Attorney's brand and reputation not built by Internet legal marketers

‘Beware the reputation managers‘ writes the Financial Times’ Andrew Hill (@andrewtghill).

Nothing could be more true when it comes to attorneys and law firms looking to the Internet for instant marketing success.

Lawyers, who don’t know how the Internet works, and legal marketers and PR professionals looking to prove their worth, but who often have little more understanding of how to use the Internet, are a dangerous dangerous combination.

Writing on how reputation managers are looked to save a company’s reputation and brand in a crisis, Hill’s words are equally applicable to lawyers and law firms looking to farm out their reputation building.

…[B]eware of the comfort such hired hands offer. Brand and reputation are the sum of the investment of management time and energy in the invention, manufacture, marketing and distribution of successful products and services. Reputation management may sustain and promote your brand in good times and crisis management may help salvage some of it when they turn bad. But bosses who neglect the building blocks of their company’s success will find in a crisis that they have no reputation to defend, no matter how much insurance or advice they have bought.

Hill says turning to reputation managers to insure your reputation reminds him of pet insurance policies that pay for you to photocopy and distribute posters of Puss if she strays. “Very helpful – except that in many cases, you don’t get your cat back.”

A strong word of mouth reputation as a trusted and skilled lawyer is what you are after when it comes to the Internet. Blogs and other social media are a powerful way to accelerate one’s reputation.

But you don’t farm out to someone else the hard work of becoming a good lawyer. And you don’t farm out to others the hard work of networking, collaboration, and engagement you do online to build relationships and enhance your reputation.

Beware the reputation managers in the form of legal marketers and PR professionals who tell you otherwise.