The Legal Marketing Association‘s Social Media Special Interest Group is at it again – this afternoon, they brought members an excellent webinar focused on combating internal politics – how to sell social media to your lawyers. 

Featured on the panel were moderator and LMA SIG leader, Gail Lamarche, of Henderson Franklin, an employment law attorney and social media maven from her firm, Suzanne Boy, and legal marketing expert, Jill Rako with Ohio-based Bricker & Eckler. 

Since these webinars are an LMA member benefit, I’m not going to delve as deeply into the recap as I traditionally would, but I do want to hit the highlights! Continue Reading Combating the Internal Politics – How to Sell Social Media to Your Lawyers

Despite being a long-time blogger and follower of Kevin O’Keefe on social media, I always learn something new when I attend one of his webinars.  Today, I was able to participate in "Blogging: Greater Returns with Less Effort," which was excellent and I’d like to share my recap with you. A full recording of the webinar will be available in the coming days on LexBlog’s YouTube channel.

Usual Starting Point

Kevin began at the beginning, so to speak, with the questions that he normally gets at the outset of a firm or attorney beginning their foray into blogging: 

  • How frequently should lawyers blog? 
  • Should we have a group blog to take the weight off of one person? 
  • Should we have an associate write the blog? 
  • Should we have a ghostwriter? 

Continue Reading Blogging: Greater Returns with Less Effort – A LexBlog Webinar

In what proved to be our most popular webinar yet, the Legal Marketing Association’s Social Media Special Interest Group held a session yesterday on using video to market legal services. We were fortunate to have three stellar presenters – Adam Stock of Allen Matkins, Adam Severson of Baker Donelson, and Mark Beese of Leadership for Lawyers

Their presentation was very interactive, and answered the questions I think we’ve all had on our minds about video, starting with the most important…Continue Reading Using Video to Market Legal Services

As the remnants of Hurricane Isaac are sweeping through my little town today (just a big thunderstorm, fortunately!), my mind is on blogging. So let’s jump into the second half of LexBlog’s Blogging Best Practices for Lawyers webinar! (Check out the first half here)

Effective Editorial Content

The next topic that Colin and Helen covered was effective editorial content. Colin said that he looks over every post that comes through the LexBlog network, and as he does, he’s looking for people who write like people. So often, bloggers just take their firm’s legal alerts and put them on their blog – but it would be more effective to add some personality instead, because it makes the posts more readable. Continue Reading Blogging Best Practices for Lawyers – A LexBlog Webinar Recap Part II

I’m full of the recaps lately, and I promise I’ve got some more original commentary coming up for you all as we get into fall. I’ve mentioned before that I love September, and the feeling of a fresh start that it gives me. For that reason, now is as good a time as ever to take a look at what you’re doing in your blogging – to see what’s been successful for you and what you can tweak. 

With that in mind, I bring you some excellent tips from LexBlog’s own Colin O’Keefe and Helen Pitlick – and I don’t say that just because they so kindly mentioned this blog. It was a great refresher for me, and whether you’re just thinking about getting into blogging, or you’ve been at it for a while, you’ll find something of value in their comments. Since there are a lot of great tips here, and I want  you to think about them a bit, I’m splitting this into two posts – the next one will follow after the holiday weekend here in the States.Continue Reading Blogging Best Practices for Lawyers – A LexBlog Webinar Recap Part I

Recently, I had the chance to sit in on a webinar with Kevin McKeown of LexBlog and Lee Frederiksen of Hinge Marketing, as they discussed the topic of blogging for clients, focusing on how online relationships can lead to real-world clients. 

Since this is a meaty topic, I’ll be breaking this up into multiple posts.

The speakers started by letting us know what the planned to cover in the webinar: 

  • The economic case for online marketing
  • How trust is developed online
  • Developing your strategy and tools
  • Implementing your plan

Continue Reading Blogging for Clients: How Online Relationships Lead to Real-World Clients (A Re-cap) Part I

I consider myself to be a fairly savvy social media user, though as I often like to tell people, "we’re all still learning." And with a medium that changes SO quickly, there’s certainly always something new to learn. That was reinforced for me yesterday when I sat in on Samantha Collier’s webinar for the Legal Marketing Association’s Social Media Special Interest Group on Facebook for Law Firms. Sam offers a post inspired by her webinar here

Sam’s webinar covered personal Facebook profiles for lawyers, Facebook pages for law firms, some case studies, and resources. As you may or may not know, Facebook is the most prominent social network out there, with 845 million monthly active users. Continue Reading Facebook for Law Firms – A Recap of Sam Collier’s LMA Webinar

Who doesn’t love a good five-part series on Twitter? Don’t answer that. 

Today, we have the last installment from my presentation, which covers some frequently asked questions that I’ve gotten with regard to Twitter, as well as the questions that came in as I was preparing the presentation. 

What’s in a username? Should I use my name, or some fun little moniker? 

Some people will argue that it’s a good idea to have a keyword or subject as your Twitter name, but I (and many others) disagree. I think it should always be your real name. As we’ve talked about before, people want to connect and work with people they know, like and trust, and how can they really know you if you’re not transparent with your name? It’s also much easier for people to find you when your username is your real name. 

There can be some difficulties here, because Twitter only allows you fifteen characters. My full name has more than that, so I just chopped off the "s" at the end. You can work around this however you’d like. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part V

We’ve now talked about a couple of uses of Twitter for law firms, but there was a third one that I snuck in there during my presentation, and that’s finding intelligence. 

Social media in general is an excellent way to research clients and potential clients, as well as competitors. The information is current and constantly updated, and it’s coming to you, rather than you having to go and find it. 

How would you do this on Twitter? Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part IV