A Paralegal’s Guide to Social Networking
Get Involved in Social Media
A Paralegal’s Guide to Social Networking
Carole A. Bruno
Find out how jumping on the social networking stage can actually make you stand out to future employers, colleagues, paralegal networks, friends, and your website readers.
For once, jumping on the social networking stage can actually help you stand out. Social networking is a phenomenon unlike anything we’ve seen before. While there’s a personal dimension to nearly all networks with the power to control access, smart paralegals can also use them as strength for their professional goals. But merely joining isn’t the way to do it.
1. Get on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, receive introductions to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals. Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return.
LinkedIn’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals to accelerate their success: “We believe that in a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depend upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust. LinkedIn is a free business-specific network and in which you may build a network of contacts. You have to get know the people you invite to join your network. You connect to a contact and can get access to their contacts. It has structured rules that protect your privacy.“
When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts. Through your network, you can:
–Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional;
–Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended;
–Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems;
–Be in a position to be discovered for business opportunities and find potential partners;
–Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings;
–Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals; and
–Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company.
LinkedIn now has many groups related to paralegals, such as The Paralegal Network, Litigation Professional Concordance Users Group, The Paralegal Group, and the new e-Discovery Paralegal Network. All of these groups are excellent sources for contacts.
2. Try Plaxo.
Plaxo was one of the first networks and started with a different kind of address book, one that leverages the power of the network effect to stay up-to-date. They securely host address books for more than 40 million people.
With “Pulse,” they are bringing those, address books to life with a new way to enrich your connection with the people in your life. Pulse is a bit like some social networks you’ve heard of, but it’s different in several key ways. Pulse is a better way for you to stay in touch with the people you actually know and care about — your family, your real-world friends, and the people you know from business. Pulse makes it easy for you to see what they’re creating and sharing online — their blogs, the photos they’re uploading, their restaurant reviews, and so much more.
Pulse is a dashboard for seeing what the people you know are creating and sharing all over the open web. You can hook your Pulse account up to all the places where you create or share stuff (your blog, Flickr, Twitter, Yelp, and more than 30 other sites).
With Plaxo, you have fine-grained control over what you share with whom, whether that’s your contact info — or your photos from last weekend. Plaxo says that their privacy policy privacy policy is one of the strongest. “We are dedicated to the notion that your address book, your friends list, and your content belong to you, not to us. We make it easy for you to take them with you wherever you go and to use them with an ever-expanding array of sites, applications, and devices.”
“And just recently, we became a subsidiary of Comcast Interactive Media, with a plan to have Pulse become central to creating a unified “Social Media” experience across the Web and TV (and more). Plaxo remains an independent operation in Silicon Valley, serving our worldwide customer base.
Although Plaxo is not as business-oriented as LinkedIn, Plaxo is a good vehicle for an easily updatable address book. Get on Plaxo on a trial basis, and read their instructions on how to connect with others. You can easily invite people to join your network. Go to http://www.plaxo.com
Using Facebook (facebook.com), one of the most popular social networks among the young and the old, the informed and the uninformed, the professional and the nonprofessional, runs the gamut from merely telling your friends what you ate for breakfast to uploading photos to using thousands of applications (e.g., donating to a favorite charity or voting on the nicest person). Social media experts generally consider Facebook one of the many online outposts for job seeking, marketing—not something that warrants heavy use, but an important tool for networking, both professional and personal. Developing a following if you find your audience is actively logging on to your site. To get the most out of Facebook, try some of these ideas to help you in your professional career:
NETWORK. Facebook can help you find others interested in your field of law, and you can share ideas and mentor each other. Use your network to find out what is happening in the paralegal world, and if you need a job, put the word out to your networks.
JOIN GROUPS RELATED TO YOUR PROFESSION. If you are in bankruptcy, join a related group. You will find a forum for the problems that occur in your cases. Discuss techniques and tips on how to get around the bankruptcy court and do research. Put out queries on particular you need help on without revealing clients’ name and facts. Discuss procedures and generalities.
POST EVENTS. This feature allows you to invite all your friends or all the members of your groups to paralegal webinars, podcasts, seminars and workshops.
TALK TECH. Get solutions to your technology problems. Surprisingly, many paralegals are tech-savvy. Get answers quick and pick others’ brains, so to speak. Most everyone is always glad to help.
UPDATE YOUR STATUS AND PROFILE IMAGE REGULARLY. Silly as it may seem, keeping your profile current can make a huge difference in how well people feel they know you, even if you don’t reveal too much about your personal life. Frequent updates will keep you at the top of your friends’ lists—and fresh in their minds. For status updates, mention places you’ve been, articles or books you’re reading and goals you’re setting. Let them get to know you. Every updates has the potential to strength a relationship with some in your network.
Twitter (twitter.com) is a micro-blogging platform that allows people to follow one another and post messages of 140 characters or less. “Tweeting” is like updating your Facebook status, minus everything else on Facebook. Some say it is dying out and is just a fad, but technology has shown that every new gadget or technological advance leads to another – sometimes a more interesting one.
FOLLOW OTHERS TO GET FOLLOWERS. It’s unwritten Twitter etiquette that when you follow someone, they generally respond in kind. This true whether you’re following your brother or the New York Post. You can’t send a direct (nonpublic) message to a fellow tweeter if you’re not following him.
CLARIFY YOUR GOALS AND POST ACCORDINGLY. Are you tweeting to find a job, or just to attract readers? To drive people to your website? to spread the word about a free e-book? Your goal purposely you are not just tweeting to kill time.
USE TINYURL.COM TO ADD LINKS TO YOUR TWEETS. This site turns unwieldy URLs into more manageable ones so that you can fit links into the 140-character limit.
VISIT SEARCH.TWITTER.COM AS A TOOL TO FIND LEGAL AND PARALEGAL TWEETING TOPICS. You can search for casual legal related conversations or tiny tidbits of information that may surprise you. Perhaps, some had a big problem with a nonpaying client and posted online.
CHECK YOUR TWITTER SCORE AT TWITTER.GRADER.COM. This site calculates “the reach and authority of a “Twitter user” based on the number of her followers, the power of her networks, the pace of her updates and the completeness of her profile. Use it to help maximize your use of Tweeter.
DIVERSIFY. Tweet on your Web browser, via blog, through your mobile phone, website widgets and more. Check out twitter.com/download to view the possibilities.
Join Carole Social Networks
Facebook-www.facebook/carolebruno/
LinkedIn – www.linkedin/carolebruno/
Plaxo – www.plaxo.com/carolebruno/
