Ask questions to generate law blog content

Lawyers often object to blogging because they don’t have anything to write about. “What am I going to say.”

It’s possible all you need to do is to ask a question and let the answers give rise to a blog post.

Digital marketing professional, Andrei Petrik (@andreipetrek), shared this week that Quora is a an excellent place to ask questions to generate content for blog posts.

Using responses on Quora tackles common objections anyone has to blogging, “I don’t know what to blog about” and “I don’t have enough to say.” All you’ll need to do is ask a question and wait for responses to come in. You’ll be able to turn the responses into talking points for your next blog post, or …you can quote Quora users directly.

As way of background, Quora is a widely used question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The key is finding the right category and being specific with your question.

I have done the same thing in my Legal Blogging Group on LinkedIn. By asking a question as simple as what is the importance of a law blog in this day of other social media, I generated twenty-some responses.

My goal was just to have a discussion in the group and learn where legal professionals were at on the value of a law blog.

But because of the quality of the answers I turned the the discussion into a blog post. I gave attribution to those I cited by name with a link to their LinkedIn profile, website, or Twitter profile.

When using answers, be strategic in whose answers you use in a blog post. You don’t need to cite everyone. Who are the people you’d like to get to know? Who do you want to build a relationship with? To include in your network? To learn from?

In my case, one of the people who answered is a widely respected law firm marketing director. Another an international consultant to law firms.

By sharing their answers, citing them, and giving further attribution on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, where I shared my post, I met these professionals virtually.

Strange as it sounds, asking good questions  on networks such as Quora and LinkedIn raises your stature. With all the people shouting at each other online by producing content and pushing it out everywhere, a question demosntrates your sincere desire to engage and learn.

Learning, blog post content, and strategically engaging others. A lot of plusses from a simple concept.

Image courtesy of Flickr by ed_needs_a_bicycl