Header graphic for print
Real Lawyers Have Blogs On the topic of the law, firm marketing, social media, & baseball

Blogs allow law firms to do their own PR : WSJ

Public relations is critical for law firm marketing success. PR, as opposed to advertising, where you pay for exposure, means raising your profile and reputation through being quoted in the media, others citing you, speaking engagements, and the like.

Unfortunately, getting good exposure in the media and becoming a go to source for reporters look for an expert has been out of reach for many lawyers. PR firms can charge $2,000 to $15,0000 per month. And having used good and caring PR firms, I can tell you it’s a crapshoot as to the coverage you’ll get. You’ll also find that your domain expertise and knowledge of the trade publications and conferences is what makes PR work tick.

Good news as the WSJ’s Kelly Spors reports (sub req’ed), getting the word out through the effective use of blogs, RSS, and social media is allowing effective PR without the assistance of a PR agency.

Traditional media like newspapers and television news channels are no longer the gatekeepers of ‘news.’ The Internet offers business owners many ways to garner publicity and raise their own profile. Some strategies include adding a blog to a business’s Web site, doing search-engine marketing so that your Web site shows up near the top of a Google search, using social media sites like MySpace and Facebook, posting a video on YouTube.com and writing an email newsletter……Adding a blog that’s updated regularly can offer several benefits. It may establish you as an expert in your industry, but it’s also more likely to generate links to your Web site from other sites. Getting other sites to link to yours in turn will boost your site’s ranking on search engines……Business owners also can generate their own list of journalists to pitch stories to by tracking coverage in their industry using Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, feeds, which let users collect news articles and blog posts in one place.

LexBlog and many of our lawyer clients are drawing regional and national media attention by virtue of our blogging. None of us are spending a dime on PR. It’s not unusual that I’ll have 3 interviews in a week. Clients have told me of regular appearances on NPR and being interviewed by leading trade publications focused on the industry which they represent.

Our lawyer clients are regularly networking with reporters whose stories our clients have blogged about. Such lawyers email story ideas to reporters who the lawyers find an email away. Our lawyers are blogging about conferences a which they’d like to speak. The result is conference coordinators getting to see our clients as authorities and inviting them to present.

Admittedly PR firms have value. But when selecting a PR firm find one that’s familiar with blogs and RSS. Find a PR firm which feels comfortable that through your blogging and effective use of RSS, you’ll be an integral, if not the leading, force in your PR efforts.

  • http://bizop.ca michael webster

    A blog is also useful for self publishing legal ideas that are either not developed enough for publication in a journal, or lack the appropriate outlet. It is also important to engage in forums with non-lawyers to explain the signficance of your ideas in a plain talking manner.
    My sense is that it is easier to continue a blog if you think of it as primarily organizing your thoughts about a legal topic and not worry so much about the marketing end of things.
    (I say this despite being regularly contacted by journalists through my blog and other online writings.)
    BTW, you would really install some plugin which will alert people about the comments on a specific entry. RSS feeds, as you have them now, simply bring me new posts and not the comments on previous entries. Given that I have over 250 RSS feeds, which is probably average, it is unlikely that I will browse beyond the RSS feed. Just a thought. Your clients will probably also like the plugin to use on their own blog.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin

    No doubt Michael that blog is wonderful for self publishing. Could be because post would not rise to journal article itself like you say. Or perhaps because there is not an outlet for such a niche oriented post. Follows the long tail concept of having the ability to distribute hard to find items at small volumes – something not possible before low cost distribution like publishing on a blog.
    I agree that marketing cannot be forced. I don’t think of marketing LexBlog services when posting here and elsewhere on the blogosphere. But at the same time it’s the only thing I do for PR and marketing.
    And yep, we’re working on feature for subscribing to my posts/comments for next rev of my blog that will be up no later than a week.