Here are a few tips for turning your personal website and social media accounts into extensions of your personal brand:

1. Know your strengths. If you’re a natural comedian, throw in a legal joke or two. People will appreciate the break from seriousness. But on the other hand, if you’re a straight man (or woman), don’t put on a show. When building your personal brand, it’s important that you act like yourself. People who were introduced to you online should never be surprised by your personality when they meet you in person.
2. Define a core area of expertise. You’re a lawyer; we get that. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to try and tackle real estate closings and criminal cases in your career. In real life, you know how absurd that sounds. It’s just as absurd online. So, focus on your core area of expertise in all of your online efforts. For example, if you practice environmental law, you’ll probably share news about recent changes that will impact small businesses and individuals. You may even share the results of recently closed cases along with an easy-to-follow explanation. The goal is to provide your audience with relevant information that will enhance their lives in some way.
3. Cultivate your audience. Who you share information with is just as important as what you share. Many legal marketers follow all the right steps, but stumble here. They’ll use some sort of “add me” application to get a bunch of followers to their social networking sites. But, most of those followers will have no interest in what you’re sharing. If they don’t care, they won’t share. They won’t comment or use your services either. You’ll have a long list of followers, but that’s about it. For the best results, focus on the quality rather than the quantity of your audience.
4. In this competitive marketplace, defining a core area of expertise isn’t always enough. If you’re competing with thirty other criminal lawyers in your area, you need to narrow your focus a bit more. It’s tempting to want to cast a wider net, but that wide net also widens your competition. Let’s say your core area of expertise is family law. That covers tons of niches. Decide which you want to focus on, and make that your specialty. Maybe your niche is child support for military families, or maybe you focus on fathers who want sole custody of their children. Yes, your pool of prospective clients will be reduced, but you can easily become the top expert in your niche – and all of the sudden, your services are in demand.

It’s perfectly fine, and often recommended, that you focus on building your own personal brand even when you’re working for someone else’s firm. The bottom line is that when you look good, they look good. So, if you’re not working on building your brand already, maybe it’s time to get started?

There were 3 questions asked:

1. Which law firm of more than 25 lawyers was first to launch a website and when?
2. Which court was the first to make its opinions available in electronic format?
3.  Which company was first to provide Web access to its legal-research research database, Westlaw or LexisNexis, and in what year did that happen?

Question 3 was already taken by the time I had seen the post. I found Question 2 to be a little vague, and I figured SCOTUS was too obvious of an answer. So I set off after Question 1:

Which law firm of more than 25 lawyers was first to launch a website and when?

When a query similar to the question is entered into Google, the explorer will find the answer to be Heller Ehrman, a prestigious international law firm that dissolved in 2008. Had a previous person not guessed this answer I would have probably made the same mistake. Knowing that the answer was not Heller Ehrman I decided to exclude their name from my query. This was done by placing a dash( – ) in front of the search term “Heller Ehrman”. The dash is an operator that removes a word or phrase from a Google query. Since the dash could be a minus sign think of it as subtracting out all matching search queries using that term. Also used were the quotes. When a search is done with quotes, the exact phrase is searched rather than various queries that cross reference the words you enter. So my exact search query ended up looking like:

[ -“Heller Ehrman” “first law firm website” ]

This gave me a little over 20 results(the results have since been boosted my Robert Ambrogi’s recent article). On the 2^nd page I found a possible answer. It was a blog article from an inactive law blog that not so surprisingly quoted a 2 year old article from Ambrogi’s own blog.

The pot at the end of the rainbow.

So there was a bit of a circle of life moment as Ambrogi’s was the source for his own question. If you search through Google without using these operators then you are making your life much harder than it should be. If you don’t want to memorize these operators then you can use Google’s advanced search page.

Luckily my educated guess turned up as the right answer.

Success!

Spending the time to answer this blog post correctly was initially due to my own curiosity. But in the end I received a mention on a much more popular legal marketing blog than my own, and I won a valuable prize in which I plan to use or to pass on as a gift to a party who can make the best use of it. If you are a small firm who is interested don’t hesitate to contact me. I think this shows how important it is to be involved in your respective blogging communities and interact with each other. Blogging is not about throwing words on a website. It’s an exchange of ideas. Be active on twitter, discussion boards, and comment on articles. This is the real spirit of blogging. Put in more than you are taking out. If you don’t attempt to connect with others then how will they ever want to connect with you?

You may have heard the term “linkbait” being thrown around by SEO industry leaders, but be careful. Too many lawyers produce content that borders on absurd just because they think it’ll get them some attention. A funky title may get someone to click through, but it won’t necessarily make anyone want to link to your content. If the content is poorly written or lacks purpose, you’ve lost their interest.

Here are some tips for producing “linkbait” articles:

1. Find someone who knows what they’re doing. Some lawyers are amazing writers. Some are just amazing lawyers. Don’t feel bad if all your efforts read like a legal dictionary. Just hire a creative writer to help you out. He or she can take your ideas and generate catchy headlines and easy-to-follow articles.
2. Write about current events. This is one linkbait strategy that can be very effective – if it’s done right. It’s not enough to merely regurgitate the same old information you’re reading everywhere on the web (snooze!). Instead, give your take on the issue. It may be speculative or just plain controversial, but if it’s genuine and unique, people will want to link to your content.
3. Analyze data and present your findings. Okay, so this one doesn’t sound very exciting, but people just love linking to statistics. Why? Because they don’t want to do the legwork themselves. It could be something silly like the percentage of lawyers who wear green ties on Thursdays. Or, it could be more serious like a survey of lawyers who market themselves on Twitter (the serious one may be more difficult, but it’ll probably get a few more links). The important thing is that your findings are completely your own. This is content that won’t be found elsewhere on the web.
4. Present your information in an interesting way. Articles should be broken up with subheadings or lists (like this one). Data should be presented in graphs or (better) infographics. Think of an infographic as a poster for your information. It’ll include graphs, pictures and text, so it’ll be easily digestible.
5. Create fun, funny or informative videos. Follow the same rules for creating written content here. You want something that has never been done before. You want something that will somehow enrich the audience’s life (even if it’s just to make them smile). Lawyerist.com has realized the important of quality video as one of their most recently added contributors mainly focuses on video production. His column can be found here.

Once you have amazing content, you have to get the word out. Many lawyers falter here because they think it’s enough just to publish. That may have been true 10 years ago, but it’s not true today. Today, you have to promote your content. If it’s good, it’ll gain traction; it may even go viral. If it’s bad, all the promotion in the world won’t help. And that’s why content is even more valuable than magic.

Never pay for “cheap SEO” that guarantees a certain number of links built for a certain amount of money. Link building is a dynamic process that is usually requires an long term commitment and investment of time. Any successful web marketing firm should have a case study that is at an absolute minimum of 3 months long(1 quarter). Sometimes there can be quick results due to the client not doing anything to optimize their website.  Another option that can result in a quick turnaround is the ironically the client already tried “cheap SEO” and removing all the spammy links results in a much healthier looking website. or the the client has tried to do SEO themselves(imagine the first time your spouse tried that fancy dish they saw on Food Network).

If your service provider only emphasizes SEO performance then he’s probably behind the times. “Inbound Marketing” is he new term in the industry. SEO fits under the inbound marketing umbrella but it should not be the main focus of a web marketing campaign. SEO is focused on getting noticed by robots where inbound marketing ties in strategies that are much more focused on the person at the computer. The main focus is on human beings. You the client, and the potential leads who are browsing the web.

Your web marketer’s main goal should not be to have your website rank #1 for certain keywords, it should be to help you bring in leads. If their goals are not oriented towards real people then they are the wrong business to be handling your web marketing needs.

Infspamic by Tecmark

Courtesy Stone Temple Consulting

Some highlights:

• According to their surveys the smallest firms with 1-5 attorneys have the highest use of social media and also consider social media to be very important to their overall marketing strategy. The smallest firms also have the least amount of red tape in the way of their social media policies. Is this because of the high importance/use they place on social media or just because they’re small?
• The majority of lawyers still use BlackBerry as their main brand of smartphone, will this continue with the recent troubles experienced by RIM will BlackBerry still be the #1 smartphone if it is used by lawyers at all?

Click on the image to view in full screen.

Infographic courtesy of Vizibility Inc.

The event was held at Parker Poe Law Firm in downtown Charlotte. The accommodations were more than adequate and the location was amazing. The firm was beautifully furnished with wood paneling nearly everywhere as well as a beautiful chandelier in the lobby.

The agenda for that day was :

• Building Your Brand

• Perfecting Your Elevator Speech

• Tips on Working a Room

• Using Social Media to Create Conversations

Camille spoke about building a brand and the elevator speech, while Kathryn finished up the last two(working a room and social media). The presentation covered a wide amount of angles from which to build relationships and network. My favorite quote was:

“Business development is the natural outgrowth of developing authentic relationships and helping people solve problems. “

The LMASE is a great resource for lawyers looking to modernize their practices and to learn how to network locally. I’m very excited to have found them. Debbie Lawrence has been more than cordial every time I have come.

Even your little sister is on Facebook, but the truth is that social media is still a new and largely untapped resource for the law community. That’s probably because lawyers understand how posting the wrong thing can get you into some serious trouble, but that alone shouldn’t keep you away. Social media is becoming one of the best ways to meet new clients online, but there are definitely some “dos” and “don’ts” to follow. Here are a few to get you started:

Do interact with other lawyers and potential clients on social media sites. This is how the “getting to know you” phase begins. Be yourself and show everyone that you’re a real person, not just someone sharing information from a legal handbook.

Do make a consistent effort to post on social media sites. People need to see that you’re in it for the long haul, so posting once every two weeks isn’t going to cut it; you should try to post at least once every day.

Do share information that enhances someone else’s life. You’re probably following the latest trials more closely than the average Joe or Jane, so you can easily become the source for relevant news stories. Share links and ask people’s opinions about the trial details. You see, you’re helping your audience by sharing information, and they’re helping you by sharing their opinions (think of it as market research).

Don’t shamelessly promote your firm. It’s okay to throw in a plug every now and then, but people aren’t following you for advertisements. Provide value to them or they’ll hit that “unfollow” button faster than you can say “I object.”

Don’t practice law. This one can be tough for many lawyers, but it’s important that you don’t give legal advice online. The laws of legal practice vary from state to state, but every state has guidelines that govern who can give legal advice to its residents. If you’re giving legal advice to someone out of state, you might be breaking the law.

Don’t contact people related to your case. It’s okay to research jurors on social networking sites, like Facebook, but you can’t let the jurors know you’re doing that research. It can be a tricky situation, but you can get into serious hot water for friending a juror or another person related to the case.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it will provide a good foundation for you to get started on social media. As long as you’re careful to follow some simple rules of etiquette, and to follow the rules of the law, social media can be very rewarding for you and your practice.

Sally J. Schmidt, President of Schmidt Marketing Inc.

Sally had a lot to go over in short period of time so there are a lot of notes to go over. Luckily I had a voice recorder and I was able to take decent notes. Ms. Schmidt was very courteous to any questions I had.

The main points of her presentation were:

·         How to identify core clients/industries

·         Determining client needs, priorities and characteristics

·         The continuum of client-focused teams defining the role of the team

·         The role of the marketing department and staff (as well as other administrative departments) in developing and supporting these groups

·         Coordinating client-focused activities with those of substantive practice groups

·         Identifying appropriate marketing and business development activities for the groups

There will be more posts on these topics to come! Stay Tuned!

The Charlotte City Club was spectacular. I can’t think of a more beautiful spot to host a meeting. We were 31 stories up, but a glance out of the window was needed to know that we were still in the city. The club was quiet and tastefully decorated.  A delicious lunch sized salad was served by an attentive and professional wait staff. I found myself barely able to keep my concentration on taking notes with my 5 star salad right beneath my nose.

There was an excellent turnout, probably because this was a joint meeting with the Association of Legal Administrators(ALA). I saw probably 4-5 empty seats in the entire room. It was a great chance to meet new people for networking or conversation.

What was best about the LMA is how they provided a place for like minded professionals to meet and relax, yet we also were able to to learn a great deal from one of the best legal marketing professionals in the business. Hats off to Debbie Lawrence, I hope these meetings continue.

If you have a website, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You may even have hired someone to handle this for you. But, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. No, in today’s competitive landscape, you must be producing quality content – or you’re irrelevant.

If you want to remain relevant (and, who doesn’t?), you need to get the ball rolling now. Here are some tips for producing quality content on your site:

1. Provide Value – Is there one question that clients ask more often than anything else? If so, it means that people are confused. There is a need to be filled, and you’re the man (or woman) for the job. Write out your explanation in an easy-to-follow format (lists or paragraphs with subheadings work well) and publish it on the web.
2. Decide Where to Publish – You can publish content on your own website, through a blog or on a legal article directory. If you publish the article on your own site or blog, it’s up to you to direct traffic to that page. If you publish it on a popular article directory, all you have to do is provide a link back to your own site and you’ve gained credibility and a potential new audience. Neither solution is wrong or even better; it just depends on your goals.
3. Promote Your Content – Regardless of where you decide to publish, you’ll want to promote your article. Find out where your clients (and potential clients) are hanging out on the web: Which social media sites. You might be nervous about this one because you know that as a lawyer, using social media does provide some unique challenges. Prosecutors and judges alike have found themselves in hot water for Tweeting or Facebooking during a trial, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid this medium. Social media is a great way for you to connect with your clients and share all the great content you’ve produced (solidifying your spot as an expert in your niche).

Lawyers often get to see firsthand how sharing on the internet can be damaging to one’s career, but it’s important to remember that as a lawyer, you have more “know how” than the average Joe, so you can easily sidestep any landmines and focus 100 percent on promoting your services.

Many lawyers still opt for traditional marketing methods, so you still have an edge. Don’t let it slip away. Don’t let yourself become irrelevant.