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How PR professionals should approach law blogs

October 30, 2010

I just got off the phone with a good friend in Manhattan. She was talking with a large consulting firm that had begun to work with large law firms.

As a means of marketing to this new vertical (for them) the consulting firm’s PR professional advised outreach to influential legal blogs. Outreach by commenting on the blogs, emailing/calling the blog publishers introducing their firm, and perhaps offering to write guest posts. She asked for my counsel.

Wrong approach I advised. The consulting firm would be looked at like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If you’re going to engage bloggers, you need to blog. It’s as simple as that.

I’m contacted by PR professionals multiple times per week pitching this or that on behalf of their clients. The PR professionals want me to blog about their client, their product, or program.

If the requests come in an email, I delete 99% of them. When I receive a phone call, I ask the PR person what they know about me, my company, and my blog. I may also ask what they know about blogging, business development, and social media, the subjects I blog about. Usually it’s not much.

At Legal Tech in New York City this past Winter, I was approached by multiple PR professionals to meet CEO’s or other officers of companies looking to sell products and solutions to law firms. The PR professionals and their clients were fine people.

But it made for an odd conversation.

Me: “Nice to meet you, how can I help you?”
Company CEO: “I want to get on your blog.”
Me (politely): “Do you know what I do? Do you know what I cover on my blog?”
Company CEO: Blank stare.
Me (feeling a little sorry for the CEO): “My blog readers trust that I’ll share helpful information and insight on blogging, social media, and business development. I need to understand what your company does, know a little about you, and develop a relationship with you where we each trust each other before I can blog about you. To do that you’ll need to engage me online and begin to discuss the issues I discuss on my blog.”
Company CEO: “I’m a little lost. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Me: “I understand.”

If the consulting firm wants to engage leading blogs offering insight and commentary on law firm management issues, the firm needs to engage such bloggers. How?

  • Identify the most influential bloggers on the subject. Ask around. Read some blogs on the subject. See what blogs are routinely cited on other blogs. Identify the blogs with the most influence by seeing which blogs have the most RSS subscribers. Subscribe to those blogs in an RSS reader, likely Google Reader.
  • Identify relevant keywords and key phrases that may include terms of art on the subject, names of leading authorities on the subject, names of associations, and perhaps names of other consultants. Do a search for these terms and phrases via Google Blog Search and subscribe to the searches via your Google reader. This way you’ll see bloggers you’ve not identified discussing relevant matters.
  • Listen to the vibrant discussion/writing on law firm management issues by following your feeds in your reader. This listening/reading ought to be done by one the firm’s consultants with actual domain experience, not its PR professionals. Consultants can identify the good stuff, they’ll feel the desire to share what they see with clients and business associates, and they’ll want to offer their own insight and commentary.
  • Blog. Reference what the relevant influential bloggers are blogging about. Link to them in your blog post. Cite a block quote from what they wrote in your blog post. Then offer your insight and commentary on the issue.
  • Connect in LinkedIn with the bloggers whose content you reference.

If the above company CEO had engaged my through blogging, we would have already known about each other through blogging. We would have probably connected on LinkedIn. We may have exchanged emails. I may have cited something he blogged about sharing it with my readers. All without meeting. We may have even agreed to meet at Legal Tech without an intro from a PR professional.

You know what? Me citing something the CEO wrote as an authority is better than me writing about the CEO’s company or product. That way he’s developing a reputation as an authority.

The consulting firm looking to break into large law firm consulting needs to establish its people as trusted advisors and authorities to law firm leaders. No question establishing such a reputation can be accomplished, in part, by engaging influential bloggers.

But it requires true engagement.

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