Kennedy’s FAQ on using blogs for legal marketing

Dennis Kennedy, one of the more innovative lawyers on the Internet, publised a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on Using Blogs for Legal Marketing. Kennedy did so because he found the debate on the use of blogs for marketing to be boring and with the FAQ thought he could bring the discussion to an end.

I’m sure Dennis does not expect to end the debate on the use blogs for law firm marketing. The debate on whether law firms should have Web sites lasted for years. In addition, as Dennis said, we should feel free to differ with his advice. Here’s a few points where I differ.

• I don’t think the best indicator of likely success in blogging is a history of meeting regular deadlines while producing a high quality newsletter. Newsletters are far tougher and more time consuming than a blog. Great blogs can be a clearing house of information – share the good stuff you see in your niche area of the law. Do it on your time and have some fun.
• Preparing thirty posts before you launch your blog to prove you can maintain a blog is nuts. Hell, you do not really know what you are doing or develop a style until after you have begun to publish a blog to the Internet. Publishing a blog is not just writing content and publishing it to the Internet. There is a lot of interaction and feedback with others on the net that comes with blogging. It’s the positive feedback you’ll get and word of your expertise spreading around the Internet that will inspire you to keep blogging.
• Blogging need not be only one part of a marketing strategy and usually just a small part as Dennis says. 90% plus of LexBlog’s marketing is my blog. The results have been outstanding. LexBlog has an IP lawyer whose marketing is virtually limited to his blog. He’s generating a lot of work. The virtual world is now bigger than the offline one. Have an effective appearance in the virtual world, a place where most lawyers do such a poor job of marketing, and you’ll get plenty of work.

I am glad to see the use of RSS feeds for law firm marketing purposes interests Dennis greatly. RSS for syndicating content to your target audience, to law firm Web sites and to aggregators where users can subscribe to receive feeds of posts by keywords is going to mean great things for law firm marketing. Already is for innovative law firms.