This Thursday (10/28) at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, hear Avvo’s General Counsel, Josh King, provide an overview of Ethical Issues in Online Legal Advertising & Social Media. It’s free to attend and lawyers from Washington, California and New York will also earn 1 hour CLE credit.

Topics covered will include:

• Online Advertising:  How rules differ for paid online marketing, and ways in which they are very much the same.

• Attorney & Law Firm Websites:  How to treat attorney websites, solicitation, in-person communication or material requested by a potential client?

• Social Media:   Social media (twitter, facebook, blogging, etc.) raises a host of issues with respect to advertising rules.  Topics will include thoughts on ways to use these tools while still complying with advertising and solicitation rules.

Sign up here!

You all know the First Amendment requires the separation of church and state.  And you probably also know that the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting United States women full voting rights, was passed in 1920.

The 2010 Midterm Elections mark the 90^th year that all United States citizens have had the right to vote, a span during which voter turnout has fluctuated wildly.   In 2008, national voter turnout reached its highest point since 1968, with 56.8% of eligible voters making their voices heard through scantrons nationwide.

So this coming week, as you get home from the office, collect the mail, trip over a dog toy, wonder what to make for dinner, and kick off your shoes, don’t let those Voter Guides slide into the pile of junk mail on the kitchen table.  Take a few moments to consider the issues, watch a nasty commercial or two, Google the initiatives, check out the candidates on Avvo, and make informed decisions.

Celebrate 90 years of equal rights, and vote.

Bing recently announced that it has integrated Facebook “likes” into its results, which is a major victory over its arch nemesis, Google.  But what does this really mean for lawyers and marketers? Read on to find out.

Search and social are merging

The idea that social and search are merging is not new.  It’s been a subject of discussion for a long time, but its actual manifestation has been somewhat of a question mark – e.g., will people simply start using social search (like search.twitter.com) instead of Google? Will search engines directly serve up social results (like a chunk of real-time Twitter results in Bing)? Will search engines incorporate social popularity into their behind-the-scenes algorithms (like rewarding websites often cited in Twitter)? Or will Google/Bing displace the Twitters and Facebooks of the world by creating their own social features?

We began to see the amalgamation of search and social take shape last year when both Google and Bing began to incorporate Twitter and Facebook real-time social results into their pages.   And we’ve also seen some less-than-spectacular attempts by Google to supplant other social media sites (Google profiles, Google Buzz, Google wiki, etc.)

Bing takes it to the next level

Bing’s integration of Facebook is the next step in the merger of search and social, although some are even claiming it’s a major shift in the balance of power from search to social.  Rather than just pumping Tweets into its results pages for a touch of real-time data, Bing is now using your friends’ Facebook “likes” to produce recommendations for certain search queries.

An example is if you type in “San Francisco restaurants,” a part of the results page will include restaurants that your Facebook friends have “liked.”  These types of results don’t appear for every query you type into Bing, and they don’t interfere with the “normal results,” but local business queries, for example, seem to trigger them (assuming you have Facebook friends who like what you’re searching for).

Facebook “like” data, generated by 500 million users, is a treasure trove that Google doesn’t necessarily have access to, which is why this is a big victory for Bing (even though Google has said there are “other ways” of getting the data if Facebook won’t hand it over”).  Google’s strategy has always been to crawl the open web to find out what’s popular and relevant to searchers, but with the dawn of semi-closed giants like Facebook, Google finds itself potentially cut off from valuable social information when companies like Facebook play favorites.

Bing’s latest Facebook integration is a lot more sophisticated than simply shoving Tweets into results pages – that just tells you what people are talking about on Twitter regarding your search; this tells you what your friends, whom you trust, are saying about your search.  It’s night and day in terms of trust and relevance.

So what does this mean for lawyers and marketers?

Many are skeptical about using certain kinds of social media for legal marketing, which is completely fair, because, for example, Facebook can be an awkward way of reaching potential clients for many lawyers. But as the marriage of search and social media is maturing, it’s clear that if search matters for lawyers (which it certainly does), then social media will too, since search engines are increasingly looking to social to influence search.

To give a concrete example today, if you want to rank highly when people type “Boston family lawyer” into Bing, then having lots of people Facebook “like” you or your firm could be a distinct advantage.

In the future you can expect that the social element of search will become even more sophisticated and smoothly integrated, where social data influences search rankings without being separated from them.  In fact, it’s speculated that Google might be relying on social popularity as a part of their ranking algorithm already (it’s 6% of the ranking formula today, according to this survey).  Search engines relying on social data makes total sense, because while inbound links used to be the sole measure of popularity on the web, nowadays Twitter mentions, Facebook likes, etc. are equally valid signals of popularity, and therefore search engines would be unwise to ignore them.

Aside from search engines needing to rely on social media to measure popularity because that’s how the web is evolving, it’s also clear that social media is becoming an important prize being fought over by Bing and Google, as both are vying for the best social media integration to one up each other.  You can count on this social media arms race to continue, driven by two well funded competitors who are convinced it’s the future, right or wrong.

This isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are not the end-all-be-all of social media.  The big picture trend is that if people are taking the time to rate and review things online, then search engines want to incorporate that data into their search results.  So if people tend to review lawyers on Avvo rather than Facebook, then search engines will be smart enough to look at Avvo rather than Facebook when deciding which website to serve for a “Seattle lawyer” search.

This is why, even today, Google includes Avvo reviews in some attorney searches.

So if Facebook and Twitter aren’t your cup of tea, don’t worry too much, because there’s an entire universe of social media out there, and the search engines are smart enough to look where the conversations are actually happening, rather than obsessing over Facebook/Twitter.

Building beachheads

How exactly lawyers can get more involved with social media is a big enough question that it’s best left for another day, but today’s Bing announcement highlights its importance.  We are still in the very early days of the social and search merger, but it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where this is going.  The distinction between search and social is melting away, slowly but surely, and for lawyers and marketers, it makes sense to get started building some social media beachheads early on, or at the very least, start getting comfortable with social media.

Answering questions and posting Legal Guides is a sure way to get eyes on your profile, upgrading to Avvo Pro allows you to turn more of those visitors into potential clients. This short video highlights the features of Avvo Pro you may be missing out on and shows you how to update your profile to take full advantage of your Pro subscription.

Last week Lisa Solomon, lawyer and founder of Lisa Solomon, Esq. Legal Research Writing, was a guest for our weekly free legal marketing webinars. In just over 60 minutes she covered many great techniques for persuasive and effective writing in legal briefs, marketing copy and client communications.

If you were not able to attend, here is the presentation once again:

Powerful Writing Techniques to Help You Persuade Judges and Win Clients with Lisa Solomon from Avvo on Vimeo.

Cory Doctorow wrote a thought-provoking piece this week on the fool’s errand of trying to stop the free flow – and copying – of information and entertainment online:

“The topic I leave my family and my desk to talk to people all over the world about is the risks to freedom arising from the failure of copyright giants to adapt to a world where it’s impossible to prevent copying. Because it is impossible. Despite 15 long years of the copyright wars, despite draconian laws and savage penalties, despite secret treaties and widespread censorship, despite millions spent on ill-advised copy-prevention tools, more copying takes place today than ever before.”

Whether we’re talking about works of art or government records, the internet has made all data much more freely accessible and transformable. This is an unequivocally good thing for the vast majority of people, who can enjoy, connect, create and learn in ways unimaginable a generation ago. Who isn’t it good for? Those who create desirable content, and those who profit by controlling access to information.

The reactionary, lawyerly answer is more of what we’ve had to date: more widespread censorship; more draconian laws. If piracy exists, we should legislate against it and go after the violators, right? The problem is that it doesn’t work. Legalistic efforts to stem this tide are no more effective than Prohibition or the “war on drugs”, and even more prone to pushing ancillary costs onto lawful uses. Slowing the internet down, denying access, creating barriers: All will catch a tiny percentage of pirated content, while burdening everyone else.

As Doctorow points out, we’re at a dangerous point, where ever-more-desperate media owners are seeking brute-force, intrusive methods of copyright enforcement. While such efforts will most certainly fail to achieve their goals, there is great potential for collateral damage. It’s time to replace this reactivity with creativity, with novel ways for copyright owners to adapt and thrive in a world where information flows freely.

In case you missed last week’s guest webinar with Jack Newton, the co-founder of Clio, we’re happy to provide the recording! Jack provides an excellent overview, along with insights and tips for best implementing a cloud-based practice management system: