that a pr firm is not doing its job if it isn’t on twitter connecting with the media.
Hopefully these ideas will spark some creative thought process in you. There are many more benefits to twitter. We just have to find them.
By Steven G. Mehta
I have been tweeting in the world of twitter and wanted to comment on my findings and thoughts regarding Twitter. First I must confess that when I first thought of Twitter, I said something to the effect, “why do I want to know what Joe is having for lunch today?” But I am glad to report that I did not persist in this previous state of mind and am glad that I ventured into the world of twitter. Several mediation bloggers have commented on their experiences in the world of twitter including Tammy Lenski in her post Twitter 101 for Mediators or Diane Levin in her article Negotiating Twitter: A mediator test drives the hot social media craze.
In addition, there are some good resources for lawyers and for Twediators (My new word for mediators that twitter) who want to learn about twitter. For example, Tweet 16: 16 ways lawyers can use Twitter by Robert Ambrogi or Tools and Tactics to Tweet Well on Twitter, or a great post by a P.R. firm that shows the nuts and bolts of twitter called Twittering For Lawyers.
But despite seeing these resources, I am constantly barraged by people outside of twitter as to why I “waste my time” on twitter. Well here are some of the top reasons, that I as a lawyer and mediator, twitter.
1. Connect With Others In Your Field Internationally
I am a Los Angeles Mediator that has a practice in California and sometimes in other states. However, I never in my wildest dreams thought it possible absent going to an international conference that I would get to meet mediators and attorneys from the Netherlands, other states in America, New Zealand, England, and other wonderful countries; and especially not without buying a plane ticket to somewhere. Well, I have met many wonderful legal and conflict resolution professionals throughout the world. These professionals provide me with information and more importantly, a different worldview than I might have had if I was simply in California.
2. Expand Your Brand
Everyone secretly aspires to be as big a brand as Coke or Pepsi. They asprire to have their name as a household word. You might be saying that you are not a brand and that you are simply a person. Well people are brands. Tony Robbins, Al Gore, Donald Trump are all people; but they have been able to build an international brand. When people hear their names, certain images come to mind. Just as when you think of Pepsi, a certain image comes to mind.
The question you have to ask yourself with branding is how would you like people to see you. When you interact on twitter, you are expanding your brand to other geographic areas, professions, businesses, and groups. More people are seeing you and will have heard of you. That is helpful in this international economy.
3. Connect With People In Your Locale
Twitter allows you to search for people that are in a certain area or have tweeted about a certain topic. For example, I did a search on twitter for the city of Santa Clarita and found out that people were looking for jobs in Santa Clarita, and that there is a business opportunity for a coffee franchise. You can then seek to follow each of those persons who mentioned Santa Clarita (under the assumption that people who talk about Santa Clarita are probably familiar with or close to the city).
4. Find Out What Is Being Said About You
One of the beauties of Twitter is that you can do a search of what every single person on twitter has said and you can find out what is being said about you. For example, I was discussing with one person that a positive comment had been made about that person. It is nice to know when good things are said about you, and it is even better to know (first or as soon as possible) when bad things are said about you so that you can work on damage control.
5. Find Out What Is Being Said About Your Competitors
Sometimes knowing what is being said about your competitors is extremely helpful. For example, what if your competitor has reduced its rates, would that affect you? What about if someone comments about some aspect of customer service from your competitor? Rather than waiting for the information to trickle down to you. You can find out about the information instantly.
6. Keep Up On News Relevant To Your Topic
What is the latest and greatest in your field? As a mediator, I recently learned of conferences on mediation that might be useful to my practice. I have also learned about the trends regarding mediation. Moreover, I have learned about studies relating to mediation: All from twitter.
7. Post Your Blog On Twitter
If you have a blog and are hoping to get the word out to a greater audience regarding your blog, twitter can help. You can tweet about your latest and greatest blog post. Depending on how relevant the blog entry is, it could get tweeted, and retweeted 1000s of times. That’s great exposure.
8. Discover New Blogs And Research On Your Topic
Just as you can post your blog on twitter, many other bloggers post their writing on twitter. As a result, it can be a great way for you to keep up with bloggers who interest you. Everytime an interesting person blogs something, you can see it on your feed. This will allow you to keep up with relevant information directly regarding your field. For example, I have recently blogged on settlement issues related to Medicare, if that is a topic of interest to your practice, that article was posted on twitter within hours of being published.
9. Continuously Keep Your Name On The Tips Of People’s Tongues
One of the problems that people face when marketing mediation and legal services is that people don’t have a constant need for these services. When the need arises, then people will look for these services. When that need arises, though, you want to be one of the first people that someone thinks about for your services. It is a known fact that even if you are excellent at your job, people will naturally forget about you unless they are reminded about you in some way shape or form. Ask yourself the question, who is the first mediator that you think of? What about for a patent lawyer? Then ask yourself why? Chances are that you thought of that person because you had heard or seen that person’s name somewhere, or something you saw reminded you of that person.
Twitter helps to keep your name out there. Every time you tweet, your name gets on the top of the public timeline created by twitter. The same is true for all the people that are following you. When you make a tweet, at that moment it goes to the top of the list of the people that follow you. For that moment or moments, you are at the top of the list. How long you stay at the top of the list is up to you, the value of your comment, and the relationship you have with that person.
10. Have A New Outlet To Post Your Information
Twitter allows you to personalize your homepage. This provides you with another opportunity to have information that you want seen out there about yourself. Moreover, every time you give information about yourself or your activities, you are increasing the chances that someone else will connect with you because of that fact. For example, I went to McGeorge School of Law. If I tweeted something about my connection to McGeorge, that might peek the interest of some other McGeorge graduate.
11. Get Quick Information On A Topic From Your Sources
As Diane Levin and Tammy Lenski have pointed out above, Twitter allows you to pose a quick question and get responses back from someone who is following you. Whether that question relates to your profession or not, you are sure to get some answers to your question quickly.
Hopefully, this will give you some more ideas about using twitter. However, if this hasn’t convinced you yet, then I will publish Part two of this article with another 11 more ways for the legal and Mediation professional to use twitter.
