Three weeks ago there was a game changing survey released by Green Target in conjunction with ALM showing that in-house counsel are not only using social media and reading blogs, they are trusting it for their news.
The survey has been covered on everything from Above the Law to Mashable, but most of these outlets have failed to note the significance of the findings when it comes to Facebook use in-house. (Complete survey can be viewed at http://greentarget.net) These two statistics from the survey with regards to use of Facebook by in-house counsel were particularly surprising.
37% of in-house counsel ages 30-39 used Facebook for PROFESSIONAL reasons in the last 24 hours.
28% of ALL in-house counsel for companies ranging from $1-10 Billion in revenue used Facebook for professional reasons in the last 24 hours.
What does this mean? It means that what law firms think about Facebook is wrong. In fact, what I thought about Facebook was wrong. Biglaw needs to start paying attention to Facebook, not because that is where in-house counsel is headed, but because that is where they are spending their time now.
As of March 2010, only 31 firms from the AmLaw 100 had Facebook pages, but suddenly due to an agreement between Facebook and Wikipedia if your firm has a wikipedia entry, it also has a Facebook page. Read more about this at “Firms No Fan of Facebook Pages.”
Facebook is pulling in information from Wikipedia to populate your firm’s community page whether you like it or not. LinkedIN does a similar thing for Company pages, populating the company page with information entered by the past and present employees.
What does this mean for the legal industry? Will firms now turn their focus to Facebook? Not immediately, is my guess, but joining us tomorrow at 12PM EST to talk about it on the Weekly Voir Dire Conference Call will be John Corey, President of Green Target to discuss the findings of this survey and how it is shaking up the legal world. Please join us for what is sure to be a great call. You can email questions for him to info@adriandayton.com.
8 Comments. Leave new
what an interesting study, although not I am not that suprised by it!
Social media is everywhere and companies should take advantage of the exposure and use the tools to their advantage. I would still be cautious though. I think it is good to read social media and blogs but to trust it as a news source is a little risky because there is very little accountability to what people write.