Nielsen’s BlogPulse reports “unprecedented 3% of all total blog content” dominated by Haiti earthquake.

Last week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti has put a spotlight on both profound suffering and incredible generosity. The official White House Twitter feed reports that $8 million dollars has been donated through online channels alone to the Red Cross (this is through $10 cell phone-debit donations by texting HAITI to 90999). Social media channels, especially Twitter, have proved instrumental not only in providing coverage of the disaster, but also in helping to find survivors, locate family members and raise needed funds. More than traditional media ever could, eye witness blog posts, Twitter feeds and video footage have reached and involved more people around the world because they are direct, unfiltered and immediate.

In the world of law firms, two managing partners of large firms here in D.C., Stuart Pape with Patton Boggs and Bruce McLean with Akin Gump, recently announced $50,000 donations towards Haitian relief efforts with additional donations to come from the firms to match employee donations. Such efforts are admirable and generous and worth broadcasting as they encourage further generosity from employees, other firms and clients. Peer pressure can be a good thing at times, and using your firm’s social networks (be they blogs, Twitter feeds or LinkedIn rings) to broadcast corporate philanthropy further supports the causes you believe in.

A new reason to act has emerged this month amid all the current buzz about social media adoption in professional services marketing—and we all have the folks at Google to thank for this prodding. The new development? Google search results will now contain real time content from across the Web (from sites like Twitter and Facebook). You can read Google’s December 7th announcement on its blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.

Why should professional service marketers pay attention to real time search? To quote one search marketing analyst/pundit, John Ellis, “the simple fact is there is a direct correlation between social media and search rankings.” From now on, the work you do (or should do) to tweet, link or otherwise post activity and content surrounding your practice area, industry program or thought leadership initiative is as—if not more important—than the work you do on your Web site meta tags and keywords.

Bottom line, there’s more opportunity to climb organic search results, but there’s also more reason to figure out your social media strategy and tactics.

Once upon a time I resisted Twitter. My affair with micro-blogging began mostly as an experiment. At first, the whole idea felt narcissistic. Who cares what I’m doing right now? Can one say anything meaningful in 140 characters? Nevertheless, I joined Twitter and wrote a few cryptic posts about the mundane things happening in my daily life. I doubted that anyone would read what I had written—let alone “follow” me. But all that changed one night when I was looking for a new pair of shoes on Zappos.

Unexpected Results

After thirty minutes of fruitless searching, I came across a particularly garish pair of Ralph Lauren metallic loafers, I couldn’t help but throw a “Twitter fit” and write about my frustration. By the next morning, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, was following me! (Apparently, Zappos tracks Twitter writers to see who mentions their company.)

Then I started to do a little investigating. Tony has used the power of social media to such an advantage, his company has become a social phenomenon. He and his leadership team maintain an extensive blog about their brand and its values at http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/ceo-and-coo-blog. The employees also have their own Zappos Twitter accounts, through which the company has given them the freedom to Tweet about whatever they want. That may sound like risky business—but instead, it’s worked to their advantage.

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According to a recent Harris Interactive study and reported in AdWeek, the largest growing demographic of social media users are people aged 45+. This makes sense. Younger people took to the medium early and joined in the early stages. Older people did not. Now older people are coming in at numbers that stagger. Whether their reasons are for business, pleasure, or a combination of the two your audience as a professional services marketer is flocking to this space.
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Nothing could be more topical for professional services marketers than social networking. We’re all atwitter about the possibilities. After all, the delivery of professional services is built on relationships and that’s the promise of Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  While the jury is out on the effectiveness of these tools, particularly the ROI, none of us is willing simply to sit on the beach while the Next Big Wave washes over us. So, let’s jump and explain to your folks why you have carpal thumb syndrome.

Understand the basics

Businesses can no longer ignore the growing network of people communicating online and through blogging specifically. The number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002 is roughly 133 million, with over 346 million people globally reading these blogs. That’s a lot of people! The challenge is to create a blog where people will visit—and return.

Set your strategy and define your goals

The culture of blogging is all about being real—real people sharing real experiences and insights. Often, novice bloggers confuse their business blog with advertising or PR efforts. They try to use their blog as a forum for self-promotion instead of delivering value to their readers. Yes, blogging can align with marketing, but don’t let it be your main goal. Readers ignore blatant advertising tactics. If you try to scam them as Sony once did, you’ll get trashed online. The truth will come out. Therefore, it’s important to identify the goals of your blog from the beginning and layout a strategic plan.

Some common goals:

• Gain industry exposure
• Build brand awareness
• Connect with existing customers
• Deliver value through relevant content
• Be seen in the industry as a thought leader
• Build communities of supporters
• Drive traffic
• Increase new business.

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