How to announce new blog on your law firm website
I get this question a lot.
Stoel Rives did not ask and did not have a hard time announcing their new Food Liability Blog published by Attorney Ken Ozda.
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I get this question a lot.
Stoel Rives did not ask and did not have a hard time announcing their new Food Liability Blog published by Attorney Ken Ozda.
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all information is required pleaseI've been a big proponent of established newspapers and periodicals running syndicated blog content onto their news websites.
Well it's started in the legal journalism business with ALM's law.com. Noticed this week that Law.com was sending traffic to my blog from their Legal Technology Section.
I'm not part of Law.com's blog network nor affiliated with Law.com in anyway. But in the right hand navigation bar you'll see a listing of blog posts which Law.com thought would be of interest. One of them being a post of mine.
Such syndication of law blog content has plusses all the way around.
Stay tuned. More syndication of law blogs to come in law journals, WSJ, New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and other leading publications.
Aren't many lawyers using Twitter yet (there's a few of us), but those who are may be interested in Chris Brogan's post at Problogger on how to use Twitter to promote your blog. Since Chris started using Twitter, he's doubled his blog traffic.
For the unknowing, Twitter is Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page at Twitter and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.
Telling many lawyers and law firms to link out from their blogs so as to cite other law blogs, news sites, and other resources is like blasphemy.
But the fact is the more you link out, the more valuable your blog, the more subscribers you'll have, the more traffic you'll receive, and the more influential you'll be.
Publishing 2.0's post, 'Influentials On The Web Are People With The Power To Link,' explains.
The reason Google's search results often contain more blogs than traditional media content is that blogs were the first to harness the power of the link. Blogs linked to other blogs, while traditional media brands remained disconnected silos......Journalists and PR professionals, the influence brokers of traditional media, have lost a huge degree of influence on the web in large part because they don't link to anything. While traditional media brands are still powerful channels on the web, they are losing influence everyday to the link-driven web network — journalists and PR professionals can no longer depend on controlling these former monopoly channels to exert influence online.Whenever I give talks to traditional publishers who have been afraid to link to other sites because it will 'send people away' instead of keeping them trapped in the publisher's own content, my now standard response is to say that there's a site that does nothing but link to other sites — all it does is send people away. And yet remarkably, people keep coming back. So much so, that this strategy has translated into $10 billion+ in advertising revenue. (Yes, Google of course.)
Big plusses to linking out for you bloggers.
Happy linking.
Source on post: Kristine Lowe
Our first LexBlog Q & A of the week focuses less on the law and more on blogs: the impact they're having on journalism, how they've changed in recent years, and how authors manage to keep up with the industry.
To guide us through the maze is Susannah Gardner, author of the 2005 how-to book Buzz Marketing With Blogs for Dummies (one of the staples of our in-house library here at LexBlog's Seattle office). Susannah, who recently wrote the second edition of Blogging For Dummies, works at the Vancouver-based web design copy Hop Studios.
1. Rob La Gatta: From 1997-2003, you taught online publishing to journalism students at USC. Did you see students graduating from journalism school there with an understanding of new media's importance?Susie Gardner: Yes and no. Within the faculty of the school at that time, there was still a lot of resistance to including new media in every class, or even in most of them. And not just resistance – there were plenty of people who had had long and distinguished careers in journalism when new media had not been part of it, and so I think there was mixed message teaching at that point, where the students in some classes were hearing “new media is it, this is what its all about,” and in other classes hearing “newspapers are never going to go away.”
The students who were able to deal with that conflict left in pretty good hands, but I’m sure we also graduated people who ended up taking positions on either side of the fence and who weren’t particularly prepared for new media.
2. Rob La Gatta: Is it even necessary, then, to continue attending journalism school, when so many of these skills are self-taught and can just be done from home with an Internet connection?
Susie Gardner: That question has been around for a long time, even before citizen journalism came about. There have always been people who believe that journalism school isn’t necessary, that you can become a journalist and a good reporter by doing...many top journalists took that route, and in a lot of ways I agree: people can become excellent journalists without having to attend journalism school. I don’t think that’s changed at all.
But I do think it teaches some really good solid skills that, if journalism is your career choice, it’s not a waste of time at all: it’s going to give you skills that you will find useful and key, no matter if you end up in a new media newsroom or if you end up in a more traditional organization.
3. Rob La Gatta: When did you first have the idea to write "Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies," and what sparked it?
Susie Gardner: I started kicking around the idea of doing a book about blogging in early 2004, and pitched a "Blogging for Dummies" book to Wiley (the publisher of the "Dummies" series). They felt, at the time, that the market wasn’t ready for a "Blogging for Dummies" book, but that we could maybe position something aimed at business and organizational marketing folks. I actually agreed with that, the idea that business was going to be one of the big focuses and uses for blogging. So we worked together at that point to develop a book that was going to end up on the business shelf as opposed to the consumer technology shelf, and was designed to be used by marketing folks and by communications people or CEOs, or whoever needed to do marketing using a blog or marketing on a blog.
And actually, the timing of that worked out great…early 2005 was when the idea of business blogging really took off.
4. Rob La Gatta: When you look back at the first edition of the book, do you see a lot of information that’s no longer relevant? Or is most of it still applicable?
Susie Gardner: I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of information that is still valid. Partly, I think that’s because when I was writing the book, there was a constant struggle in my head about, “I’m going to write this down, but it’s going to be outdated, even before the book hits the shelf.” And I had conversations with people who were going to be featured in the screenshots or used as an example, who would say things like, “Well, I might change this facet of my blog that you’re showing.”
You just sort of realize after a while that if you’re writing about the Internet in a book, it’s going to be outdated, and people will (hopefully) understand that that’s the case. But in general, I think the basics and the principles are still solid…the chapters on ethics, and law, and the basic marketing approaches are still valid.
5. Rob La Gatta: What do you know now about the art of blogging that you wish you knew when you first started?
Susie Gardner: I wish I’d realized that it’s okay when you start a blog to not intend to keep it around forever. I think a lot of people get into the situation where they start a blog, they’re really excited about it, they write it for a while, and it sort of dies a slow death...they lose interest or their priorities change, but they feel like they can’t just stop writing the blog. I wish I’d realized that it’s okay to start a blog for a short-term project and have an end date on which you’re going to stop publishing it.
I also don’t think I realized at the time just how pervasive [blogging] was going to be, and that it was going to change the way that all kinds of people build websites. Hop Studios is a web design company, and 3 or 4 years ago we got a lot of inquiries about brochure-type websites: people wanted to put up 5 or 6 pages and never touch it again.
These days, that’s a very rare request. People want something dynamic, something that’s going to be updated…it may not be a blog, but the idea that you need a website that is active and refreshed and current has really trickled down to everybody.
Today we conclude our two-part LexBlog Q & A with Toby Bloomberg, the Internet marketing specialist behind Bloomberg Marketing and the Diva Marketing Blog.
In part 1, which went live yesterday, Toby described the origin of the "diva" brand; today, she details the PR industry's role in the blogosphere, bloggers as journalists and more.
3. Rob La Gatta:In an interview last year with Stephan Spencer, you said bloggers “want to be part of an on-going collaboration or partnership.” This seems like it could be a great opportunity for public relations firms, yet their presence in the blogosphere still seems quite limited. Do you think the PR industry is poised to become a larger presence in the blogoshere any time soon?Toby Bloomberg: Absolutely. Many large and small agencies are blogging today. Some are tapping into “blogger relations” to create online word of mouth buzz for their clients. Unfortunately, some of those blogger out reach efforts are resulting in negative rather than positive posts.
The challenge for many agencies entering this space is to accept social media as a credible marketing/PR strategy and not leave it totally in the hands of junior account managers. The world of blogs and social media is perceived as a Gen X/Y world. While the Millenniums may have grown up in this world, there is more to developing a blog, Web 2.0, social media strategy than knowing how to set up a Facebook page.
Where the PR and advertising agencies tend to get it wrong is not understanding that this virtual world is comprised of hundreds of communities...[and] that each, as I call them, “village”, has its own culture and norms. Cultivating a blogger relations strategy involves more than an email blast of a press release. It involves understand and respecting the cultures.
See the rest of part 2 after the jump.
Toby Bloomberg, our guest for today's LexBlog Q & A, is an Atlanta-based marketing specialist who has tapped the valuable resources the Internet.
Her company, Bloomberg Marketing, has used the web to further her clients' reputation since 1997. In addition to her professional services, Toby uses her Diva Marketing Blog to provide commentary and analysis on the marketing world, and offers an Internet radio show ("Diva Marketing Talks") where she speaks to featured guests on social media marketing.
Our interview with Toby is this week's two-parter. In part 1, below, she discusses the origin of the "diva" and when she encourages her clients to blog; tomorrow, part 2 will publish, which features Toby's commentary on joining the conversation in the blogosphere, bloggers as journalists and more.
1.Rob La Gatta: You’ve established a brand surrounding the Diva Marketing image, but where did the “diva” first come from? Do you think establishing a unique reputation this way has given you an advantage over other marketers?
Toby Bloomberg: Diva Marketing began life as a marketing column for an online publication targeted to women in business. I wanted the articles to be fun for the readers and for me too. I began to play around with a funky voice, that in retrospect was more conversational than traditional magazine style writing. I included references to “girlfriend” and “martinis” that sometimes reflected the style of Sex In The City but with a definite focus on providing practical information. What surprised me was the positive feedback I received from both women and men.When the publication closed its virtual doors I wanted to continue the genre. I tried to find a new “home” for Diva Marketing but it didn’t quite fit into any of the online or offline publications around at the time (2002-03).
Diva Marketing (blog) was launched in the spring of 2004 as an experiment to simply understand the logistics of blogging. I had a website, so why did I need a blog? It was meant to be a fast learning. Little did I know that I would quickly get hook, find a new passion and Diva Marketing would morph into a “blog brand.” It was a surprise to me.
In the continuing cluttered world of business blogs and social media the Diva Marketing “brand” has given me an identity that I would never have obtained from my company name – Bloomberg Marketing. Unless of course Michael Bloomberg wanted to acquire my business (smile). The name does stand out in a list of blogs and sounds fun. I think people are curious to give an initial click.
However, at the end of the day a cute name or even a memorable name is just the beginning of a brand. It’s about proving value for your community. People read blogs for three reasons: information, entertainment and community. I work hard to weave all three elements together to offer those that who stop by a fun experience where they can also take away a tip or two to help them market smarter.
2. Rob La Gatta:How frequently do you encourage your clients to start a blog? When you do are they generally receptive to the idea or does it take some time convincing?
Toby Bloomberg: To give a bit of a perspective, what sets me apart from many consultants who are working in social media is my background in marketing strategy and research. I’ve always viewed blogs, and now social media, as tools that marketers can use to reach and understand customers. When I work with organizations strategies are considered from the perspective of: does it make sense for the brand? If it does, how can the tactics be integrated into the master marketing plan to support business outcomes? With blogs and social media there is an additional element that other marketing strategies usually don’t consider - does it provide value to the customers and stakeholders?Another critical component we look at is the culture of the organization. Social media is not a play toy and it’s not a silver bullet. The organization must be ready to adapt to answering questions that they didn’t ask. By that I mean not only to listen to their customers in new channels (blogs, communities, videos, etc.), but to put systems into place to take action and respond to the unsolicited feedback of its stakeholders.
In addition, to understanding how to participate in wide open discussions that can be heard by people all over the world, the trust and respect an organization must give to its employees who are involved with social media initiatives is critical. Even with guidelines and training (and blessings from the legal department) for many companies internal employee marketing is as innovative as a micro blogs or RSS or widgets.
What I do tell clients is that even if they are not ready to jump in with both feet, it’s important to pay attention to the talk about their brand, their industry and trends. What I do tell clients is that social media is not a fad. It’s not going away. With the ease of photo sharing, video sharing, blogs, communities, etc., the opportunities that our customers have to share what is important to them (and we hope some of that chat includes brands) will continue to grow.
Earlier this week, we got a chance to chat with Las Vegas-based brain & spine injury lawyer Tim Titolo, a LexBlog client who runs the Brain & Spine Injury Law Blog.
The result of that phone conversation is what you are about to read: our most recent LexBlog Q & A. During our discussion, Tim spoke of the value he sees in blogs, how he uses his blog at the conventions he attends, and more.
1. Rob La Gatta: Regarding your practice areas: what was it that first drew you to where the law and traumatic brain injury intersect?Tim Titolo: Two things. One was that I just happened to get a case in the early ‘90s, and it was a brain injury case – a mild-to-moderate brain injury case. I worked it, and I worked it, and I worked it, and got a substantial verdict after a 6 week trial. That kind of said to me, “This is what you’re supposed to do, and if you keep doing it and you do it well, you’ll be successful at it.” So basically, brain injury found me.
The second reason was that [brain injury law] is something that is very specialized. And in the world as we know it, if you’re not going to specialize in something, you’re going to have more difficulties succeeding...that’s just a function of how the law profession – and life in general – has progressed in America.
2. Rob La Gatta: I notice you’ve authored posts mentioning the various conferences you’ve attended. Are people at these conferences, by and large, aware of your blog?
Tim Titolo: Well, I’ve only had my blog now for four or five months. But I will tell you that whenever I go to these conferences, I usually start it off with my blog page and then I switch it over to my web page, just to show [the audience] that I’m online and that they can contact me that way.
Are they coming to these conferences because of my blog? I wouldn’t say that they are…I think they’re coming because of who the sponsors are: the Brain Injury Association of America, the North American Brain Injury Society, those kind of groups.
3. Rob La Gatta: When you showcase your blog in these situations, do people show any interest that you're bringing a new medium in to your practice?
Tim Titolo: I’ve been doing this now fairly regularly, and what I’m finding is, when people find out you have a blog, they’re more like, “Well that’s interesting, you must really spend a lot of time on the area that you’re covering in your blog.” So I think people are impressed that I have the blog.
I think its kind of like if you were a football player, and you had a Heisman Trophy: people would just assume things about how well you do at football because you have that trophy. That’s what I do with my blog.
4. Rob La Gatta: What is the most personally rewarding element of blogging? What keeps you going at it each day?
Tim Titolo: There a couple of things that I like about the blog.
Number 1, it lets my clients know and reinforces for them that this is what I do, and that my interests are very specific to the injuries they’re suffering from (99% of my clients have a brain injury).
The other thing is, I like to write and I like to express myself. If I’m in the right mood – in the morning, over a cup of coffee – I enjoy reviewing information that I get over various feeds, and being able to forward those on with my own comments. I also do a little thing called Brainy Reviews, because I read a lot of books: if I read a book, and it has to do with brain injury, I’ll throw it on the blog. I just like to be able to do that.
Third, when I go to a conference – and I don’t know how appropriate this is or isn’t – you always get a list of the attendees and the faculty, with their email information. What I’ll typically do is add them to my subscriptions...after I send out a new post, there will be 5 or 6 that come back saying that they don’t want to be on the list anymore, and I’ll remove them. But in the meantime, I feel like I’m growing the knowledge of my blog by including more people in my subscriptions list.
5. Rob La Gatta: You’ve been doing this for a while now. What have you learned about the art of blogging that you wish you’d known getting started?
Tim Titolo: Well, in my particular situation, I was very intimidated to the point of almost wanting to give up. I would do a couple of posts and Stacey Merrick [LexBlog's director of client services] would write and give me constructive criticism. And I just felt like giving up, because it was so strenuous – I felt like was never going to be able to do this right.
The point is, I don’t think there is a "right" and "wrong" way to do a blog…you just do it. And then lo and behold, over the course of several weeks and months, if I’m talking to somebody, all of a sudden I’ll hear, “Thanks for sending me that stuff on your blog, that’s very interesting.” And I’m thinking, “Oh...I didn’t even realize that you were reading my blog.” But people come back and tell me that, and I appreciate it.
I would recommend for myself and for anyone else to get involved in some kind of a blog – whether its Kevin’s blog or something else – where new ideas are coming out as technology changes, and to not be afraid to do that (frankly I should do it more myself, I just haven’t). But I don’t want to just keep doing the same old postings all the time – I want to dress them up and make them better.
For instance, I got into the habit of posting a lot of pictures on my blog, and that looks a whole lot better than just text. But I’d like to do even more: okay, now there’s pictures, that’s good. But there’s probably more that I could do that I just haven’t done because I don’t have time to sit and figure it out. It’s got to be interesting for people that are looking at it.
Today, we return to the legal marketing realm with a LexBlog client who is specialist in the field: Tom Kane.
Tom, a former practicing attorney with 17 years marketing experience, currently runs Kane Consulting Inc. and publishes the Legal Marketing Blog. He is also the author of Letters for Lawyers: Essential Communications for Clients, Prospects, and Others.
1. Rob La Gatta: When exactly did you launch your Legal Marketing Blog, and what compelled you to take a gamble on what was previously considered a somewhat risky medium for legal professionals to get involved with?Tom Kane: I began my blog on January 5, 2005.
As to why? You know, I don’t know. I heard about blogs as the up-and-coming thing, and then had several conversations with Kevin and decided to try it. I enjoy writing, but I didn’t know how much until I started writing my blog. It has energized me about other serious writing, which I have been thinking about for years.
2. Rob La Gatta: What do you think is the most important impact blogs have had on the legal marketing industry?
Tom Kane: There are so many legal marketing related blogs out there - some good, some not as good; some newsy and gossipy, others with helpful information like providing marketing tips, strategies, etc; ones that really try to be helpful vs. others that seem to be primarily sales pitches.
The point is that the plethora of legal marketing sites out there have been helpful in getting many law firms into marketing. Many small to medium size firms have traditionally been reluctant to get serious about law firm marketing, or if they were doing anything, it was minimal. Blogging has helped them identify consultants who can help them. That’s a good thing.
3. Rob La Gatta: In the middle of the holiday season, you wrote a blog entry titled "Work your network during the holidays." Do you believe that your professional network has grown through the use of your blog?
Tom Kane: Without a question. I have gotten to know better a number of other professional marketers, who I really didn’t know all that well or at all until I began blogging. There is one consultant up in the Mid-Atlantic who I have never met and who I think is very good. She has asked me for permission to use some of my stuff, and I have used hers. Links between marketing professionals has been fruitful in helping each other, I believe.
4. Rob La Gatta: For you, what has been the most rewarding result of blogging, and what was the biggest challenge you faced along the way?
Tom Kane: The publicity and comments I have received as a result my blog, and of course the calls that have resulted in new clients. The biggest challenge was finding the time to blog, and forcing myself to stay with it. It wasn’t easy at times, but definitely worth it.
I originally thought you needed to do a blog every other day. Then, I realized that over the weekend was a waste. Lawyers on a Monday are likely to have more important things on their plate than taking the time to read a blog either by RSS feed or by email, so I cut back, taking their time constraints into consideration. I went to 3 per week, and then two per week, which I think is enough after three years of blogging. I guess I have nearly 600 entries - mostly marketing tips - at this point, and I feel really good about that.
5. Rob La Gatta: If you were approached by a lawyer just about to start his or her first blog, what is the one most important bit of advice you'd offer them? Why?
Tom Kane: As Nike says, “Just Do It”...if you enjoy writing, it is fun and you can make a difference.
Oh yeah, and it really does lead to new work.
Wayne State University Law School Professor Steven Davidoff is going to be blogging full time with the New York Times.
He's hooking up with the New York Times DealBook as the Deal Professor. Steven says not to worry.
...[I]t will be the same blog covering the same topics with the same length of posts and legal analysis, just with the expanded resources of those great N.Y. Times deal reporters, including Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael de la Merced.
Expect more lawyers to become bloggers for major publications and news websites. Lawyers are killer reporters and commentators on niche legal subjects. And who's got more domain expertise?
Plus, with declining circulation of hard copy newspapers and increasing online readership, newspaper revenues are in decline. Though online revenues are on the rise, they can't match the loss of hard copy advertising and subscription revenues. As a result, newspapers and media centers are on the look out for syndicated content from good bloggers.
Golden opportunity for you law bloggers. Whether it be with national mass media, national trade media, or local/regional newspapers.
And you don't have to wait for the publications to contact you. Get to know the reporters and editors at publications for which you would like to blog. How? Comment on their stories and blog posts. Right on their news sites and and in your own blog. Send them an email from time to time. Connect with them on LinkedIn.
If you don't get asked to blog for the publication, ask them. Propose that they add a blog and that you write it.