Library Stuff

My last post on marketing spurred some e-mails and comments, so I figured I would expand a bit. One question raised via e-mail was a general one with a simple answer.

How?

While the steps that I have taken over the years to market my abilities to attorneys is fine-tuned and a bit outside the box, there is one very simple thing that anyone can do to market their abilities to those served.

E-mail.

Huh?

Yup. E-mail.

Whether we want to expand our technologies via Twitter, txt, IM, or RSS, e-mail is the primary way that, at least in my world, people communicate. It’s always, “shoot me an e-mail” or “e-mail me that PDF” or e-mail me the schedule”. I get and send at least 100 e-mails a day.

So, even though I don’t use e-mail as my mode of kepping up, my clients do. So, I use RSS to keep up to date with mostly everything that I know they need (remember, the reference interview doesn’t end when the person walks out the door, hangs up the phone, or sends the initial question) and send them, via e-mail, what I read (and I read alot).

But that’s only half of it. Attorneys like to know that they are reading breaking news. They want to send this news to their clients as quickly as it comes in. Most partners who need to bring in more business to the firm are like this as it sets them apart from other attorneys who are trying to get the same clients.

Still with me? When I’m reading my reader, I’m looking at the most current stuff (news posted 2 minutes ago, or anm article published with the hour) and when I click that e-mail button on my reader and quickly dash off the link to the attorney within 2 seconds, I then feel the power of RSS. This is impossible to do, at the scale that I’m working on, via e-mail. RSS is a very powerful tool for marketing and I also use it to get new lawsuits filed against current and potential clients.

One of my points here, besides the ease of marketing via RSS, is that we shouldn’t assume that our clients are doing this stuff. It’s our jobs to make sure that we are doing it, so that they, in turn, will tell us that they appreciate the work, or (and this happens much less often), to stop sending new stuff.

Marketing. It’s a love of mine. Can you tell?

To help clients keep current, I read alot. Whether it be e-mail alerts, RSS feeds, or text messages, I read everything I can get my hands on that could possibly have an effect on the work of the attorneys I work for. It’s a passion of mine and always has been, believing that if I care for the client’s work, my client will, in turn, care about me and my work, and in turn again, give me more work. It’s how I’ve done legal research for almost 10 years now. And it works.

So, I was thrilled to read this piece in AdAge today Take a look:

“How I wish I had an Insight & Information Department — a smart person (or a few) responsible for keeping me ahead of the curve. A person with access to research tools such as MRI, Simmons, Iconoculture, etc. At worst, it would save me the 15-20 hours a month I currently spend reading and synthesizing information. At best, it would give me ready access to research that will make the work we do more compelling and effective.”

Wait a minute. Librarians can do that! Here’s more:

“More importantly though, and in keeping with the spirit of this blog, smaller agencies need to have access to smart people and smart research. Whether it’s just the basics of someone actively scanning current marketing writings, magazines, books and blogs and making sense of it all for us, or a more robust option that includes the aforementioned research resources. Our world demands that we have access to and utilize compelling insights to keep our work and our clients’ brands relevant.”

Yes. Yes! Yes!! Pick me. Pick me!

Ladies and gents, this is why we need to get out of the “librarian circle” and read from other professions. Because they want and need us to fulfill something that they don’t have. In the corporate world, people want answers quick, and 2 different answers can mean the difference between getting a million dollar client and seeing your competitor get them.

Corporate librarians have the power, knowledge, foresight, and wholehearted ability to do this stuff. Go get ‘em! Market, Market, Market!

While Greg Schwartz re-examines his Twitterness, I’m finding that my Twitter groove is starting to flow again (maybe all of this stuff comes and goes in cycles). I’m figuring out the whole timing thing by not logging onto Twitter while researching. When I’m doing mindless tasks (like approving invoices, data entry), I’ll jump on to say hi, but as soon as I get a research request, off it goes. It seems to be working rather well.

I’m also in the process of denying most requests to follow me on Twitter. Before you call me pompous or narcissistic, hear me out. You see, I’m pretty new at this online social networking thing (I don’t do MySpace, Facebook, altghough I have been on Flickr for a while and my blog has been around for a bit too) and have just begun to understand the craziness at its core.

I’ve had some Twitter issues in the past where some followers didn’t understand me and accused me of being mean to them. What they didn’t get (and what everyone else did) was that I was joking, because that is what we librarians do in Twitter. You can’t hold a serious conversation with colleagues in 140 characters with all of your other Twitter followers “looking” on. It just doesn’t work that way.

So, I began the process of blocking those that found me “offensive” as well as those I thought might get “offended” about other stuff that I Tweet about in the future. I also made the choice to only accept Twitter follower requests of those that I have actually met in person at some point in my career or have had a few e-mail or phone conversations with.

The result is that for every 50 people I deny, I accept 1. What I’m finding is that this totally works for me. Not only do I feel a lot more comfortable in Twitter with my friends, but it cuts down on the possibility that I will be following too many people and get burnt out quicker. Win Win Win.

I’m going to do the same thing for my Flickr account, although I won’t be blocking anyone. I’m just going to mark followers as friends and/or family and work from there. Barbie has wanted me to do this for a while and it’s about time I did it.

I’ve learned more about friendship, collegial bantering, and online social networking choices in the past month, and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve also learned that if I am going to speak my mind and have an opinion outside of this blog, I’m still not going to hold back. I’m just going to make sure that certain people are listening.

We’re having a semi-restful weekend after one of the craziest weeks. Ever. Tomorrow, we are hosting our first Seder and then back to work on Monday.

Regular blogging should resume this week, but I’m thinking of a new format. We’ll see how that works….

CNET has the ending of this unbelievable story.