From Aaron:

Presence Marketing is the recognition and exposure that a person or company gets simply by being there. Where is there? It is simply anywhere that people are.

In traditional advertising, it might be product placement in your favorite television show. An example of this is how Agent McGee uses the iPhone throughout NCIS. (It is unclear if this is actual Apple marketing or not - but any publicity is good publicity, in this case). Another example was the use of Cisco VoIP phones or Dell computers at CTU in 24.

In the online sense, it is nearly identical, but manifested differently. By being active on blogs, social networks or any other format that places a high dividend on visibility, companys and brands are engaging in Presence Marketing.

Lawyers do online presence marketing through effective blogging and the making use of social media.

Francis Pileggihas made himself a brand name in the area of Delaware corporate litigation through his blog. Not only is Pilleggi seen on his own blog, but his blog is routinely cited by well known practicing lawyers and law professors who write on corporate law issues. Now through syndication and social media, Francis' content is displayed at the Wall Street Journal, in the news at LinkedIn, at Harvard Business School publications, and in Bloomberg news feeds.

Think in-house counsel and exec's selecting local counsel feel more comfortable calling Pileggi when they see him all over the place online?

And you don't need to be a major corporation to do presence marketing. Aarron gives you one example, that being the use of Twitter.

As an individual, you have more ability to be seen and engaged as any major brand anywhere in the world. In fact, due to Twitter, it is demonstrated repeatedly that simply being present and active on Twitter can create more brand recognition and marketing capital for individuals than companies engaging in the same space and not being ‘as present’......In another day, or another age, this would not be possible because traditional marketing skews toward those who have money, time or historical depth.

I agree wholeheartedly with Aaron that little or no effort is required to be present and ‘seen’. 'It is the lowest of the low hanging fruit in the marketing industry.'

While attending a bar function today, a local appellate justice I have met a few times before recognized me, introduced me to his companions as the author of an appellate blog, and confessed (?) to being one of my regular readers.  I have had similar conversations with other members of the appellate bench in recent months.

Appellate judges are often perceived as ivory-tower idealists.  They don't really read blogs, do they?

Yes they do Todd. Many LexBlog lawyer clients tell me that high in their readership stats are visits from courthouses, especially the federal courts. Clerks at those federal courts, the ones in turn briefing the judges, tell me they are regular readers of law blogs.

Delaware litigation attorney, Francis Pileggi, told me recently about a state supreme court judge who came up to him at a conference to introduce himself and to compliment Francis on his blog. The judge explained he was a regular reader.

No question that the day is near when lawyers with well written blogs on niche litigation subjects are going to be called in as co-counsel on an appeal or brief. The value of having a lawyer on your side whose material is regularly read by the court you're before is priceless.

...[R]ankings of blogs are not very meaningful on an individual level, because the value of blogs is directly related to the niche that they serve. If one is looking for a blog that focuses on the law of food poisoning and it does a good job of covering that topic, does it matter whether that blog is ranked highly in any particular survey?

A couple months ago the ABA Journal did its much ballyhooed 100 best law blogs. Other than drawing attention to the ABA Journal online for a short period of time, I'm not sure what it accomplished. It's surely not representative of the best law blogs (though there are some good ones there). It wouldn't be in the top 10 places a new niche law blogger would go to find blog discussion among the thought leaders in their field.

Justia, quickly becoming the new FindLaw (except much more powerful and tech savvy), has its Blawg Search, a law blog directory and legal blog search as well as its most popular law blog listings. If pushed on it, Tim Stanley, Justia's founder, would probably concede that the most popular blog list is a gimmick to draw attention to some of the great offerings of Justia.

Lawyers love rankings. Hell, we've been ranked our whole lives. In high school to get into the best colleges, in college to get into the best law schools, and in law school to get clerkships and into the top law firms.

Maybe now that we're a little older, and presumably more mature, we can get over it. Like Francis says, blogs are meaningful on an individual level, because the value of blogs is directly related to the niche that they serve.