Cyberlaw: professional social media self-branding project

CONSOLIDATED GUIDANCE PAGE: PROFESSIONAL BRANDING PROJECT

Quick links to information about the professional branding cyberlaw project.

Click any of the links below to jump to a section of the assignment.

What this project is about.

This project is intended to help you develop a professional online self-branding presence. You will create, revise, and/or upgrade your professional social media presence.

First, if you do not already have them, you will create Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for professional self-branding purposes.

Second, over the course of the semester, you will develop your professional online presence, including creating and refining profiles; posting and sharing content; interacting with others and building a network; using analytics; and more.

Third, you will create an internal report to me on your social media activities, including information such as: your profiles (including cropped screen caps); examples of significant postings/offerings of information; information on your developing networks (analytics such as number of followers, retweets, analytics, etc.); and reflections on your goals, the extent to which you’ve reached those goals, and plans for further development. Your report will be posted to me privately online on our class blog, in blog form. You can include media such as links, photos, embedded videos, and more. Your report will also include a digitally signed attribution/certification form. To receive a score in any project, a certification form must be digitally filled out and signed. Cf. FRCP 11(a). The certification form is provided as part of the template for your WordPress report.

Educational outcomes.

The goals (outcomes) of this project are to help you to:

  1. Understand the law. Use your social-media activities as a springboard for deeper understanding of cyberlaw issues;
  2. Online professional branding. Develop a professional online presence that you can continue to use prior to and after graduation; and
  3. Technical experience. Gain technical knowledge on internet technology and tools against the backdrop of the study of internet law.

Training and project-related tasks

Create your social media profiles. In class, you will create social media profiles. On LinkedIn you will use your real-world name. On Twitter, I will assign you temporary @handles. You will later propose @handles and names to use on Twitter, subject to my pre-approval. For Twitter, you may either use your real name or a pseudonym, subject to the Professor’s approval.

Select focuses for your social media profiles. Remember, one of the goals of this project is to help you develop your real-world branding in social media. So you should be creating profiles with an eye towards graduation and beyond. That means you should create profiles, content, and networks that reflect what you think you’d like to do beyond law school.

  • LinkedIn: Build a profile, content, and network that can serve as a foundation for your main professional online presence.
  • Twitter: Build a profile, content, and network that reflects your current and potential practice interests. It need not be cyberlaw-focused.

Choosing a Twitter name and @handle. Don’t register a new Twitter name or @handle until I approve of them. We’ll do this in class.

Your listed name and @handle can reflect your name, an interest, or a personal brand you want to develop. Note that: 1) be sure to check to see that your choices are available; 2) do not suggest any @handles that are deceptive, defamatory, or potentially infringing on the rights of others; and 3) do not use any of your proposals until I approve them.

Further guidance on listed names: You can, but need not, use your personal name. Mine is listed as “Professor Nathenson.” President Trump’s is “Donald J. Trump.” The New York Times’ is “The New York Times.” Pope Francis’ English Twitter feed is “Pope Francis.” The Florida Bar is listed as “The Florida Bar.”

Polish your profiles. You’ll polish your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, adding images, bios, and clean links. In particular, you’ll:

Clean up your LinkedIn URL. Your default LinkedIn URL will have a bunch of numbers in it and look unprofessional. Go to this link for info on how to clean it up.

Create a good LinkedIn biography. I will ask you to submit a one to two paragraph bio for your LinkedIn profile. I’ll give you feedback. You might also find these four links helpful (one, two, three, and four). Among other things, your bio should:

  • Be well-written, without jargon, and tell your story
  • Be three to five short paragraphs with lots of white space, with the most important info in the first 92/220 characters
  • Include media (links, more)
  • Be targeted at your audience, showing your value, authenticity, humor, and relevance to your audience
  • Consider your professional goals
  • Include logos, experience, education, and “other”

Use Twitter’s bio space. Twitter also has a bio space, which permits you to add a short bio. Because Twitter is less formal than LinkedIn, it is appropriate to show a bit more personality here. A short, pithy bio is appropriate. You can even use emojis.

Add images to your profiles (see below). It is inappropriate to leave yourself as an “egg” (lacking any profile photo). In fact, good image selection goes hand-in-hand with thoughtful branding.

For LinkedIn, use a friendly but professional head shot. Not a mug shot. Not a selfie. You should look friendly but professional.

For Twitter, you have more flexibility. You should not remain an “egg,” but you can choose whether to use a professional-looking shot, a friendlier shot, or something entirely different. The only thing I ask is that you own the copyright for any profile image you use. You may not grab something off the internet. A selfie might work here.

Header images. Your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles should also use header images. Again, use images to which you have copyright rights and which are consistent with your branding.

In-class photo shoot; use good photos and images for your profiles. On a designated day, I will bring in my good DSLR camera and do a photo shoot. I am no professional photographer but the price is right (free). I’ll make your full-resolution images available and will transfer full copyright to you. You are not obliged to use these images, but I highly recommend that you use one of these (or some other) professional-looking shot for LinkedIn.

Interact and network-build. If you already have a profile, then expand your network. If you don’t yet have a profile, then you’ll establish and expand your new network. As discussed in class, each of us will have their own comfort level regarding who we view as suitable potential additions to our professional networks. That is for you to choose, and not me (regardless of whether you have a broad or narrower view of who is appropriate, please discuss your comfort levels and strategies in your social media self-report).

To build your network on LinkedIn:

First. All of us have lived a life already. Each of us has a network and history that you can build upon: current job, prior jobs, your current school, your prior schools. Go to https://www.linkedin.com/mynetwork/. LinkedIn will probably suggest people that you may be interested in adding.

Second. Seek out people with whom you have existing professional relationships, as well as people who are similarly situated to you (such as current and former classmates). For example, in the main search box, search for “St. Thomas University School of Law.” You’ll find the logo for STU law. Click on it. On you are on the STU Law page, you’ll see links or boxes for employees and alumni. Explore those results for people that are suitable for your network.

Third. If you want to practice law in a particular area, such as intellectual property, admiralty, or environmental law, then link to lawyers who practice in that field. In other words, don’t start building a network when you search for a job, start building that network now so that it is already in place when you search for that job. For example, search “environmental law” in the search box. LinkedIn will then offer to show you “Environmental Law in people.” Click on that link. It’ll show you people who practice in that field. You can also use the filter boxes to change the geographic location and degree of connectivity. This will expand or narrow the search. Also, if you find people you want to link to (but don’t personally know), then don’t just send an invite. Write a short note explaining why you want to connect.

To build your network on Twitter:

How Twitter differs from LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you link to people. When somebody accepts your invitation to link, each of you automatically follow the other. But on Twitter, the functions of “following” and “being followed” are distinct. On Twitter, you can follow someone who doesn’t follow you. This is common on Twitter. Also, someone can follow you even if you don’t follow them back. (Hint: If you don’t like being followed by particular account on Twitter, then it is easy to block that account.) Thus, network-building on Twitter requires both: following and being followed. Obviously, it’s much easier for you to follow others than it is to convince everyone to follow you.

Following others. It is easy to find accounts worth following. For now, I recommend that you follow accounts that are consistent with the “brand” you are developing as part of your Twitter identity. Thus, find accounts you are comfortable being identified with and which you would be interested to read. Here, your concern is building up a list of accounts you want to read regularly and that you are willing to be identified with publicly. Consider this part “building your public affiliations” and part “building an online reading list.” Most of these accounts will never follow you back, but that’s ok. You can’t expect @wsj or @nytimes to follow you back on Twitter, but they are well worth following.

How to find others worthy of your network. There are several techniques worth using that are quick and effective. First, Twitter will make suggestions to you. Second, you can search Google for a person or entity. Go to Google, search their name, add the word “Twitter” and you may find a link to their Twitter feed. (Hint: some accounts on Twitter are fake. If a person on Twitter has a blue “verified account” icon, then you can much more confidently assume the account is genuine.) Third, use the search box on Twitter to search for matters you are interested in and then select “people.” That may give you accounts worth following. Fourth and finally, look at the follow lists of people who you already follow. For example, if you follow an IP lawyer, look at who she follows. That may give you ideas regarding accounts you might also wish to follow. Consider this a way of using the network-building work of someone else as a shortcut for you.

Getting others to follow you. This is obviously more difficult because the choice of getting others to follow you is up to others. Here’s what you should do (and this is why you should not leave your social media work until the last minute):

Follow them first. The best way to get follows from accounts you want is to follow them. Follow people who do the kind of work you want to do.

Interact with others. Don’t just follow others. Interact. Retweet people you want to follow you (with comments). Even better yet, reply to their tweets and follow them. Others are much more likely to follow to those who genuinely interact with them.

Genuine efforts to build profiles and build networks. I am looking for genuine efforts to build profiles, networks, and to interact with others. As I have noted throughout the semester, you should be developing these things early and continuing them consistently rather than saving it all for the end. I am not looking for huge numbers, but I am looking for meaningful and genuine efforts to accomplish these things. That means, among other things:

  • Profiles with photos (no eggs) and meaningful bios.
  • Themes/branding consistent with your interests and career goals.
  • Consistent use of Twitter (and to a lesser extent, LinkedIn) to post things and interact with others.
  • Use of multiple techniques and tools (tweets, retweets with and without comments, replies, #hashtags, @shoutouts)
  • Genuine efforts to build a network

Use advanced social media networking techniques. In class, we’ll discuss the usage of:

  • #hashtags (which allow others to find posts on the hashtag);
  • @handle tagging (which “shout out” to the tagged user)
  • Tweeting (creating a new tweet). Tweets can be:
    • Text alone
    • Text plus AV (such as link, images, video, or a GIF)
  • Retweeting: normal (which places someone else’s tweet in your feed)
  • Retweeting: with comment (which places someone else’s tweet in your feed along with your observations)
  • Replying to others (when you reply to the tweet of another)

Leverage your content.

  • Your work for each of the projects should fuel one another.
  • Thus, when you work on your blog posting for the other project, you will come across resources of interest. Tweet such materials, comment on them.
  • When you post something on Twitter, you should consider cross-posting it using the social media tools of LinkedIn.

Documenting Twitter analytics. To see your analytics, go to Twitter (while logged on and using a computer) and click on your profile image in the upper right-hand corner. Click on analytics. You should screen cap and crop relevant portions of the information for your social media report. Further training will be provided in class.

Your self report using WordPress. You will use WordPress for your self-report.

WordPress: basics, adding tweets, videos, and images. We will do in-class training on how to draft with WordPress, including how to add images, Tweets, YouTube videos, and more. We will also discuss IP considerations. You can also see the page Embedding media; how to find media (password protected).

Backing up WordPress. In-class training. See also How to back up your WordPress drafts.

Doing screen caps. In-class training. See also Taking screenshots and clips on a Windows PC or a Mac.

How to use the self-reporting template with certification. You will prepare your social media self-report using WordPress. A pre-formatted form can be found by logging into the digital garbage site. I will prepare a report template for you to use, you will find it in your draft post directory. At the end of the report form is a certification form to be filled out and signed digitally by you. If you need a fresh copy of the social media report, you can find one at http://digitalgarbage.net/2017/06/28/p1-template/ (password protected).

Meetings with Professor. I am available to meet throughout the semester. I also require an individual meeting with each of you towards the end of the semester to give you feedback on drafts, and to provide any help I can on topics, tech, symposia, and social media work.

Key due dates.

As you will realize, there are multiple tasks peppered throughout the semester. For those, please see the Assignments page. The main and ultimate final deadline for the project will be your submission of your electronic self-report, along with electronic certification. These are both due end-of day, 12 midnight EST on Friday, July 20. Simply save your work to digitalgarbage.net and email me when your report is complete and ready for my review. If you don’t email me I won’t be sure you’re done.

Template to use for your self-report.

Your score will be based on your performance in the project along with your report, which you will submit in WordPress on digitalgarbage.net. You must use the report template. An uneditable example of the template may be found at http://digitalgarbage.net/2017/06/28/p1-template/. I will upload an editable copy of this template to your DG contributor account. You will revise your personal copy of the form, filling in information in portions of the document in brackets. The other parts of the form should not be changed. Note that for me to accept your contribution, you must fill out, digitally sign, and certify the Attribution & Certification form at the end of the template. After you submit the final version of the form, email me to let me know you have submitted it. You may not make any additions or changes to your report after you submit it.

The components of the report are:

  • Name & site info
  • Where you started
  • Goals
  • Sources of content
  • Examples of content
  • Statistics on content
  • Self-evaluation
  • Additional information
  • Attribution & certification

The form walks you through what to put where, and indicates materials that should be included (such as embedded Tweets, screencaps, tables to be filled out, and information to be provided). You should not change or edit anything other than fields with brackets around them.

Permitted and prohibited assistance; certification.

I encourage each of you to seek out, and to provide assistance to, your current Cyberlaw classmates. Lawyering is a collaborative learning experience, and I want you to learn from your apprentice colleagues. That means you can ask and answer questions, seek and provide suggestions, and seek and receive comments on forms and drafts.

However, you absolutely may not seek information or assistance from anyone who is not currently enrolled in this course (such as other students at STU). This prohibition includes, without limitation:

  • STU students not currently enrolled in this course.
  • Lawyers and other legal professionals.
  • Tech professionals.

Thus, you can give and receive help within the class. The only thing I require of you in return is that you fully and truthfully fill out the certification form, in which you will state who you helped, who helped you, and how. Err on the side of revealing too much information rather than too little. The certification form is already included in your report template. Fill it out fully and sign it digitally.

Scoring and additional guidance.

Scoring for each component will be done on a 4.0 scale (actually, up to a 4.5, which would reflect the equivalent of an A+ for a particular category).

Category % of score
Content 10%
Branding, profile, bio 10%
Network-building & interaction 10%
Techniques used 10%
Twitter bottom line 5%
LinkedIn bottom line 5%
WordPress report 50%
Proper certification 0%/100%
Total 100%

Assuming you provide timely work throughout the project, your overall score is based on the considerations above.

The final score for this project will count for 1/3 of the overall final course score. The other portions of your final course score will come from your other project (1/3) and class participation (1/3).

Below is a brief explanation of each category, with further guidance.

What each means:

Content (10%).

  • Are you supplying an meaningful amount of social media posts to Twitter (and to a lesser extent, LinkedIn)?
  • Are you doing so consistently?
  • Are retweets and links posted from reputable sources?
  • Are you simply retweeting or posting links, or are you also adding original tweets, as well as posting questions, comments, or opinions to retweets and tweets of others?

Branding, profile, bio (10%).

  • Do you have clean, clear, well-cropped, and professional profile photos and background(s)?
  • Do your postings and comments and interaction provide a clear message of your planned brand?
  • Are you sending a consistent message that will be discernable by your intended audience?
  • Do your Twitter @handle and name make sense?
  • Did you fix your LinkedIn URL to a clean URL?

Network-building & interaction (10%).

  • Are you using techniques to build a network?
  • Are you following all class members and professor?
  • Are you following relevant other persons?
  • Are you interacting with:
    • Members of class
    • People outside class
    • Having others follow you
    • Retweeting others (with or without comments)
    • Liking posts
    • Using @ handle to reply and shout-out
    • Using #hashtags

Techniques used (10%).

  • Are you using various techniques such as
    • #hashtags
    • @shoutouts
    • Retweets (with or without comments)?
    • Replies
  • Are you taking advantage of the various tools available to you? For example, LinkedIn permits many types of information to be provided. It also has logos for many institutions.

Twitter bottom line (5%).

  • Are you making a genuine and serious effort to utilize this platform as a professional development resource?
  • This can be demonstrated by consistent development of your profile, content, and network.

LinkedIn bottom line (5%).

  • Are you making a genuine and serious effort to utilize this platform as a professional development resource?
  • This can be demonstrated by consistent development of your profile, content, and network.

Quality of WordPress report (50%).

  • Is your report clean and well-formatted?
  • Did you preserve the formatting of required portions?
  • Substantively, did you provide all required portions of the report?
  • Are you providing meaningful, well-written responses?
  • Are you including required media (Tweet embeds and cleanly cropped screen caps)?
  • Did you provide meaningful reflection and self-critique?

Question: should you provide other information in your social media report? If you believe it would be useful to provide other information in your memo or your report, please do so. Such information may enhance your score in any applicable categories, but only if it is pertinent. Over the years, I have seen excellent case files, both thick and thin. So do not “pad” your file with irrelevancies: they will neither impress me nor help your score. 

*Certification of Originality, Attribution, and Disclosure (0% of score if properly completed; 100% of score if not).

An absolute requirement to obtain a score. As such, it is not separately scored but no score will be given to a submission that lacks certification. If you forget to certify, I will give you the opportunity to fix it. Cf. FRCP 11(a).

You must include a filled-out attribution form that reveals any assistance you provided or received. The form is attached to the end of the memo template.

You must attach to the memo (in the appendix) any pre-existing materials you used or relied upon. For example, you must provide copies of any C&D letters, DMCA notices, or complaints that you used as templates. You need not, however, include copies of the memo or complaint templates, since I provided them to you, or any statutes, cases, circulars, or other legal materials, since I can find those through a citation.

Projects received lacking a signed and filled-out and attribution form will receive no credit, unless the defect is promptly cured after being brought to the student’s attention. Cf. FRCP 11(a).

Attribution forms with materially incomplete or false information will lead to reductions in score for the project, or overall reductions in the score for the course, with possible referral to the academic integrity committee. Cf. FRCP 11(b)(3).

**Timeliness.

As noted above, there are a number of deadlines for the project. Untimely work may impact your overall score, so make sure to turn in all materials on time. As noted above, if you will not be in class on a deadline day, then make other arrangements, such as dropping off work with me or with the faculty secretaries (Mariela, Diana, or Suzi).

Links and other helpful information.

Your audience. Your audience is to a large extent your own choice. Part of branding is determining who you want to present yourself as, and to whom you are branding yourself.

I’m your professor, not your lawyer. As noted in class, I’m not your lawyer and there is no attorney-client relationship. Having said this, here are some suggestions below (which include being respectful to others and using common sense).

When tweeting, posting links, and using third-party sources, stick to reputable sources. Don’t use tweet or retweet any crap you find out there. Use reputable sources. And draft as if it was going to published for real. After all, your post might actually go online if you and I both agree that it should. Remember, sharing your opinions is fine but remember that statements of fact can create real defamation liability. And sometimes an opinion can create defamation liability if it is based on assumed facts.

IP considerations. As noted repeatedly, your Twitter and LinkedIn profile photos and background images (as well as media you upload) should be your own, or something clearly in the public domain (such as an indisputable government work). You will have to reveal in your report how you got that stuff so be ready to justify what you’ve used. And don’t just grab photos or videos to upload to your profiles as if they are candy. Remember what Larry Lessig said: fair use is sometimes nothing more than the right to hire a lawyer when you’ve been sued.

Save your work. Often. You will be using WordPress for your social media self-report. I recommend you save your ongoing WordPress works in progress to help prevent a data-loss disaster.

  1. Go into your editor
  2. Click on “text”
  3. Copy the text version of your posting
  4. Paste that text into a *.txt document and save it

Also make sure you have digital copies of your profile/background photos as well as any text or materials you upload (such as bios).

See also How to back up WordPress drafts.

Helpful links.

Here are links that you’ve already seen, but collected in one place. Some of the links are password protected. The password is provided in class; email me if you don’t have it.

Revised July 4, 2018 (adding guidance on building Twitter and LinkedIn networks)