If a law firm new to the internet and using it for their office, asks us what kinds of things they can do, one of the things we tell them to do is to post on twitter, and to use it regularly. Twitter if you don’t really get it, is a place where anyone can sign up and get an account. You can post a short message or status of 140 characters (ie 140 letters, numbers, spaces, etc). Anyone can see these, anyone can search for them. They’re a great way to do a number of things for your firm, from informational, to customer service.
I don’t want to talk about the specifics though or the technical side, like using hashmark tags to improve your tweets, or how to use it for customer service, because the first thing people need to try and do is just post what they’re doing. Regularly. But they don’t really have any ideas of what to tweet. They’re sitting at their computer, and don’t know what to put in. Here’s some ideas to help you.

• Don’t try and put in what you are literally doing. “I’m working on a brief” Put in something interesting that caught your eye. “Definitely write better brief’s when I have my morning coffee”
• You should be blogging as well, and when you blog you should post a link to it on twitter, but don’t just post the link. Describe what the blog is about. “John has a new post up about how getting a green card just got more interesting”
• Ask people questions. Especially if you can get some of your parents and friends to follow your twitter feed, it’s a great way to get feedback and opinions. “Does the new tax law affect your business?”
• Search for topics that interest you in twitter, and find people who post interesting things about those subjects. You can then rewteet those items to your followers, or you can tweet about what they’re talking about as well. Even if it’s not specifically about your firm, it shows that you guys are not just some inhuman marketing machine, which is important. People want to feel comfortable with you, so your tweets need to feel like you’re real.
• Give advice. Any basic things involved in your practice you always tell people? Any word on the street advice of how to go about getting or doing certain things? Anything people ask you alot that you can provide answers for?
• It’s important on twitter to show a human side of your law firm. it needs to feel to your clients just like they’re standing there in your office talking to you, but instead they get it during the day on their phones while they’re avoiding a meeting. It ties them to you.  Show pictures. Talk about yourselves. It’s social media. Be social.
• Don’t be cocky and constantly toot your own horn. Be modest in your tweets. Humility goes alot further online than bragdocico.
• If you have any local partners, say the business that leases the space out to your daycare or a big company across the street, promote them as well. If you promote companies in your area, they might see you and promote you as well to their employees.

Just some basic ideas of what to tweet about. The main thing is to relax. These aren’t novels. they’re short succinct thoughts and ideas and stuff to share. Look at the list above and try and tweet regularly. The more you do, the more it’ll help you.