Lawyers use podcasts to expand reach, diversify content
Podcasting is often the next step for bloggers who want to make their blogs more dynamic. They're not merely flashy additions, though – podcasts make sense for reaching busy people who want to be able to absorb information in a variety of ways.
A podcast, whether audio or video, is also yet another quiet marketing tool that sometimes gets forgotten in the daily excitement of newer options like Twitter and LinkedIn. But anything that makes content available to a wider audience is a good thing.
Last week in our post on law consultant Cordell Parvin, we mentioned a lawyer he coaches who benefited hugely from podcasting. Kevin O'Neill, a partner at Patton Boggs law firm in Washington D.C., started a public policy podcast at Parvin's suggestion, with tracks going out to subscribers over email and posted on his firm's website. Some associations post the podcasts and mail them to all of their members, which has led to several speaking engagement offers for O'Neill. And eventually that podcast led to a weekly Internet radio show on the Voice America Business called "Capital Thinking" (Thursdays, 12-1p.m. ET).
Some of LexBlog's bloggers have been podcasting successfully for a while, like Seattle civil litigator Greg Guedel of Native Legal Update and law firm management consultant Ed Poll of Law Biz Blog. Both say their podcasts are the most popular posts on their sites.
"Podcasting is a fantastic way to present audio/video content quickly and effectively to a global audience, and give them the ability to view and review the material on their own time," Guedel said. "With everyone's busy schedule these days, that's an absolute necessity."
The posts on Native Legal Update and on iTunes get downloaded daily, and Guedel says the feedback has been "unanimously positive."
Poll had already been recording one-hour, professionally produced audio CDs for 11 years before he started podcasting. He prefers podcasting because there's no need to outsource the recording for production, allowing him to focus on the content of an interview or discussion.
"Doing podcasting enabled me to take advantage of the new technology, lower my costs significantly and reach more people," Poll said.
Both Guedel and Poll have begun to expand to video podcasts as well, both as a continued method of outreach as well as content distribution.
Poll added that, as a legal marketing coach and consultant, it's easier to market new technology if he knows firsthand how it works.
"Not only am I providing new content to my viewers, but I’m able to learn and be seen as an innovator of new technology tools," Poll said. "You can’t coach others – my business – unless you know the nature of the business, and I now have an opinion about the use of the new technology for practice development purposes, one of the reasons why lawyers hire me."
I regularly feature podcasts on the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center. Our readers downloaded over 18,000 of these podcasts in 2008 alone. Podcasts are probably the single most successful type of content that the insurance center offers. We've had insurance commissioners, industry leaders, and attorneys from all segments of the industry. They seem to want to record podcasts as much as our readers like to listen to them.