When it comes to marketing, what Web 2.0 tools are part of your plan? Jon Gordon asked me how I would describe Twitter’s usefulness to a group of communications lawyers, and I told him I would recommend it as a way to help create an “ecosystem” around a law practice (or, sans buzzwords, to help build one’s online relationships and reputation).

Twitter is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the blog and the social network. But the end result is not absurd, it is potentially very useful to the attorney-marketer.

Twitter is the essense of personal blogging: it provides a simple space to answer the question “what are you doing now?” and see what others are doing (or thinking, or saying), as well. While blogging and online social networking take a lot of time, Twitter does not. And since many lawyers are tempted to wax poetic, Twitter posts are nicely limited to 140 characters.

In other words, Twitter is one way to build one’s reputation 140 characters and a few seconds at a time. And keep up with colleagues, as well.

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(Cross-posted to solosmall, mypractice, and SoloSmallTech.)

At the Practice Management and Marketing Section meeting yesterday, Roy Ginsburg asked me about the difference between solosmall and mypractice, a listserv and an online social networking site.

The quick distinction that came to me is that a listserv is like a conference, while an online social network is more like a cocktail party.

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

Karen Lundquist has built a small, international law practice focused on employment and business matters. Her firm, Lundquist & Lange, has offices in Minneapolis, Italy, Argentina, and Chile. Lundquist maintains a WordPress blog on topics of interest to her as well as the firm’s practice areas.

Lundquist & Lange has been up and running since November 2006, and in that time her firm has tried a number of different marketing strategies, from a radio show to local church bulletins to direct marketing. According to Lundquist, offline networking “is the real way to market. Personal marketing. Who do you know, what does your name mean and how are you perceived?”

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

The first attorney who responded was Jennifer R. Lewis Kannegieter, who started her own practice last November. She has a blog loosely focused on family law, estate planning, probate, and similar topics, and you can find her on Facebook and mypractice.

Since Kannegieter’s practice is relatively new, she is still feeling her way when it comes to marketing, trying a few different approaches and waiting to see how they work out. She views her website and blog as one of the most important parts of her early marketing plan, and focuses on raising her profile through online and offline networking through personal relationships.

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Hosting provider? Check. Website? Check. Advertising plan? Check. Now it is time to talk more advanced online marketing: blogs and social networking.

Starting a blog or participating in an online social network is more advanced in the sense that both require more time and a bit more comfort with online interaction. But blogging and social networking also offer new, more direct ways to reach potential clients.

A static website is just a fancy billboard or calling card. But a blog or a social network profile allow you to meet your clients before they pick up the phone to call or walk into your office. You can establish your ethos with people you have not yet met, so that when they have a legal problem, they are not calling a stranger, but someone they already know.

Many lawyers, however, seem afraid to say anything online (or in public) for fear that it will come back to haunt them. To this I have two pieces of advice: (1) stop saying things that might come back to haunt you; and (2) get over it. If you cannot get over it, then blogs and social networking are not for you.

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Visit mypractice

In a bold move, the MSBA has started up mypractice, a social networking website for Minnesota lawyers based on Google’s OpenSocial platform.

My membership is still pending approval, but if you are on, connect with me!

Update: ILS Attorneys responds below; Mr. Akinwole is apparently real, and his friends are unhappy that I posted this without first visiting Nigeria and looking him up to make sure he existed before posting.

I have started to notice a few LinkedIn users recently who say they are attorneys from Nigeria or other African countries. Mr. Abayomi Akinwole, for example. I do now know whether Mr. Akinwole is real, but a search for “ILS Attorneys Nigeria”, the firm and country he purports to be from, turns up nothing but his LinkedIn profile.

So is this a clever ploy to draw in people willing to send off retainer checks, or is it evidence that the internet is finally allowing the global networking we have been hoping for?

I don’t know, but it does surprise me that someone who is “hip” enough to be on LinkedIn would not also have a website for the law firm at which he is a partner, so I am suspicious. And curious.