What social networking tools do you use?
I primarily use Twitter and LinkedIn, though I keep a Facebook profile too. Why the first two? They’re the spaces my market hangs out in, I find their annoyance factor pretty low, I have fun with them, and I learn something when I’m hanging out in them.

What social networking tools should mediators use?
It’s not for me to say. The right social networking sites for you will be determined by what you want to achieve, where your target market hangs out, and how you like to interact with the web. I recommend getting clear on your goals for social networking (help on this below), picking one or two social networks, and experimenting over a period of 90 days.

How do I get the most out of social networking?
What you get out of social networking is in direct proportion to how much you put in. The more of a resource and participant you are, the greater the outcomes for you, generally (assuming you’ve invested the time to learn how to use it well).

Do people who use social networks online have lives? They seem to have way too much time on their hands.
Yes, we have lives. Most of us, I hope. I can’t speak for others, but I am judicious in how much time I spend and very clear what I want to accomplish when I am on Twitter and LinkedIn. Except when I’m eating lunch and want to be entertained, when I do act like I’ve got more time on my hands than I really do!

How do I get started?
Good that you asked. Here are some resources to guide and inform you. And if you have other questions, be sure to leave a comment on this post and I’ll follow up with some thoughts in reply.

Recap of select social media articles here at Mediator Tech

• Twitter 101 for mediators (be sure to scroll down to see the resources list below the video)
• Build a business network with LinkedIn
• Networking online: using LinkedIn to make connections with clients
• Social media: join the shift from monologue to dialogue
• Micro-blogging goes mainstream says Wall Street Journal
• Blog commenting as a mediator networking activity
• 4 reasons online networking is valuable for mediators even if your market is local

New Twitter and social media resources elsewhere

If you take the Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or other social media plunge (go ahead, pick one and just try it out), check out these tools and pieces of wisdom:

• Twitter and personal branding: The BIG mistake I see people make every single day – Superb advice from marketing thought-leader David Meerman Scott.
• Twitter alerts – TweetBeep, a useful tool for tracking Twitter conversations you’re interested in.
• How I use Twitter at volume – Chris Brogan answers the Twitter question everyone asks eventually.
• How not to be a jerk in Facebook – more smartness from Chris Brogan.
• Twitter, the soundtrack – Smart and funny list of music inspired by and for Twitter use from my friend Terry Starbucker.

Happy tweets,

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

All aflitter about twitter: answers to your social media questions

Reader-only resources are a special thank you for those of you who’ve bought the book and supplement some of the ideas discussed in its pages.

Here’s an excerpt of the new article:

Before you print up more or new brochures for your mediation marketing, consider the waste of most brochures:
 

• Brochures are static. They capture you for a moment in time only.
• If you’re new in the mediation business, the likelihood’s pretty high that your print materials will be out of date within 6 months. That’s because you’ll refine the way you describe what you do as you hone your practice and your marketing.
• Brochures tend to be generalist, trying to say everything to everyone, so you can use them for multiple purposes. If you’ve been a reader of Mediator Tech for 6 months or more, you know I believe that trying to be everything to everyone with a broad generalist market is the kiss of death for too many mediators.
• Brochures eat trees. At a time of growing interest in minimizing the environmental consequences of excessive paper use, more and more of us are printing only when we know the resource will serve someone effectively.
• Done well, brochures are not inexpensive. Paying for quality graphic design, quality printing, and perhaps even quality copywriting can add up quickly. The ROI with brochures is unclear enough to suggest your money may be better spent elsewhere.
• Done poorly, brochures do more to harm your ADR business than help it. Designing them yourself with stock logo and printing them on your home printer can convey an unprofessional image you don’t intend.

I usually advise mediators to forget printing brochures and take an alternative, much more effective marketing materials path instead.

Read the rest of the article at Forget the Brochure and Use Customized Resources Instead. You’ll need to own the book to gain access.

Odds and Ends

For those of you interested in joining one of my workshops or seeing me speak, I’ve got several gigs coming up around the country in the next month:

• Making Mediation Your Day Job, Maine Association of Mediators Annual Meeting, Augusta, ME, November 19
• The Sustainable ADR Career: What Mediators Can Learn From Hybrid Cars, Southeastern Mediators Summit keynote address, Nashville, TN, December 1
• Marketing Your Mediation Practice: Craft Your Plan for the Next 90 Days, Southeastern Mediators Summit 2-day workshop, Nashville, TN, December 2-3
• Client Relationship Management: How to Track, Groom and Grow Your Client Base, New England ACR Annual Conference, Shrewsbury, MA, December 11

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

6 good reasons mediation marketers should skip the brochure

While you watch the first, ask yourself, How would I approach my mediation marketing if I thought like this guy?

While you watch the second, ask yourself, What if I played with my mediation marketing idea-generating like a child plays?

One Day Like This

Tim Brown: The Powerful Link between Creativity and Play

[Obligatory note: If you can't see one or both of the videos in your email or feed reader, click on the post title to head straight to the page and you'll find them there. Some feed readers and email software don't translate the video embed code well.]

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

Creativity, marketing, and playing like a child

There are a number of excellent mediation and ADR blogs now, of course, and I link to and reference many of them regularly in my posts here at Mediator Tech. But there are far fewer that focus exclusively and in a very focused way on the public market (i.e., not all or in part for fellow attorneys, mediators, arbitrators) many mediators are trying to reach.

What makes a top-notch conflict resolution blog for the public market

The blogs that I’m naming here have a number of characteristics in common:

• They are clear about the audience for whom they’re writing.
• They stay on message.
• They have content that’s substantive and speaks to their audience’s questions and interests, not content that’s more of interest to mediators and lawyers than to the lay person.
• They have a unique voice. You can tell there’s a person behind the blog and can feel like you get to know them a bit.
• The focus of the content is on the prospective client, not on the mediator-blogger’s brilliance.
• They post regularly enough to stay relevant and are active at present, meaning they’ve had new posts within the last 30 days.
• The writing is competent and professional.

5 top-notch ADR blogs for the public market

1. Resolving Conflict in Teams – Guy Harris does a great deal right with his blog. His intended audience can’t be missed because it’s the title of his blog. His posts consistently offer genuinely good and interesting content for his audience and he stays on topic – his readers know what to expect from him and they get it. He writes regularly enough to stay in people’s minds. And the blog’s layout is clean and navigable (I note he uses WordPress, which I consider the best of the blog software options).
2. Campus-ADR Tech Blog – ACR just awarded Bill Warters the 2008 William Kriedler Award for Distinguished Service to the Field of Conflict Resolution and when you visit his blog, you begin to understand why. Bill’s blog is one of the few that’s stood the test of time – just take a look at that archives list. He’s relentless about staying on topic and he knows his audience extraordinarily well (and as someone who’s been in higher ed as both a professor and a dean, I can say that with some authority). Bill has a knack for finding cool stuff that makes his readers want to stay subscribed.
3. Colorado Family Solutions Center – This blog’s audience and focus is crystal clear in 10 seconds. If I were a divorcing parent looking for a mediator who could help me navigate co-parenting, parenting plans, and negotiating child-rearing issues with my soon-to-be ex, I’d feel like I’d come home when I landed at this blog. Posts provide careful and creative details on the kinds of topics divorcing and divorced parents care about because they’re dealing with them every single day.
4. Pace and Kyeli: Authentic Communication – This blog has a unique design and tone that set it distinctly apart, and the authors don’t bland-ify themselves to try to speak to everyone. When you read Pace and Kyeli’s posts, it’s easy to see that they write in a way that conveys real consonance with their “authentic communication” tagline. They speak with passion about what they believe and honestly about their own attempts to live those beliefs.
5. Real Divorce Mediation – Nancy Hudgins’ and Debra Synovec’s blog is shiny new and it’s joined the blogosphere with a bang. Nancy and Debra are abundantly clear about their intended audience and the blog’s content echoes that clarity beautifully. Their posts so far provide a nice balance of resource and advice and I can imagine prospective clients getting a very good scan of what it would be like to work with either of them.

The limits of this list

I hesitated before sharing this list, because I know, inevitably, I will have missed some blogs that are equally due celebration but that I don’t know about yet or don’t have the time to follow carefully. And the list is English language-oriented because both my German and Spanish are just rusty enough to make discernment difficult in those languages.

Kudos to those who write these blogs for creating sites that do a terrific job of conveying their styles, competence and knowledge for clients. Do you know of a conflict resolution blog that’s well done for the public market? Please share it in the comments!

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

Top-notch conflict resolution blogs written for public consumption

I’m proud to be among the contributors to The Age of Conversation 2, which comes out on October 28. My essay, “Emptying Your Teacup in the Age of Conversation,” uses an old Zen koan, or story, to discuss the new marketing as an act of dialogue, instead of an act of controlling a one-way message. Collaborating on a book about conversation was a natural extension of my work as a dialogue-builder and my work helping mediators market themselves more effectively.

Not only does the book promise to be a compelling read about marketing and dialogue, but it also promises to do good in the world: 100% of profits will be donated to Variety, the Children’s Charity. Every one of us who contributed agreed to channel all proceeds there. You can buy it in downloadable e-book ($12.50), softcover ($19.95) and hardcover ($29.95) beginning on the 28th.

These are the contributors that helped make The Age of Conversation 2 happen. Why not click on some of the names and visit their blogs? I plan to find some new, informative and compelling reads from this list and hope you will, too.

Adrian Ho,
Aki Spicer,
Alex Henault,
Amy Jussel,
Andrew Odom,
Andy Nulman,
Andy Sernovitz,
Andy Whitlock,
Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham,
Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay,
Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins,
G. Kofi Annan,
G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw and James G. Lindberg, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

The age of conversation is here: are you ready?

If you’ve been considering Twitter, or have just started using it, check out this week’s Wall Street Journal article, Twitter Goes Mainstream. An excerpt:

“When the service first appeared a couple of years ago, its appeal seemed largely limited to narcissists who wanted to let everybody know what they were doing in real time. But, like blogs and social-networking sites, Twitter is starting to cross into the mainstream, as a wide range of people find interesting uses for the brief notes.
 
“Doctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims’ conditions. And dozens of major companies, like computer maker Dell Inc., use Twitter to share deals and product news with people who sign up for the service.”

Odds and Ends
I’ve mentioned I’m keynoting and leading a two-day mediation marketing workshop at the Southeastern Mediator’s Summit in December. If you’re looking for events that offer Continuing Mediation Education (CME) credits, you can earn up to 14 credits at the Summit. My keynote, The Sustainable ADR Career: What Mediators Can Learn from Hybrid Cars will get you 1 credit and 13 more are available for attending the two-day skills-based courses.

And on a related note, are you a Maine mediator? I’ll be speaking at the Maine Association of Mediators annual meeting in Augusta on November 19 and would love to say hello to you in person.

Written by Tammy Lenski of MediatorTech.com and released under this Creative Commons license. Get your download of the subscriber audio gift by clicking on this link: Target Markets for Mediators

Micro-blogging goes mainstream says Wall Street Journal