Can we use Google’s free Blogger blog publishing platform for our large law firm’s blogs?
We get that question a lot at LexBlog. Last Thursday night the question came from a large overseas law firm.
Makes as much sense as asking ‘Can we have our 300 lawyer firm housed in a pole barn with lawyers using plywood sheets for desktops with sawhorses for desk legs, and shop lights hanging from the rafters?’
Sure, you can do it. But doing so may get you fired from the law firm for the problems you cause and the damage to the firm’s reputation that results. Maybe not at first as the firm heads don’t know blogs from Shinola and you just saved 2 grand to spend on raised gold letters on the firm’s Christmas cards or brine shrimp in the mini quiche at the next cocktail social.
LexBlog does have a dog in this hunt. We provide law firms with a turnkey blog solution that costs $2,400 a year and Google’s Blogger is free.
But as our VP of Client Development, Kevin McKeown, reminds each of our team members everyday, LexBlog is not a vendor looking to sell a service to law firms. We are a law firm’s strategic partner in helping them achieve an effective Internet presence so as to further enhance a lawyer’s reputation and grow their business. It’s our job when firms contact us (2 to 7 a day do) to help them make an informed decision about the use of blogs and whether LexBlog is the right fit for them.
If LexBlog did not advise on the appropriateness of using Blogger, we wouldn’t be doing our job. Just as you have the responsibility to act with reasonable care when advising clients on legal matters, LexBlog has to act with reasonable care when advising law firms on Internet marketing.
Look at this comment on my blog I just received this morning:
My heart goes out to him.
Ask yourself these questions when going with Blogger.
- Is it okay that the default ‘next blog’ button on the top of our blog links to a soft porn site?
- Is it okay if we learn blogs as we go knowing that we may be wasting our lawyers’ time in having them blog and get nothing in return?
- Is it okay if innovative clients and prospective clients wonder why your firm is using an amateur free blog platform?
- Is it okay if our blog content and blogger profile gets deleted which though unlikely has happened?
- Is it okay if we get locked out of editing our blog when something gets published on the blog and we need to remove it?
- Is it okay that our blog can’t be found on Google as we do not know how to optimize the blog?
- Is it okay that our blog is missing necessary features that make for an effective influential blog?
If they don’t make your stomach start to turn, you lied. You are not working in a law firm. Issues far less critical had me reaching for the Malox bottle in the right lower drawer in my law firm desk.
Sure, there are going to be lawyers and law firms who have studied blogging at length, have blog consultants advising on effective blogging, and who are happy to tinker with Blogger to get it to work for them. But those firms are in the minority.
As a lawyer and practice group head in a top 10 law firm told me, ‘I am a thought leader with a national reputation among Fortune 200 companies, I am not looking to use a blog because I am a frustrated academic like one of my partners using Blogger.’
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