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Legal connections with the ICBC, the sole provider of auto coverage in that province. "I don't provide legal advice on my blog but I do provide a heckuva lot of information," he says. Finding that information isn't always easy, but often what he does is tease out an interesting tidbit within a court judgment involving ICBC and then writes about it. Blogs aren't new, but Twitter is a rela- tively recent phenomenon for many peo- ple. It limits people to 140-character post- ings that are basically micro-blogging. That doesn't leave much room for posting useful legal information but, as Magraken points out, Twitter is part of his overall web strategy for driving traffic to his blog. The idea is that many of the 949 people who follow him on Twitter will click over to the ICBC law site. At the same time, Twitter has been a great source for networking with other lawyers as well as people who know about using the web to generate business. "What I get from Twitter is I learn how to better market myself online through the people I follow," he says. The key is search-engine optimization. "My goal is always to be on the first page of these search phrases that people use," he says. Recently, a Google search for "ICBC injury claims lawyer," for example, ranked Magraken as No.1. Regularly updating the blog is a big help, as well as posting infor- mation on highly ranked sites such as JD Supra, he points out. Linking his own blog to people who subsequently return the favour also boosts his rankings. As a result, his blog is getting about 9,000 hits a month and generating lots of inquiries from potential clients. "I get con- tacted probably 60 times a month through the blog from people with personal injury claims," he says, noting that while the initial calls or e-mails may involve simply providing information to people consid- ering legal action, he's often the person they think of once they take that step. Legally speaking, social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are so far largely the domain of smaller law firms or individual lawyers while most of the largest national firms hold back. At Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Simone Hughes, the firm's national director of business development, says BLG is using Facebook and LinkedIn but for the moment is content with testing some of the newer social media options. "Most of our audience [is] general counsel in Canada, CEOs, [and] CFOs. So if you think about the demographic . . . not all of that audience is on YouTube. If we're on that, and our audience is not on that, it's not very cost efficient. We want to be ahead of where they're going, so in some social media we're in [a] test phase waiting for more bulk usage of it to make it more cost efficient, and in some we're already there." A few Big Law firms have made the leap into tweeting on Twitter: Oslers, Ogilvy Renault LLP, and Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. BLG, too, was there by mid-May. For the most part, their tweets consist of links to news items already posted on their web sites. It's a conserva- tive approach but one people involved in Erik Magraken of MacIsaac & Co. icbclaw.com/blog www.jdsupra.com/profile/erikmagraken doing for us other than [increasing] our hits to our web site," she notes, adding that as a firm focused on employment law, it's already developed a Twitter follow- ing among other lawyers and arbitrators since launching its tweet feed in March. Reposting news items from the Hicks Morley web site takes little work. "On the firm side, it's very low maintenance [and it takes] little time to post that," says Carnevale. The firm has given licence to a hand- ful of its lawyers to take a more liberal approach to social media. One of them, Dan Michaluk, operates similarly to Magraken by posting information on legal topics on his blog, which now links to his Twitter page. The benefit is it is cheap and has helped generate client referrals from other lawyers. Twitter, Michaluk points out, takes very little time since it usually involves posting snippets of information that he puts up elsewhere. "I tend to do it in cabs and airport lounges," he says. In Michaluk's case, his Twitter feed is a blend of the professional and the per- sonal. In one recent tweet, for example, cheese schmoozing but it's done online." — ERIK MAGRAKEN, MACISAAC & CO. legal marketing say is an appropriate one given the need to protect a firm's image and brand on a web site known for speed and information overload. "You always want to do more, but my hat is off to them for starting to test it out," says Michael Rabinovici, senior vice president of stra- tegic initiatives, at AR Communications Inc. north of Toronto. The goal, he says, is to use social media to establish oneself as an expert in the field, the benefits of which outweigh legitimate concerns about them. "In terms of the business risk, I would say that the risk of inaction is far higher than going into it." A boutique firms that is on Twitter is Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP in Toronto. It, too, is moving cau- tiously on what Susan Carnevale, the firm's manager of marketing services, says is a test to see how Twitter can benefit the firm. "It's hard to tell at this stage what it's he briefly described a 17-hour drive with a cat that "wouldn't leave my lap!" The choice was deliberate, something he says "shows the real Dan Michaluk as well." And he adds, he and fellow Twittering col- leagues have the blessing of Hicks Morley which trusts their judgment to use the platform responsibly. It's an arm's-length model that he argues is better than that of some firms that force lawyers to embed their blogs within their own web sites. "You limit the ability to use a voice that connects with people when you do that." Still, Michaluk points out he has his own rules, including not tweeting or blog- ging about his own cases. "I'm not going to use a matter that I'm working on to promote myself or Hicks Morley. It's just not worth it," he says. Countering the business impacts of the recession isn't just about connect- ing to new media, of course. Law firms www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com JUNE 2009 29 "It's basically old-fashioned wine-and- twitter.com/erikmagraken www.facebook.com/pages/Victoria-BC/BC-Personal-Injury-Lawyers-and-ICBC-Claims-Lawyers/36839493643?ref=ts • Borden Ladner Gervais LLP www.linkedin.com/companies/borden-ladner-gervais-llp twitter.com/BLGLaw