Canadian in-house counsel embrace law blogs

Looking to have your insight and commentary reach in-house counsel in Canada? Looking to improve the chances you’ll get hired by those same same in-house counsel?

Publishing a niche focused legal blog may be the answer.

54% of Canadian in-house counsel read legal blogs for legal, business and industry news and information and 54% use legal blogs when researching which counsel to hire. 49% value legal blogs for professional reasons.

This per the 2015 Canadian Legal Digital Interaction Survey conducted by fSquared Marketing (@fSquared_Mktg).

Though in-house are apt to be lurkers as opposed to heavy participants on social media, one thing is clear per Jennifer Brown of the Canadian Lawyer and Law Times (@canlawmag) reporting on the survey:

…[O]nline is where in-house counsel are doing much of their information gathering these days with 83 per cent saying they use the Internet to consume legal information on a daily or weekly basis. And 75 per cent said lawyer-authored articles and speeches influence their hiring decisions…

Beyond blogs, here’s how Canadian in-house counsel are using social media.

• 75% use social media in their professional lives.
• 62% use LinkedIn to connect with in-house colleagues.
• 46% use LinkedIn to connect with outside counsel with whom they work.
• 42% use LinkedIn to connect with outside counsel with whom they do not work.
• 49% use LinkedIn for legal news, and business and industry information.
• 20% use Twitter for legal news, and business and industry information.
• 12% use Facebook for legal news, and business and industry information.

You can expect in-house counsel’s reliance on blogs and social media to only increase over time. The number of blogs being published by law firms serving in-house counsel is on the rise – big time. The quality of these blogs is rising as well.

In addition, in-house counsel, like everyone else, turn to the Internet for research on niche subjects which have never been covered by traditional publishers. Blogs are apt to be the only source of such news, information and analysis.

It’s also legal blog posts which flow through other social media, whether it be LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. In-house counsel, increasingly receiving news and information through such social media are apt to find blog posts.

Image courtesy of Flickr by iaphc_photos.