With over 270 million active users, a curated Twitter presence can be used for real-time organic advertising, a source of legal news and your main networking platform. The key to success on Twitter is that you must remain active, relevant and timely. By using Twitter for marketing, networking, client outreach and content creation, you can easily budget, plan, and integrate these elements into the rest of your quarterly or annual plans.

Here are three innovative ways lawyers can use Twitter to get an edge on their competition and grow their online presence.

Periscope

Live video streams such as Periscope (acquired by Twitter in 2015) and Meerkat (loosely integrated into Facebook) are untapped resources ignored by the majority of attorneys. Creating measurable leads to your social networks, this is a inexpensive and attractive way of connecting with clients and followers given its novel features and ease of use. With Periscope you can produce live videos, discover other streams to watch, engage with viewers, and save streams to your camera roll – independently, inexpensively, and all from your smartphone. You can also customize the title, location, privacy, who can comment and whether or not the broadcast posts to Twitter. Think of this as your alternative to webinars and podcasts – with personality, live interaction with viewers, whilst also building a highly relevant understanding of a future form of evidence. Benefits: It puts a live face to your online presence, an innovative edge to your brand, and streams rich content from your smartphone without any additional investment. This cost efficient feature requires one creator, one smartphone/tablet – and can achieve significant returns. Pro Tip: It’s the interactive future of the business of law that some industry professionals have already tapped into – with many legal experts such as Mitch Jackson (@MitchJackson) and Dan Lear (@rightbrainlaw) frequently ‘Scoping. Let your clients meet and interact with you in an alternative setting that your competitors don’t yet provide.

Twitter Video

A staggering 82% of Twitter users watch video on Twitter. Currently, “native video on Twitter drives more overall engagement than third-party videos shared on Twitter; with 2.5x replies, 2.8x retweets and 1.9x favorites”. Though still quite experimental, Twitter video is a great resource for attorneys that, again, is economical, easy and untapped. Create new, humanized and experimental messaging for your customer base without any added costs. Benefits: Create an impression with a 30-second video accompanying your standard Twitter messaging. Give thoughtful insights into the services you provide, and who you are – but gain twice as much return than your usual Twitter and social networking efforts. Pro Tip: Always remember that your video is a reflection of you and your law firm. Making a shaky video using your phone/laptop just won’t cut it and can negatively affect your reputation. Be thoughtful and consider your audience in every video that you post. Taking an extra few minutes to set up your shots and using a high quality camera can make all the difference.

Twitter Moments

Announced as “Twitter’s most important new feature” (read: profitable) Twitter moments are slowly rolling out globally to users as the main feature of 2015. Aimed at novice users, attorneys currently not utilizing Twitter have the perfect opportunity to adapt and enhance their social media game with this feature. Providing more longevity to tweets, Moments will consist of curated collections of tweets, images, videos and other Twitter content – in bigger dimensions and easy to follow features.  Moments is designed to give you global oversight into events happening outside the limitations of the accounts you follow. Lawyer Benefits: Optimize your use of Twitter for research, news and case matters without wasting billable hours scrolling through your Twitter feed or struggling to find the right content. This is a resource to ensure that your account can be full of the richest and most up-to-date content, news or images as an invaluable resource for your clients, followers, colleagues and more. Pro Tip: If you reside in a country where Moments is still scheduled to roll out, such as Canada, curate your own updates by interest such as Law, Tech, and others by way of Twitter lists. Alternative use of social media is no longer a foreign concept for solo and small law firms. For more tips on effortlessly integrating social media into your practice, watch this pre-recorded webinar from Clio, Law Firms in the Social Age.