Press release lame way to announce blog
Nothing says more about a law firm or another company's lack of knowledge on blogging, than the firm kicking off their blog with a press release. Just saw another press release announcing a blog from a Denver personal injury law firm this morning.
Looking at the firm's blog, the lion's share of which is focused on the law firm, is enough to show they do not have a clue what they are doing. But a press release, over half of which talks about the law firm? Who cares?
You market on the Internet by first providing content of value and then networking with others on the Internet. If you do not know what that means, find out. Read other blogs. Don't first put your ignorance on display for the world. People will ignore you at best, and at worst laugh at your well intentioned efforts.
It may, though not likely, say quite a bit about their understanding of search engine optimization though.
I have very little idea what search engine optimization is either, but I've learned a few things about blogging, first by reading blogs for four years before I started my own, and then by working a couple hours a day at it for the last eight months.
It's hard for many people to grasp what blogs are. A lot of people, even many bloggers, tend to view blogs as a new means of distribution rather than a different form of communication. So they use the same information, often in the same format, and simply put it on a website and think that is a blog.
Lawyers, by and large, are a reactionary group of people, sometimes frightenly so. It would be easier to convince some lawyers to trade their Ping clubs for a peanut butter sandwich than to get them to break out of that pompous, mirror-gazing "legal memo" format. Many law blogs are fairly unreadable because the lawyers won't drop that facade and communicate in a fresh, direct way. It's too scary. Also, a lot of blogs are written by a committee of firm members, and when people get only 1/15th of the gratification for doing something, they almost always will put in substantially less than 1/15th of the effort. Not to mention that the writing skills and creativity of any practice group within a firm are bound are vary considerably.
Well said David and very true. My point though was that there can always be several reasons why any particular action is taken. While in Kevin's world the press release may be outdated, it other worlds it still has significant value. Among other things, it can provide a nice foundation for a firm's seo efforts because it contains a link to the new blog and is republished on many popular sites.
I also think it's a shame whenever new legal bloggers are called out like this. Especially when no real "mistake" has been made. They could have sent out notices on stone tablets for all I care. What matters is the blog itself. And in fairness, it's a little early to be passing judgement on that.
Well said David, a lot of lawyers fail to grasp what blogs are and view them as a means of distributing information as opposed to a means of communication.
A press release announcing a blog makes as much sense as a press release announcing a lawyer attended a rotary meeting to network with business people in their community.
Sure, blogs play a role in achieving search engine performance (SEO), that is people finding the lawyer when they search on Google or another search engine for law or a lawyer on the relevant topic. But SEO represents a side benefit of blogging, not the primary benefit. Lawyers publishing a blog should let doing the right thing as far as blogging be their guide.
I recently blogged why reporters hate law firm PR, being the recipients of tons of meaningless press releases touting the firm. Press releases announcing a blog just add to the problem and do nothhing to help their blog. Other bloggers are the best way word of your blog is spread. Such bloggers are not going to spread the word about a blogger who announces to the world they do not know what they are doing and act in a way other bloggers do not.
Examples of lawyers doing the wrong thing are an excellent example of teaching others what to do and not to do. This 'politically correct, don't be judgmental,' attitude toward lawyers and their marketers has got us where we are today.