SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LAWYERING IN THE 21st CENTURY

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LAWYERING IN THE 21st CENTURY
At the advent of the new mileninium, men every where experienced an upsurge in the amount of information at their disposal as knowledge and information could be shared and transfered from one continent to another at the blink of an eye lid.With the democratization and liberalisation of information arose a new myriad of challenge as government could no longer draw an effective red line between what is classfied and secret information. However the new media as it is also known has also opened up new vistas of opportunites to people around the world today , effectively connecting demand and supply and providing more than just an avenue for social frolicking and relaxation as serious business deals are opened and closed online, thereby  blurring national borders.
What the above represents is that no indivual (especially Lawyers) that is serious about being relevant in today's increasingly competitive world can choose to stay outside the trend or without basic knowlegde of how to cash in on the opportunties available on the social media.
The social media presents opportunity to lawyers to project a positive image and build a unique personal brand identity. That has the potential of increasing their client base and also building on their industry or  market visiblity. It is therefore very important to be very delibrate and intentional about the image we project 
on line. It becomes very strange therefore to find a lawyer posting lewd pictures online or posting pictures that are unprofessional. and unbecoming of a learned indivual. I often laugh when I see my friends using their under grad. Pictures as profile pictures. While it is true that law is a very conservative profession, however lawyer are also expected to be up to date in social trend's. A clean portrait size picture with you dressed corporately sends a powerful message about your personality.
LINKEDIN
Linkedin is a must for every lawyer today.in fact most serious advocates have abandoned facebook and actually pay huge sum's of money to experts to help them manage their linkedin pages. While I will not advise you to abandon facebook as that will cut you off from her over one billion users. I will strongly recommend that you pay more serious attention to linkedin. While facebook is a social network I believe linkedin is a business network. I had to recently edit my bio on facebook because I was becoming uncomfortable with the kind of people that had acess to my wall and the kind of conversations that most of them tried to initiate. With me . However no such worries exists with linkedin as it is mainly a platform for very serious minded professionals and enterpreneurs. With over 8.5. Professionals on board and over 500, 000 high net worth indivuals and top recruitment officers on board. Linkedin has become the number one destination for HR and recruiting firms. Jobs or business offers gotten on linkedin are verified thus eliminating all the fear of scam and fraudulent. Transactions that is now common with other social media platforms. Next to your email I believe linkedin should be the first thing every lawyer should check online everyday. 
It is also important to delibrately build a strong network of connections on this new media platforms. It is nearly useless to just open an account if you have no intention of frequently updating it and responding to trends and conversations that are initiated by your friends or. Connections. The only time you know some people exist online is when you get their birthday notifications. All this social network introvertism can be detrimental to building a 21st century pratice as many times a client may feel slighted if their messages are ignored or are not responded timeously.it is therefore important to frequently go online to at least  check our inbox and respond to pending messages.
Lawyer should pay keen attention to their e-lawyering skills especially the new media platforms as it becomes increasingly difficult to work effectively as a lawyer today without them.