Companies listening to blog posts provide lawyers opportunities

Business owners like the ones in today’s Des Moines Business Record monitor RSS feeds for Internet discussion of their business and products.

Drew McLellan, owner of McLellan Marketing Group, being quoted in the story:

Why would you not pay attention to what your customers are saying?’

With more and more blogs coming online it is vitally important for companies to monitor them to see what the public is saying. Whether it is to defend the company from attack, correct misperceptions or simply see what consumers are interested in, paying attention to blogs has become something all businesses, large and small, must do.

Lawyers looking to get recognition from particular businesses and industries should start blogging about them. Call them out. They are listening.

If I blog about LexisNexis or FindLaw, it’s more often than not I draw an email or comment. I blogged a proposal to Mark Cuban backed Ice Rocket and received a response the next morning.

Even if the company does not respond directly, journalists covering the industry or a particular story will be listening to your blog posts by monitoring keywords via RSS.

Attorney Bill Marler’s blog post urging Taco Bell to pay the medical bills for victims of an Ecoli outbreak did not draw a response from the defendant. However, it draw a response from the Wall Street Journal whose reporter called Taco Bell looking for a response.

Online interaction via blogs and RSS is a skill lawyers need to learn.