Are legal technology companies ready for bloggers at LegalTech 2015?
You can tell it’s LegalTech time again.
By LegalTech I am referring to ALM’s LegalTech Show in New York City the first week in February.
It is the largest and, arguably, the most important legal technology show of the year. The show brings together lawyers, corporate leaders, legal technology companies, large consulting companies and law firm technology, information, and knowledge professionals.
The reason I know the show is coming is by the rise in legal technology companies seeking to engage me via Twitter, LinkedIn and email. It always starts in early January.
The reason is that legal technology companies are starting to pay attention to influential bloggers in the legal industry. They, or their marketing companies, want to their companies and products blogged about and, perhaps, mentioned on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
The problem is the companies and their marketing and PR professionals are ill-equipped to leverage the power of blogs and other social media.
The vast majority don’t have a clue what blogging and social media are all about. Whether it’s using blogs and social media themselves or getting those who do to speak favorably of the companies and their products.
They don’t blog. If they do, it’s usually a blog inside a website looking like marketing collateral, as opposed to an independent publication.
Their blog posts are about the company and product development, as opposed to engaging in industry “conversation.” The tech company bloggers do not engage other bloggers, reporters, industry leaders and influencers. The blog is not authored by company principals, executives or inventors — the people who can authentically establish a brand and build relationships.
Many of the companies defer to marketing and public relationships professionals for blogging and social media. This is death if you are looking to establish real trust and relationships with other bloggers.
The companies do not understand that LegalTech should be an opportunity to meet the many bloggers and social media influencers whom they have met online over the course of the past year via the company’s blog and social media efforts. Bloggers who have probably talked about the company and its products on their blogs already.
Rather than hoping that someone will blog about you from LegalTech so you have one fleeting moment in the sun, you should be expecting bloggers and other influencers to seek you out and come up and give you a hug. Wouldn’t that feel better than tweeting out your booth number so that someone lost in the wilderness stops by?
No question companies use blogs to build relationships and word of mouth with lawyers and law firms. In a meeting at LexBlog this week I was presented info on a good number of non-law firm blog publishers on LXBN, LexBlog’s network of 8,000 blogging lawyers. These companies and professionals are seeking to grow their business by engaging those on the LexBlog Network and other legal bloggers and industry influencers.
Don’t get me wrong, LegalTech is a great show for bringing people, ideas, commerce and media coverage together. ALM does a great job. I enjoy coming each year. I like spending time with entrepreneurs and company leaders.
I just wonder how all these technology companies and consultants making significant spends on people, booths and entertainment can miss so badly such time and cost effective ways to build a brand, establish trust and sell their products — blogging and ancillary social media.
At times I want to walk up to a booth and rather than “be sold” something, sell them on something – how to really use blogs and social media to grow their business.