Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

Darren Rowse of Problogger asked his readers publishing blogs where they got their biggest levels of traffic. The results are displayed below.

I find it pretty interesting, like Darren, that social media sites are the number 1 source of traffic for 15% of bloggers. I also agree with Darren that if he asked the same question 18 months ago social media sites would have barely registered on the results.

We're always a little lagging in the legal industry. I am finding some blog traffic coming from social media sites such as Twitter and Stumbleupon, but I'd guess it's only 5 or 10% of my traffic. Most of my traffic comes from people coming directly and by others mentioning a post of mine in their blog or online publication.

Where does most of your blog traffic come from?

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Why are blogs becoming so popular for businesses, including law firms?

Per business coach Deborah Micek in an article in this morning's Honolulu Star Bulletin:

The answer is simple when you consider the history of marketing and communication: A blog exponentially multiplies the world's oldest, favorite and most-trusted form of information sharing -- word of mouth.

People love sharing what they know with like-minded friends.

Think about it. Whom do you trust the most to give you advice, recommendations and information about opportunities, purchases or choices?

If you're like most people, the person you trust the most is someone you know -- someone whom you feel is just like you.

That type of trust comes from personal communication, conversations and relationships built with people who share common interests. When your blog is integrated into a complete new-media marketing strategy, it delivers all that and more.

And why do blogs work so well per Micek?

• Blogs are instant publishing tools that allow you to easily update your content, create relationships and build trust with your target audience.
• The power of blogs is not in the technology, but in the two-way conversations that create personal connections.
• A blog becomes a personal extension of the author, who builds relationships by responding to the feedback from clients and readers.
• Blogs are not just for press releases, product updates, or company news. Blogs are an open door to communication where customers and prospects can voice their opinions, contribute to product development and become part of your company family.
• Blogs provide the public with a more reliable way of getting news and information, free from mass-media manipulation and interruption marketing.

Slow down and think about the history of lawyer marketing for a minute.

Until the 1977 Supreme Court decision in the case of Bates v. Arizona State Bar we didn't have any lawyer marketing or advertising. Notta. No yellow pages. No law firm newsletters. No ads on busses. No TV ads with 1-800-lawyers. No websites touting the wonderful exploits of lawyers.

How the heck did we lawyers survive? By reputation spread by word of mouth. And we earned this reputation by establishing ourselves as reliable and trusted authorities. It didn't necessarily come easy. We worked at. And that was okay.

Now we expect instant client development by throwing dollars at advertising, search engine optimization, and what ever the next snake oil salesperson will serve up for thousands of dollars.

Doesn't word of mouth make more sense in the long run? For a lot of lawyers and other business people who are blogging it does.

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And your law firm's managing partner or CMO says no one in our target audience reads blogs?

Google Trends, a service that lets you compare the world’s relative interest in particular topics, suggests that blogs’ popularity have surpassed that of newspapers or magazines, at least on Google.

Source for post: Digital Inspiration

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Thanks to a lot of readers for catching that I screwed up in my link to the PowerPoint in yesterday's post on my webinar, 'Law Firm Blogs : What Works? What Doesn't?'

Corrected the link in my post. Here's also the link to the PowerPoint as well as a link to the recorded Screencast.

As much as I try, screwing up like that is always within my reach. Thanks for catching it.

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At the request of attendees (about 70 of them), here's a PowerPoint to download. from the LexBlog hosted April 11 webinar, 'Law Firm Blogs : What Works? What Doesn't?'

If you didn't get a chance to attend, here's a recording of the webinar, including screencast. Click here to run the webinar from the LexBlog learning center. It's 45 to 50 minutes long.

I'll also be doing an encore performance within the next few weeks. Drop me an email, if you want to recieve word of the date and time. It'll be free of course.

And in LexBlog's continuing effort to educate folks in our legal profession on the power of blogs and social networking, we'll start running a series of free webinars on various topics.

Please drop me an email on topics you'd like to see me cover and if you want to be added to an email list keeping folks abreast of the times and days, drop me an email. Not to worry. LexBlog is a 'spam free' environment. No sales pitch BS or press releases to folks who share their email addresses.

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The 'experts' findings that the public does not trust bloggers is drawing real life stories from bloggers that conflict those findings.

I posted a couple days ago referencing Bill Ives' post about how people do trust the person whose blog they read. Bill continues the discussion this morning referencing a couple situations.

One is Associate Harvard Professor, Andrew McAfee, writing on the value of a blog, who credits his blog for his reputation in the IT field that led to his selection as number 38 on the top 100 Most Influential People in IT by Ziff Davis.

Andrew also highlights another example, that being his Facebook friend, Paul Levy, the CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital.

He (Paul) brought up the same point - that he can blog on issues he cares about as much as he wants. If the topic is of broad interest and his posts are good, they’ll continue to be read and can help shape thinking on the issue. It occurred to me that without a blog, his ability to do this is greatly reduced. Because of his position he might get to write a single opinion piece in the Boston Globe, and I guess his staff could continue to send out PR releases, but that’s about it. His blog greatly amplifies his voice.

And from New York criminal lawyer Scott Greenfield, who's become a trusted legal commentator (whether he'll admit or not):

...It's all about credibility. Who has it and why. There are three primary types of credibility, attributed, ascribed and attained. A snitch, for example, is endowed with attributed credibility, because a cop somewhere says that the snitch is trustworthy. The credibility of the cop is attributed to the snitch, even though the judge doesn't know the snitch from a hole in the wall.

Lawyers have ascribed credibility. We are licensed professionals, having passed a bar exam and been given the imprimatur of the state to be competent to represent people. Our legal opinions, therefore, are theoretically credible by virtue of our education, licensure and status.

But the best credibility is attained. It means we've earned it through our efforts to be credible, to be worthy of someone's belief. After scrutiny of our actions, comments, thoughts and analysis, readers have come to the conclusion that we can be trusted to be accurate and thoughtful. To borrow from John Houseman, we obtained our credibility the old-fashioned way; We earned it.

Sure there are going to be blogs published by folks offering little of value and who don't know what they are doing. For all I know they may be the majority of bloggers.

We even have lawyers and legal marketing professionals who think blogs are nothing more than a tool to achieve high search engine rankings. They don't give a dam whether they're offering anything of value or whether they get their work from a sign on the urinal wall or a blog - 'Just make my phone ring.'

But we have some wonderful lawyers who over a period of time have built up a relationship of trust with their readers. A relationship that is going to serve the lawyer and the public for years to come.

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Another question we get peppered with at LexBlog is 'What's the ROI for a law blog?'

Like on a lot of things, I'm pretty cavalier in my response. I just throw back questions. What's the ROI for taking exec's to a Celtics' game? What's the ROI for speaking at industry conference? Do you have to give reports on returning to the office as to when you'll be getting the prospective client's work?

Kevin McKeown, our VP of Client Development and who is working with a ton of large firms, understandably wanted to offer firms something more on the ROI front. Plus, in addition to being a lawyer, he's got 20 plus years developing business strategies and plans that drive companies - offers a different perspective than me.

Kevin's been providing the summary to law firms and I thought it worthwhile to share with you. What follows is Kevin's take on the ROI on law blogs.Simple ROI compares hard dollar cost to hard dollar profit. This strict ROI construct does not answer the question asked—better to focus on the strategic  return on investment. That analysis is as much qualitative as it is quantitative. This integrated approach to ROI goes behind solely financial return.  

The rewards of blogging are measurable in numerous ways. How each dimension is valued depends upon a law firm’s perspective and position in the legal marketplace.  

The single most important factor that contributes to a law firm’s success is attracting and retaining paying clients and lawyers need to spend time each week marketing with this goal in mind. Today, LexBlog has 850 lawyer authors posting to over 350 blogs. Our client retention rate exceeds 96% into our fifth year. Our clients teach us that blogging effectively does build long-term value that helps attract and retain those clients.
 
The checklist that follows encapsulates the benefits of blogging as reported by LexBlog’s clients:

Market Growth (increasing market share)

• Increases firm’s brand recognition in the right places with the desired audience: executives, thought leaders, journalists, etc. (70% of business executives and in-house counsel research lawyers online during the hiring process).    
• Results in new client acquisition (nearly 70% of people research online before selecting a service or product) and greater retention (higher affinity).
• Viral—leads to more referrals from other firms and influencers (blog posts regularly cited by amplifiers—bloggers and reporters).

Organizational Capability (not just number of lawyers)

• Enables firm to showcase law talent and specialized legal capabilities.
• Blog posts, resources and links are easily searchable by readers, in contrast to the intellectual capital buried deep within static websites.
• Regular posts and RSS feeds offer dynamic exposure helping clients and influencers appreciate the firm’s broad, deep knowledge and responsiveness by giving lawyers a prompt way to publish in response to legal developments.

Innovative capacity (more than technical)

• Blog platform is a superior delivery mechanism for sharing and extending reach of firm’s intellectual capital (legal alerts, email newsletters, etc.) when compared to a static website.
• Blogging professionally leaves positive impressions with clients and influencers that the firm is fresh and innovative.
• Ability to leverage the firm’s intellectual capital enhances information sharing among clients and staff in a timelier fashion increasing communication and satisfaction.

Competitive advantage (strategy is relative to how a competitor responds)

• The dynamic nature of blogs creates a solid Internet presence that enhances the firm’s brand recognition and reputation. Clients are seeing their content being syndicated to Forbes, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Harvard Business publications via RSS feeds.  
• Focused blogs enable firm to enter a new legal market quickly and monitor a legal niche more easily.
• Blog helps the firm maintain influence and status as thought leader (best of breed). 75% of journalists use blogs and RSS to locate experts and to obtain story ideas. Reporters monitor keywords and phrases from RSS aggregators such as Google Blog Search and Technorati.

Financial gain (assess with a broader concept of gain not just return)

• Effective blogging results in more clients and referrals over time.
• LexBlog’s turnkey blog solution is an insignificant marketing cost compared to the benefits returned.
• At a minimum, re-purposing email newsletters and legal alerts lowers costs and improves return on marketing dollars spent.

As the above illustrates, because the primary purpose of a blog is strategic, the rewards of a blog are more than financial. Consider these three statements from LexBlog’s AmLaw 200 clients:

 “Although the revenue generated from my blog exceeds my investment in my blog, the most meaningful ROI may be that which is less readily measured. For example, the relationships with experts in my field, and the positive feedback from lawyers and clients around the country that were made possible through my blog, as well as the format allowing for an organized way to summarize cases and have them available via search terms, would make it worthwhile, for me, even if it did not generate any revenue.”

 “The cost of blogging is an insignificant marketing cost compared to the benefits we are realizing over time.”

 “I would ask what is the ROI for a law firm's website or for their distribution of client alerts? What’s the baseline? Is there ROI for conferences and speaking engagements? Client communications?  All of this requires attorney time.”

The first year cost of LexBlog’s turnkey solution is $4,900. Thereafter, the cost drops to $2,400/year. How many clients does a firm need to acquire to turn $7,300 ($4,900 + $2,400) into a huge ROI? The strategic ROI is much greater than just looking at the financial ROI. Under either scenario, the total blog life cycle profit is much greater than the cost.

Peter Drucker talks about the two key functions of a business: marketing and innovation. The business of law is no different. The effective use of professional law blogs is innovative marketing at its best and would suit Mr. Drucker just fine.

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The answer to that question breaks along the same line as when people are asked if they trust congress. The answer is no, but they trust their own congressperson by electing them again and again.

The net's been a buzz this week about a recent Forrester report posted by Jeremiah Owyang finding the public doesn't trust bloggers as much as other sources when commenting on products or services.

The problem with the survey's findings is the question asked, 'Do you trust bloggers?'

What what if the question had been, as suggested by Joshua Porter, 'Do you trust bloggers who you read regularly/subscribe to?' Of you course you do. Why else would they read them?

Bill Ives cites two commenters to Jeremiah's post to further make the point. From Jon Montjoy:

Contrary to what you may imply, you are trusted by many of your readers. You've earned this trust by being transparent, by being consistent, by slowly building a reputation, and by the multiple channels in which someone can learn about you.

And from Kate Carruthers:

I think that you are confusing two categories. Of course people don't trust a generic category called 'bloggers' But they do trust people they 'know', and in these days of social networking 'knowing' someone may mean you have never met them in real life. But if a relationship of trust & authenticity has been developed between you & them, then they could trust a blogger.

Thousands of people read my blog. They must trust something I say. I'm not that entertaining.

People put their butts on the line at least once a month asking me to speak in front of large groups. Just received invites to speak at the Texas Bar Annual Conference and to keynote at a Wisconsin Bar Association Conference. I don't know any of the people who invite me. They're reading my blog. If they didn't trust what I was writing, would I get an invite?

Law firms, from solo's to the largest in the country, call me for advise on blogging. The same firms subscribe to LexBlog's blog service. No other way those folks know me than my blogging.

Read the surveys, but don't leave your common sense behind.

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Imagine a 90 lawyer firm that's been around for decades with a very nice website with the biggest referrer of traffic to the website being a blog published by a lawyer who just joined the firm. And the blog is only 6 months old. Just got word from a client that just that is happening.

Fact is, it's happening all the time. Why? Couple reasons. One, law firm websites suck as far as being search engine optimized. Two, there's nothing compelling drawing traffic to law firms' websites.

Most law firm websites were built by law firms and legal web developers who were totally focused on the look of the site and the wonderful things that were going to said about the firm and its lawyers. During design and development no one discussed how anyone was going to find the website. Crazy, but true.

Law firm websites are what they are. Good summary backgrounds of the law firm and its lawyers, the type of work they do, who they do it for, and their contact info. Law firms no matter if you stand on your head or do cartwheels all day long are never going to be legal information portals drawing sophisticated consumers of legal services. It just ain't happening and that's okay.

The result? Legal marketing professionals are feeling the pressure to draw traffic to law firm web sites with no realistic chance of doing so.

Blogs are turning out to be a very cost effective means to drive traffic through the law firm website and particular, practice areas and lawyer bio's.

Why?

• Law blogs focus on substantive legal information, as opposed to promotional copy. Google can tell the difference and is obviously more interested in pushing information, as opposed to marketing copy, to the top of search results.
• Blogs have more frequent updates. More updates, the more keywords and key phrases people will be searching for that you'll have in your blog site.
• Viral marketing. Blogs routinely get cited by other blogs and reporters. You're seen when your target audience is doing research on your niche in the law.
• Subscribers by RSS and email. Websites don't have subscribers.
• Blog RSS feeds being aggregated by Google Blog Search and Technorati so blog posts are picked up by reporters and bloggers subscribed to keywords and key phrases at those places.
• Links. The holy grail of search optimization. Incoming links from other relevant sites (law in this case) establish the importance of a site in Google's mind. The more links, the more important, and the higher you'll be in search results.

Of course, the blog needs to be set up properly to draw traffic through the website. Logo of firm on blog with link to main page of website. Posted by 'lawyer author' linking to bio on website. Nice pages set up for 'About the Authors,' 'Firm's Services,' and 'Contact Information' including strategic linking to website sections.

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