Connecting the dots with strategic law blogging
Most lawyers and law firms live in the past when it comes to blog strategy. They look to start blogs for existing practice groups or for long-standing areas of the law they’re looking to jumpstart.
A better approach is to focus on the future by publishing blogs focused on growing areas of the law or geographic regions.
This morning, Ann Lee Gibson, a competetive intelligence consultant to law firms, shared an article from Bloomberg on the unlikely cities that will power the U.S. economy.
Rather than focusing on Silicon Valley and New York City, based on the research in the article, Gibson suggested law firms may want to look to smaller cites which are transforming themselves into tech centers where high-paying jobs are intersecting with a high quality of living.
Lawyers that do want to build word-of-mouth reputations and relationships in these communities will need to get online and network—ideally via thought leadership in areas relevant to tech companies.
These tech companies and their employees are only going to hire lawyers and law firms with real net presences—not websites, but blogs and smart use of social media. One, they’ll not see the other firms doing this and two, tech companies do not hire firms who do not get technology nor use technology.
When planning a blog, why not begin by pulling out an article such as the one shared by Gibson? Look at the cities likely to experience growth. Do you have offices in the city or close by? Could you? What’s the competition look like? Any lawyers or law firms knocking it dead by blogging in tech-relevant niches and networking on Facebook and the like? You’ll see the opportunities.
Compare such niche-focused blogging to traditional market expansion. Opening an office, lateral hires and firm mergers cost a ton and the offline business development efforts take years to measure. In today’s world that form of business development is also less likely to work than networking through the Internet.
The Bloomberg article is an isolated piece of reaseach. There is a wealth of other reaserch focusing on industry, regional and legal growth areas. Take advantage of the research in planning your blog rather than being guided by the past.