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

Seth Godin discussed the downside of personal branding in the age of Google in a post this morning.

Seth's story was about a woman who ran an add for a housekeeper on Craigslist. Three resumes rose to the top and she Googled each to look at their backgrounds.

The first search turned up a MySpace page. There was a picture of the applicant, drinking beer from a funnel. Under hobbies, the first entry was, "binge drinking."

The second search turned up a personal blog (a good one, actually). The most recent entry said something like, "I am applying for some menial jobs that are below me, and I'm annoyed by it. I'll certainly quit the minute I sell a few paintings."

And the third? There were only six matches, and the sixth was from the local police department, indicating that the applicant had been arrested for shoplifting two years earlier.

What do people deciding on a lawyer find when they Google your name? You don't need to have an arrest record or a blog post complaining about being a lawyer for the search results to reflect negatively on you.

Just having more of the routine results one finds when Googling a lawyer's name can be negative.

Profile on lawyer website. Boring and typical. A directory listing you've paid for. Been around for decades. Membership on a church committee. Better, but not necessarily a reflection of your legal skill and philosophy. And results in a list of 10k race finishers. You work out, but again, how's that help someone deciding on whether to retain you?

Fortunately, there's a lot you can do as a lawyer to build out your personal brand in the age of Google.

• Partake in conversations among thought leaders in your field via a blog. Thought leaders will begin to cite you and your content. Powerful stuff when people Google your name.
• Blog about stories in trade publications and newspapers that reach your target audience. Provide your take after a blockquote from the story. Email the reporter complimenting them on the story letting them know you shared it with your readers along with your insight. Of course also let them know you'd be happy to get them resources on stories they may be working on your niche, or even be available for a quote on short notice. Articles and news stories quoting put you in good light as an authority in your niche.
• Blog about conferences of interest to your audience. Let the conference coordinator know and begin to build a relationship with them. Google results referencing you as a conference speaker will follow.
• Twitter story headlines of relevance with an accompanying link and your very brief commentary of things you see in your newsreader. Better than the twitter posts which are indexed on Google are a growing list of bloggers and reporters following you on Twitter who are then more likely to see you as someone who stays up to speed in your niche. This results in the the reporters and bloggers citing you in their stories and blog posts.
• Post in your blog answers to common questions you receive from prospective and current clients.

Who's going to get hired when someone is comparing two lawyers who they've Googled?

The lawyer with the website profile, directory listing, committee membership, and 10k results? Or the lawyer who's been cited by authorities in the lawyer's area of expertise, quoted in news stories, spoken at industry and legal conferences, and who's got enough command of their niche to regularly answer questions?

What does your personal brand look like on Google? What are you doing to build your brand so as to distinguish yourself from competitors? If you're like most lawyers, you're in trouble.

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Someone in New York City emailed this morning asking if I had any suggestions of bloggers who might be interested in a press release he was sending out today.

He's with a good company. I had lunch with him last week and he's a heck of a nice guy. The news would be relevant to some good plaintiffs' trial lawyers around the country.

I responded that it's difficult or impossible to suggest bloggers who would like to receive his press release. Most bloggers are put off by typical press releases.

I do not recall any releases that I have referenced in this blog - and I get 10 a day. I delete the emails and if I have second, I click the opt-out at the bottom of the email so that I am not bothered again. When there's no way to opt-out of the continued emails, following press releases just remind me to dislike the sender.

Bloggers are looking for something to link to, ie, news or info that's on another blog. Bloggers usually only 'report' on things they see or get from others they know through blogging (party looking to make news is blogging) or through other social media. If you send press releases to bloggers you do not know and who do not you, you risk alienating the blogger.

It's a whole new world out there. The days of sending out press releases to everyone who has a 'rag' that reaches your target audience are over. These 'rag publishers' in the form of bloggers are not the same as newspaper and magazine reporters.

Blogging is a conversation. Listen to us. Engage in the conversation with a voice of your own. Your voice is your blog, though increasingly I am seeing folks without blogs on Twitter.

Don't refuse to engage in the conversation and then shout at us with press releases. It's rude.

PR and communications people need to learn how blogs and social media are used as grass roots/word of mouth marketing. It's not something you just wing. You learn it by listening to RSS feeds of sources (blogs and news websites) and subjects (keywords and key phrases) and becoming a part of the blogging community. If you don't have time to learn, hire someone who gets it.

Sure, there are PR and communications people with companies who I will take 'news' and press releases from. But those are usually folks who have taken the time to get to know me, my blog, and my interests. Often they'll be blogging and using social media in an effective manner themselves.

I'm not being a snob by refusing press releases like this. I'm just using blogs and social media the right way - as a conversation.

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I posted a couple days ago about Laura Young of Firmani + Associates Inc. using Twitter to find putative class members for a possible class action law suit versus Verizon Wireless on behalf of Seattle law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro.

Mark Firmani, the principal of the PR firm, defended this use of Twitter in comments here on the basis that information was power and that Hagens Berman has done some excellent work on behalf of American consumers.

I think Firmani is a good PR firm and agree that the Berman firm has done some great work. I just questioned how the public will perceive lawyers in general, when a law firm spams Twitter soliciting clients. Young had only just started a Twitter account, started following a few folks, and only made this one post soliciting clients.

The public reaction to the Firmani/Hagens Berman posting was not good. People on Twitter thought it bad taste and poor use of Twitter by the law firm and its PR agency. Though admittedly not a fan of plaintiffs' trial lawyers, the Wall Street Journal (via syndication of my post) picked up my post and all the other blog posts about the PR company's Twittering for class members. The coverage frowned on their use of Twitter.

The result was Laura Young's removal of her Twitter post soliciting clients for a class action suit. Here's Young's Twitter page yesterday:

And here's two days ago with the posting:

The lesson here. Be smart. Just because your law firm, marketing company, or PR agency heard of a new communication tool that others have found powerful, doesn't mean you should start using it tomorrow.

You need to know how to use tools like Twitter. This means getting out and playing with Twitter. Use it for personal use. Look at how others are using Twitter. Twitter on training wheels if you will. Then start using Twitter in business settings - after you feel very comfortable with how Twitter works. If you don't feel comfortable, don't start.

For Firmani, which like I said I know to be a good company, they've stepped back from the hot burner. Mark's got a Twitter account now, and if he's like me and thousands of others, it'll be 3 to 6 months before he figures out what the heck Twitter is.

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I'm seeing more and more companies using Twitter, not only for strengthening relationships with customers, but also for customer service. Customer service both for broadcasting service messages via Twitter as well as via an RSS feed from Twitter Search to customers' 'tweets' about the company's service.

The latest is Washington State Ferries (WSF), which I ran into tonight as part of monitoring the terms 'Seattle' and 'Bainbridge Island' on twitter search.

WSF is using Twitter to broadcast customer service messages like the one here alerting users that the 8:10 ferry running tonight from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, where I live, is going to be late. WSF just started using Twitter today so that's the reason for only 2 followers.

An example of a company listening to customers talking about the company's service is BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit).

I was returning from San Francisco to Seattle Wednesday night. Sitting on a BART Bus that drives you from the Oakland Airport BART Rail Station to the Airport, I tweeted the following:

29 minutes later I get the following email alerting me that Bart is now following me on Twitter.

Bart wants to know what customers are saying about them.

And Bart is responding in some pretty cool ways to riders 'tweeting' about Bart. Look at the direct responses (they begin '@twtterusername') from Bart in Bart's Twitter feed below. Bart is building fans - though it may scare folks when they get that first direct 'tweet' back from Bart after just 'tweeting' about Bart.

Recently, an airline saw a 'tweet' by a complaining customer stranded by a delayed flight. The airline sent a direct tweet to their customer that if the customer could quickly get to another gate, they could catch a flight which would get them home sooner. Imagine all the people following the passenger on Twitter who were now going to hear about how great this airline was?

How are you going to use Twitter for client service in a law firm? If you're a large law firm I'd sure be listening to who is mentioning your name on Twitter via Twitter search or a Twitter application like Tweetdeck. I'd be doing the same for all controversial and high profile matters you're involved in - for the names of lawyers, clients, and subjects.

I'd also be prepared to respond via Twitter, where you ethically can, to what what is being said about you and the relevant subjects you're monitoring on Twitter Search. Both for client service as well as PR. PR because a lot of people, including reporters are listening to Twitter.

Watch what's going on at Twitter guys. You may pick any number of good ideas.

Have some ideas on how Twitter could be used by law firms for client service? Share them in a comment.

Related post:

• Major companies using Twitter for customer service

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I've come to know PR people of late as the folks who send me emails asking me to blog about books, services, conferences, websites, and products produced by companies the PR agency represents. Often what's being pitched has little to do with me or what I blog about. It's basically spam. And I get about 15 or 20 of these emails a day.

But Erik Sebellin-Ross, a senior account executive with Peppercom Strategic Communication, offers some advice on what PR people can do for bloggers.

A big part of our job is to provide information, so, if you have questions about a company, product, or service, PR people can help you get the answers. If you want to speak with an executive, engineer, designer, or other employee, we can help you there, too – we even book meetings. If you want to review a product, or try out a service, you guessed it: we can help with this, too.

The best and fastest way to find a PR contact is to go to the website of a company you’re interested in and find their press or media page. This is regularly found under the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages. Another alternative is to look for a press release – we almost always list our contact information on these.

One caveat of Erik's is to be reasonable in what we expect.

...[A]s much as we’d like to work with every single publication and blog, regardless of size, we realistically cannot. When you contact us, we’ll sometimes ask you to tell us about who reads your blog, what kind of traffic you get, and what you want to write about so we can decide if we can devote time to you. If you’re turned down because you’re too small, consider banding together with a group of similar bloggers and approach the PR person as a unified group to increase your value.

I have emailed communications people with multi-national corporations and major law firms and received helpful responses. Responses that I then blogged as any reporter would.

Last year, I emailed the PR folks at Chubb Insurance asking them to respond to Chubb's denial of malpractice coverage for law firms publishing blogs. Two days later, I received a press release directly on point from Chubb's Public Relations Specialist. This when a reporter at the National Law Journal couldn't get Chubb to respond to their request on the same issue.

Erik does acknowledge the spam like scenario I opened with.

...[S]ometimes PR professionals (fresh-faced interns and grizzled veterans alike) make honest mistakes. Or, worse, don’t do their homework. They build lists of targets without ensuring that every single target is perfect, and they blast out an email using the blind carbon copy feature…and suffer the consequences. Of which there are rarely any – unless we’ve pitched ValleyWag. In the process, of course, we basically spam you and ensure you hate seeing our names appear in your inbox. If it is the former, we truly are sorry. If it is the latter, I’m even more sorry.

But maybe from now on, I'll do what Erik says - to take a moment to look beyond the PR person's email. Maybe the PR person can help me get more information about something I could blog about.

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'My law firm's prospective clients don't blog. I'm not sure they even read blogs. Many are not even regular Internet users. How do I reach these prospective clients by blogging?' All legitimate concerns I hear from law firms on a regular basis.

Liz Strauss, a blogger with 20 years experience in print, software, and online publishing business, offers some excellence advice for how to connect your blogging business with customers in the offline world.

• Contact local organizations in your niche. Ask local groups and organizations associated with your niche for a blurb in their online or hard copy newsletter. Offer to be a guest speaker for one of their meetings. You'll find such organizations by seeing their scheduled meetings in the newspaper, looking at national websites for such organizations, talking to your local librarians, and calling local buildings and facilities that host such meetings.
• Look to the customers standing right beside you. Family, friends, bowling buddies, classmates, colleagues at work, and members of organizations you belong to, including your local church, could be a rich source of customers or people who can network you to customers. You can be be an ambassador for the blogging world and how it's a value for business people in general.
• Find non-blogging experts to interview. Write or email top non-blogging experts (authors, professors, business leaders) in your niche area and politely ask to interview them. They will tell everyone where to find the interview. They may be able to steer other interviews your way. We regularly do 4 and 5 question email interviews with experts for this blog.
• Utilize press coverage. Write a press release to get coverage in your local paper. Focus your press release on either your blog or blogging. If you write about blogging in general, just make sure to use your site as a highly profiled example. Liz says to tell the paper that blogging is a lifestyle to perk their ears. For a lawyer, tell them how blogging is a win/win for businesses and the public. People get access to legal information and good lawyers further enhance their reputations.
• Create an Internet presence off your blog. Find online Web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion groups, bulletin board, etc., in your niche subject outside the blog world and jump in. Be nice, be real, and give as much as you can when promoting yourself. You can find forums often attached to magazines, to newspapers, to activities, to organizations, and to web sites of companies that complement your niche and product.
• Become a YouTuber. Make a YouTube video about yourself, your blog, or your product. Just one video that ‘goes viral’ can rocket anyone into stardom for a day or month. Be ready to utilize any generated traffic in ways that maintain these new readers to your blog.
• Team up with complementary non-blogging businesses. Let’s say your blog is about environmental law. Environmental engineers, local schools, smart growth, and environmental groups may find environmental law and your take on local issues of interest. As Liz advises, until you ask, you'll never know.

When you blog on a niche subject, you're publishing the local or, in the case of certain niches, national law magazine on the subject. Being recognized as such a publisher and the expert status that comes with it opens a heck of a lot of doors in the offline world.

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A new study from the Pew Research Center confirms what lawyers should already know. People are doing lawyer background checks with search engines.

Not a study solely about lawyers, but one that finds nearly one-in-five adult internet users (19%) say they have searched for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors with an online search engine. Searches are also being done on people users are meeting for the first time as well as those who we're considering hiring.

You've got to believe the number of people doing such background checks increases when you have two additional factors in play, as is the case with lawyers. The need to place great trust in the person being searched. The higher the amount being charged by the person being searched.

Ask yourself what people are finding when they search you. If it's only your website and directory listing or two, you're in trouble.

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58 (11.6%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of this month.

This per the 'Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki' put together by Easton Ellsworth and John Cass working with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext.

The wiki provides a directory of Fortune 500 companies that have business blogs, defined as: active public blogs by company employees about the company and/or its products, a sampling of their blogs, and links to Fortune 500 business blog reviews.

Law firms competing for legal work from the Fortune 500 companies who are blogging may want to ask themselves why their law firm isn't blogging.

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I have the honor of presenting at a Law Firm Public Relations Conference in Chicago next Tuesday, May 20.

I would love to see some of you there or perhaps we could meet up on Monday afternoon, Tuesday evening, or early Wednesday. I always enjoy meeting some of my readers who may have in interest in legal blogging or social networking.

The conference, presented by the Ark Group, is on 'Optimizing Your Firm’s Business Development Initiatives through the Dissemination of Information into Actionable Intelligence.'

This master class facilitated by, Mark Young, Chief Marketing Officer, Foley Hoag LLP and Meghan Gross, Public Relations Manager, Foley Hoag LLP, will help you:

• Move away from traditional, inward-facing law firm messaging
• Determine if, when and how to structure a stand-alone PR position
• Maximize agency resources
• Build internal communications systems ensuring that your external systems hum
• Explore how social media applications can enhance the PR program
• Make your MPs your “brand”
• Align PR with your clients for maximum success

Other presenters include:

• Allan Ripp, Founder, Ripp Media Relations
• Ameet Sachdev, The Chicago Tribune
• Joe Weber, Business Week
• Marco Greenberg, Co-Founder, Thunder 11
• Mark Young, Chief Marketing, Foley Hoag LLP
• Martha Neil, ABA Journal
• Meghan Gross, Public Relations Manager, Foley Hoag LLP

I'll be addressing social media issues so as to get beyond the press release.

The conference is right downtown at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center. Click here for more info.

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