Revisiting the ‘Intention Economy’ : The case for lawyer blogs

Doc Searls, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and widely-read blogger and a columnist, revisits the ‘Intention Economy‘ in a post this morning.

The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don’t need advertising to make them.

The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don’t need marketing to make Intention Markets……

The Intention Economy is built around more than transactions. Conversations matter. So do relationships. So do reputation, authority and respect. Those virtues, however, are earned by sellers (as well as buyers) and not just ‘branded’ by sellers on the minds of buyers like the symbols of ranchers burned on the hides of cattle.

The Intention Economy is about buyers finding sellers, not sellers finding (or ‘capturing’) buyers.

What’s this got to do with law firm marketing? And lawyer blogs? A lot.

Lawyers don’t need advertising to make or get clients. Lawyer advertising wasn’t even allowed until the Supreme Court decision in Bates versus Arizona.

Lawyers get work as a result of networking via conversations, relationships, and having a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority.

Lawyers need to proactively do something to get work this way — you don’t sit back and let advertising, marketing, business development, and PR professionals network and reputation build for you.

Clients find and hire lawyers who network, build relationships, and create a word of mouth reputation as an authority — lawyers don’t capture clients through marketing.

Blogs and social networking tools (Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Legal OnRamp, Facebook et al) are the perfect medium for reputation building and networking. The use of these mediums (if that’s how to characterize blogs & social networking tools) is not marketing as law firms know it. They are tools used in conversation – just as your mouth and ears are used in offline conversation.

Use blogs and social networking and you’ll have clients seeking you out, as opposed to vice versa. God knows that’s always something I hoped to achieve in my prior life of 17 years of practicing law.

As you know when meeting me around the country, everything I know about blogs, social networking, and the like comes from following folks a lot brighter than me. Doc’s one of them. I look forward to meeting him in Santa Barbara or Boston one of these days. It’ll be an honor.