The OBA’s on Twitter!

By Morgan W. Estes
OBA Web Services Coordinator
@morganestes

“So what?” you may be asking yourself.  That’s the same response many people felt when they first heard about twitter.com, one of the fastest growing Web sites around today.  With users trending to over 7 million and the possibility of a Google partnership, Twitter is a business model that’s not going away any time soon.

“Again, so what?” you ask.  The so-what is that with Twitter, and other sites based off of it, the return of near-real-time communications is back again.  In just 140 characters, you can message the world, or at least that part of it that is following you.  Individuals use it as a micro-blogging service; businesses use it as a PR tool; governments and public entities use it to get the word out about their services.  This is a great way to get your message out to a large number of users using a simple web browser.  Jim Calloway has some ways that lawyers in particular can use Twitter.   Besides all that, it’s a free service with a very shallow learning curve.  If you can type, you can tweet.

Here at the OBA, our Communications Department (@OklahomaBar) uses Twitter to send out notices about events happening that involve, or are of interest to, our members.  As of April 7, we have 138 followers, not including the OBA/CLE (@OBACLE) department’s followers.  We’re followed by lawyers, news agencies, businesses, and individuals who are interested in what the OBA does for the public and our members.

While we encourage everyone to visit our Web site, we understand it might not be possible for you to keep up with every change we’re making.  Twitter lets us send out notices of upcoming CLE events as soon as they’re posted, alerting you to seminars you might not have otherwise heard about.  The real benefit to you is relevant, updated information that doesn’t clutter your e-mail inbox.

Here are a few real-world examples of Twitter in action:

1. UCO in Edmond had a bomb threat on campus on March 25, 2009.  The university didn’t use their alert system to notify the students of what was happening, leaving many students panicked and in the dark.  Instead, a local news group, CurrentlyOK.com (@CurrentlyOK), used their Twitter account to send updates on the situation.  With a large number of followers, and the ability to “re-Tweet” (basically, forward a message to all of your followers), word got to students quickly.
2. OBA Day at the Capitol marked the kickoff for OBA use of Twitter.  Having the ability to send messages quickly alerted news agencies and members of what events were taking place, and where to meet with your legislators.  Tweets (individual Twitter messages) were sent to computers, cell phones, handhelds, and mobile devices immediately, allowing participants to find the info they needed quickly.
3. Twitter broke the news of the Mumbai terror attacks and the USAirways crash landing on the Hudson River.
4. Use of hashtags by multiple users allow for grouping of related tweets by any number of users.  Examples of this are the Oklahoman’s use of #okstorms during the recent tornados, #OKCsocialrave, and our very own #okbar, which I use to tag tweets regarding our Web site or related info.

So, what about “so what?”  It’s pretty clear: lead (your practice in getting the word out), follow (people and groups who have something to say you are interested in), or get out of the way (and encourage someone else to get your message out).

Twitter: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

By Jim Calloway
Director, OBA Management Assistance Program
@jimcalloway

So, when did you first hear about Twitter? For most Americans, you probably first heard of Twitter in the last several months even though it has been around since March 2006. Maybe it was when you read of our representatives in Congress posting messages to Twitter during a presidential address. Maybe it was seeing a media professional on television saying, “You can follow me on Twitter.” Maybe it was seeing an extra line in someone’s e-mail signature block for Twitter contact info.

But there’s no doubt that Twitter is a phenomena, with millions of users visiting the site at a rate of 55 million times per month. Last month, a Nielson blog estimated its growth at an annual rate of 1382 percent from 475,000 users in February 2008 to over 7 million in February 2009. See Wikipedia entry for more.

Detractors have attacked Twitter in much the same way that blogs were originally criticized, calling Twitter users self-indulgent, narcissistic individuals boring others with daily updates of their mundane activities like what they had for breakfast.

But most lawyers need to be aware of social media tools like Twitter because it likely will not be long before it impacts your practice, whether it is a business client who wants to discuss a policy on employees using social media at work or a family law client who believes that there is valuable evidence lurking in Twitter posts. So, here’s my addition to the hundreds of articles already posted and printed about Twitter.

I’m on Twitter. If you are using Twitter, you can follow me @jimcalloway. If you are not using Twitter, you can still take a look at my Twitter profile page online at http://twitter.com/jimcalloway without signing up for the service. As noted in my colleague’s companion column, the Oklahoma Bar Association also has a Twitter account @OklahomaBar and OBA CLE has an account @OBACLE.

So what exactly is Twitter?

Twitter is a web service that allows you to easily send very short messages to a group of people who have asked to receive them.  These messages are known as Tweets. The people who have signed up to receive your messages are known as your followers. The maximum length allowed for a Tweet is 140 characters. For lawyers, Tweeting is certainly a good exercise in writing briefly.

Twitter use is commonly referred to as microblogging, but I think a more accurate label is megatexting. While many Twitter users send out their Tweets from their computers, an increasing number now Tweet from their mobile phones. Twitter is, after all, designed to answer that burning question, “What are you doing now?” So, you have to be able to answer that from more places than just seated at your computer.

But before you dismiss this as just a narcissistic exercise, mainly for young people, that will give you another “inbox” of trivial items you have no time to read, pause a second. Twitter is simple. But it is very, very powerful. People are coming up with new ways to use it every day. 

You could, for example, set up a Twitter account that did not identify you personally and never post a single Tweet to it. You could then follow breaking news services from a number of media outlets or those who Tweet about your favorite sports team or your hobby or celebrity gossip any other subject of your interest.  With 7 million people and businesses Tweeting out regular content, you can bet there are a lot of Tweets flowing on about every conceivable topic.

Are you interested in what Lance Armstrong is doing today or Shaquille O'Neal? They both Tweet almost daily and each have over half a million followers.  One story noted Shaq asking his followers if it was OK for him to break his diet for an ice cream cone since he really wanted one. A little later, another Tweet included a link to a picture of an ice cream cone in front of Shaq’s mouth. (Oh, yes, it is easy to send pictures out along with your Tweets. Tulsan Noah Everett invented one application that does this, Twitpic.) You can find more about following celebrities here and here. But be warned. Reports are already starting to surface of celebrities using ghost-Tweeters.

It is also possible to set up your Twitter account, as I have done, to follow a number of legal technology writers and consultants. Or perhaps you’d rather follow law professors. Or fellow bankruptcy lawyers?  Or supermodels? With Twitter, it is up to you.

It’s not just for younger Internet users either. One study indicated in February 2009 that the largest age group on Twitter was 35-49; with nearly 3 million unique visitors.

Originally, Twitter was for friends to keep track of each other. I can see someone Tweeting at 4:30 p.m.: “I don’t want to go home yet. Let’s all meet in Wolverine Bar at 5:30.”  The idea may sound appealing to some readers.  At ABA TECHSHOW 2009, there were many people tweeting during the educational sessions, between sessions and after the sessions. There was a large monitor in area displaying the various Tweets about ABA TECHSHOW and new ones were added constantly. I definitely see beneficial uses for Twitter at conventions.

But reading your Tweets isn’t limited to your followers. By using a few Twitter tools, every Tweet displaying the word TECHSHOW was placed on that display. Seeing dozens of mini-reports on TECHSHOW sessions still underway was interesting and many who were unable to attend TECHSHOW followed the TECHSHOW posts for a little flavor of the event.

There was also a hashtag for TECHSHOW, which is #Techshow, but hashtags are more than I want to cover today. You can go here to see how that one worked.

Two words that often come up when discussing Twitter are fun and addictive. It is entertaining to log in and see what your friends have been up to. There are also some serious Twitter users who post links to online articles. Within my first few days on Twitter, I became aware of several articles of use to me that I would have missed without Twitter.

In some ways, Twitter feels like a giant cocktail party with millions of people talking about all sorts of topics pretty much all the time. You can stay with a group of your friends or wander around and catch all sorts of pieces of conversations, with the ability to go to the poster’s profile page and reconstruct that parts you missed if you are really interested. It is probably that party feeling that creates the addictive potential. One Oklahoma lawyer, who declined to be identified, has already decided to quit Twitter cold turkey after a few months of use. She told me in a telephone interview that she was losing too much sleep by staying up too late at night too often with Twitter.

Be careful about overuse of Twitter. A lawyer doesn’t want to appear that they have nothing better to do than sit around and Tweet all day. We did a little survey about this at ABA TECHSHOW and the opinion of several of the speakers was about four tweets per day is a good number. If you’ve encouraged clients to follow you, then you shouldn’t be Tweeting at all if you have past-due projects or unreturned phone calls. Just ask Jennifer Aniston.

You can use this tool any way you want. But my opinion is that you don't want to be off topic too much as a lawyer, especially if you are viewing this as a practice development tool. If people expect you to Tweet about trial tactics and you post too many times about what you are having for dinner, people will soon un-follow you. We all have limited time and you don’t want your signal to noise ratio to drift too much over into noise. I’m a bit old fashioned and still think it may be good to keep some professional distance in the attorney-client relationship. But others disagree.

As Twitter moves from early adaptors to the more mainstream users, I keep hearing from more and more people who seem threatened by Twitter. I don’t want you to be the person who does 25 Tweets a day and has everyone asking, “Doesn’t he have any legal work to do?” If you get a chance to go up in the space shuttle, we will expect you to Tweet very frequently.

On the other hand, you may want to use Twitter as a fun escape from your professional life and focus on your love of karate or karaoke. That’s your legitimate choice. When you follow the other karate Twitterers, they will often follow you in turn. Twitter is then more of a hobby than a professional development tool. But you may well receive a referral or two over the years from the Twitter karate community.

At the Twitter panel at ABA TECHSHOW someone asked about security. In my view, the only safe way for a lawyer to operate is to assume there is none and you are Tweeting to the front page of your newspaper or Website. Sure, you can use DM’s (direct messages) or lock down who can follow you. But there’s no guarantee someone won’t RT (Retweet) your message on to others because that’s part of the Twitter culture. And in fact, being RT’d is how others learn of you and start following you. Anyone can visit your Twitter profile page whether they follow you or not. (e.g. http://twitter.com/jimcalloway.)

By the way, you will find that people DM` you and you do not receive them. You can only receive DM’s from those who follow you. Otherwise Twitter would have collapsed under the weight of spammers long ago. If you are worrying about appearing to ignore those who don’t understand that, you might try searching Twitter for your user name every few days. It’s a little confusing working through how DM’s and replies work for many users.

Many who start actively using Twitter will want to install a management tool like Tweetdeck. There are many third-party applications, including Twitterberry for the Blackberry. One source identified 99 essential ones. But let’s face it; if there really were 99 essential add-ons, it should never have come out of beta testing until it was finished.

There’s a lot more to be said about Twitter, but this is probably enough for today. For those who want more, go read about branding on Twitter, dangers as Twitter becomes more mainstream, or whether Twitter is a passing fad.

Oh, I almost forgot. I told you about the good and the bad. But what about the ugly? Well, here’s a cautionary tale on how Twitter can get you fired in 140 characters or less.
And then here’s one about insulting the firm’s biggest client.

So Tweet or not, as you see fit. But Tweet carefully. Follow me if you like. I still think I’ll have better content on Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips blog, where I write in longer sentences. But Twitter is great for passing along links to practice management articles that I find and I do think Twitter is going to be with us for a while.