Law firm marketing consultants Alyn-Weiss & Associates, Inc. are experts. They’re website offers tips on how to handle the press, use social media, build relationships, and more.

While they are avid supporters of social media, they understand the risks involved for lawyers participating. I highly recommend checking out the Social Media Guidelines section of their website. They discuss issues that surround social networking sites as they pertain to lawyers, and even provide videos that offer insights and tips for legal professionals. You can also subscribe to their YouTube channel to follow their videos, which are always helpful and entertaining.

Most law firms don't have unlimited resources to devote to their marketing. If you're one of them, then you're trying to find a successful Web marketing solution that fits within your budget. Depending upon your goals, that may or may not be possible.

Internet marketing is a "you get what you pay for" world. The cheaper solutions will mean inexperienced or unreliable people working for you. Or they may do decent work on the front end, but have no follow-through or the follow-through costs extra. More costly solutions typically mean more specialized experience and more reliable service, but even that isn't always true.

So, the first step toward finding an "affordable" Web marketing company is to establish your goals and priorities. What can you feasibly spend, and what do you define as a successful Web marketing campaign. If it's simply to launch a basic website, then you can definitely achieve that goal within your budget. If your goal is to be number one on Google for "New York Injury Lawyer", and you only have $100 per month to spend, then your goal is unrealistic, and you might as well go out to a nice dinner with that money.

In most cases, you want to find a happy medium solution. Accept the fact that Web marketing, at least in metropolitan areas of any sizeable population, is not going to be cheap. But it is "affordable" if it will generate a return on investment. This is critical. Do your shopping and identify firms that not only build a website, or offer basic optimization, but also offer monthly follow-through to do the hard work that will generate results. Ask for examples of their work as well as references. Compare apples-to-apples, and if one firm does not offer a service that another does, take them to task and ask them why not.

In the end, it all comes down to trust, and it may not work out the first go-round. This is not uncommon, and is an unfortunate reality of the industry. That's why it's also important to get some sort of guarantee in writing that the campaign will generate some kind of results. You probably won't be able to get someone to guarantee cases, but they should be able to guarantee search results. Read the fine print, but know that if they offer a guarantee, they're probably more dedicated to the long haul than other companies.

Here's a short list of my favorite "tweeters" in the legal industry along with their bios. Some are well-known, some are still new, but all provide great info and links.

@Legal_Times: Law and Lobbying in the Nation's Capital

@BarrettDavid (same person as @LinkedInLawyer but with better tweets): Boston Business Litigation Attorney - World's Largest LinkedIn Lawyer Network

@AdrianDayton: Father, Husband Twitter Lawyer, CEO of Comrad Esq., Writer

@HotLawTopics: The hottest law topics being discussed. Real-time news, useful information and relevant CLE programming

@AmLawDaily: The source for daily legal business news and analysis of leading law firms

@aricpress: The editor-in-chief of The American Lawyer, an Incisive Media Publication

@injurylawyerdir: An online directory of personal injury lawyers and information on personal injury including automotive accidents and pharmaceutical injury

@ABAJournal: Continuous news updates from the United States' most-read and most-respected legal affairs magazine and website

@legallyminded: The online community for all legal professionals. Provided by the ABA, it fuses professional networking with great content.

@thelegalintel: The Legal Intelligencer is the nation's oldest daily legal newspaper

@Legal_Web_Mktg: Award-Winning Internet Marketing for Lawyers | Website Design | SEO | Custom Content | Video Production

Again, this list is short and sweet, but these are users whose updates I look for daily. You can also visit  @Page1Solutions to see a complete list who I follow on Twitter

Know somebody who should be on the list? Please feel free to share your favorite "tweeters" in the comments section below!

It has been a fun week in the legal industry. There are some really great blog entries out there from the last week, and here are just a few of them:

• Boy Suffers Serious Head Injury During Sleepover - A child was awarded $850,000 in damages for what was deemed a foreseeable and preventable incident. From The Injury Lawyer Directory.
  
• Actor Dennis Quaid Settles Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Involving Children - Once again, an incident involving celebrity children brings an important issue to the forefront when Dennis Quaid's twins nearly died because they were given lethal doses of Heparin, a blood thinning agent. The hospital recently settled and the twins recieved $500,000. From PersonalInjury.com.
  
• Wrongful Death in West Palm Beach, FL - Craig Goldenfarb, P.A., releases information on what constitutes a wrongful death for his firm. Truck accidents, emergency room medical malpractice and anesthesia malpractice are some examples of how wrongful death can occur.
• What is a Class Action Lawsuit? - A great definition of a commonly misused term from the Findlay Law Offices.
• U.S. Supreme Courts Holds: Lab Reports Are Testimonial - Differing opinions on the use of lab reports and results in Supreme Court proceedings, from Coxwell & Associates, PLLC.
  

Should your firm consider jumping on the Twitter band wagon? Absolutely.

It's easy to use and can be a great marketing and branding tool if used strategically. But, if you're not careful, the micro-blogging platform can actually hurt you.

Consider the following:

• Always give before you take. Make an effort to share information and news that is useful and relevant to your followers. And don't advertise for yourself until you've built a relationship with them. It will turn them off immediately.
• Don't spam your followers with useless Tweets. They don't want to know where you went for lunch, as much as you don't want to know where they will go for dinner. Spamming your followers will result in losing them altogether.
• When using hash tags, make sure that they are relevant to your tweets. It is very inappropriate to use a popular, albeit irrelevant, hash tag in an effort to make your tweet more visible. For example: some users have been caught using popular hash tags such as #iphone or #Iran, even though they're tweeting about something completely unrelated. 
• Give credit where credit is due. If you copy another users tweet, simply include their username and the word re-tweet (or RT) in your post.

The Twitter community takes their practice pretty seriously, and for good reason. When used correctly, it can be an incredibly valuable communication tool. But when used inappropriately, it can do more harm than good.  Just be sure to remember your Twitter manners.