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Today marks six years since Zen & The Art of Legal Networking made its debut in the legal blogging world. In some ways, it feels like it’s been longer than that, while in others, the time has just flown! 

I’ve only ever marked this "blogiversary" three other times – on the second, fourth and fifth anniversaries, when I shared a sort of "state of the blog," things I had learned, and tips for blogging. Blogiversaries, like anniversaries, should be a time of reflection, so today has got me thinking about what I’ve learned in the past year, specifically six things I can share with you from Zen. 

Before I jump into that, however, I’ll tell you another thing I learned today – the traditional gift for a sixth anniversary is candy! For those who know me personally, you’ll know that I have a terrible sweet tooth, so it’s a rather appropriate gift for me. Last year, for the 5th anniversary, I donated trees in honor of wood, and this year, I purchased some candy from my niece’s school fundraising efforts to help her meet her goal!

Lesson One: Blogging is NOT Dead

I’ve heard whispers in a few corners recently that blogging is dead; that no one is really doing it anymore or at least not in the same way that they used to. But I beg to differ. I still see it as a hugely valuable component of any content marketing strategy, and one of the best ways to own your content and engage with readers. Continue Reading Happy 6th Blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking!

For today’s Two for Tuesdays, I’m cheating a little and giving you a preview of a post I’ve written as part of the 12 Days of Social Media, which the Legal Marketing Association‘s Social Media Shared Interest Group is putting together.  As a side note, our 12 Days posts are open to everyone (not just LMA members), and I encourage you to read through them – there are some great tips and tools in there! 

I’m responsible for the 8th Day of Social Media (which is tomorrow), and tasked with sharing 8 Helpful Hashtags. I’m not going to divulge any of the eight, but I will share with you some information on why you should care about hashtags, and two ways to use them.  If you’re not familiar with what hashtags are, definitely check out tomorrow’s Day 8 post for a primer. 

Why Care About Hashtags?

So who cares about hashtags anyway? Sure, it seems fun and funny to make up a hashtag here and there to add to your tweets or Facebook posts (#justsaying), but why should they matter to lawyers and legal professionals? I’m here to tell you that there are PLENTY of reasons.

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: What the Hashtag?

Here in the US, today is Veterans Day, a day to remember and thank those who have served our country. I have had family and friends in the military – everything from Army and the Air Force to Marines to Navy and Coast Guard – so today is an important day for me. I like to give thanks to our military as much as possible, but I’m all in favor of any day that especially calls for it.

So it’s got me thinking about the community work that our companies and firms do, and how we can extend the reach of that in different ways. My most favorite way to give back is anonymously, but when we’re doing it as an organization or firm, it’s best to try to get as much publicity as possible for the charitable organization we’re supporting. 

There are many different and creative ways to do this, but I want to focus on two as they relate to social media. And while I’m at it, I also recommend checking out some of the many amazing Veterans’ organizations out there and offering your support! 

Tip One: Use Social Media to Showcase

Supporting community organizations is one of the best ways that firms can communicate what they care about. Whether it’s through teams of employees joining together to run for a cause, or jeans Fridays to raise money, there are tons of ways that firms and their employees work together and individually to show they care. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Community Work

September and October are two of my favorite months, not the least of which is because it gives me motivation, motivation for a fresh start as if I’m starting a new school year again. 

As I’m thinking about fresh start today, I’m bringing you a Two for Tuesdays that focuses on a marketing refresh!

Tip One: Refresh Your Social Media Profiles

It happens quickly – once you’ve made the time investment to open and populate your social media profiles, you are apt to forget about them as you get busy. Even if you’re using them on a daily or weekly basis. 

Let this tip encourage you to take a quick look at them and do a refresh.

  • LinkedIn: First, make sure you’ve turned your profile notifications off, or your connections will suspect that you’re looking for a new job. Then, look through your profile. Is your photo up to date? Are your job title and headline as current (and descriptive) as they could be? Have you started working more in one practice area over another, and need to have your experience reflect that? Are your recommendations years old, and you need to reach out to some new clients? Take a look at anything that might look out of date or incorrect and use this time to correct it. 

    Check any LinkedIn groups and pages that you manage as well to ensure that all information is current, and that any discussions you’ve pinned to the top level are recent ones. 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Marketing Refresh

It’s another Two for Tuesdays, and we’re finally into September! It doesn’t feel that way here in New Jersey, where it’s almost 90 degrees and very high humidity – this might not be so bad if I hadn’t lost my furnace in a flood almost four weeks ago, resulting in NO air conditioning. The new furnace is being installed tomorrow and Thursday, but in the meantime, we are melting over here!

So let’s try to stay cool by talking about Twitter. I saw two posts come through my RSS reader talking about new things on Twitter, so today’s Two for Tuesdays will be two new things to check out over there!

Tip One: Take a look at Twitter’s Analytics

Analytics may not interest you that much, but they should.  People often make the mistake of thinking that the number of followers or connections is the measure of how successful you are on social media – but that’s not the case. 

Engagement and interaction with those followers IS, as well as being able to amplify what you’re sharing. Analytics can help you to dig a little deeper, so that you can identify which of the platforms is working most successfully for you, and therefore, where you should be investing your time (and where it may make sense for you to invest a little less time). Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Twitter Edition!

Yesterday, the LMA Social Media SIG group was treated to a wonderful webinar, which focused on the 2014 State of Digital and Content Marketing Strategy survey done by Greentarget, Zeughauser Group, and ALM. The webinar featured John Corey (@jecorey), the president and founder of Greentarget, and Mary K. Young (@MaryKYoungZG), a partner at Zeughauser Group. 

But more than just discussing the survey itself, Mary and John talked about how law firms can get noticed in a sea of content.  We’re operating in an era of information overload, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon, so this is incredibly important. 

They laid the foundation for their later discussions by taking a look at the 2014 survey.  The survey focused on in-house counsel for the fourth year in a row, but also added in a law firm CMO/marketer element this year.  They had 189 in-house respondents, which include GCs, Deputy GCs, etc, and 79 law firm CMO/marketer responses, from the top 350 firms. 

For the GCs, they wanted to drill down to find out how they are using social media, and what content they find most valuable. For the CMOs, they asked more about how they are approaching content at their firms. Continue Reading Standing Out in a Sea of Content: A Webinar Recap

The weather is finally beautiful here on this Two for Tuesdays – low humidity and low heat, just the way I like it! 

Another thing I like, as you may know, is LinkedIn. Our first Two for Tuesdays post offered two tips for LinkedIn, and there’s so much to gain from it that I’m back to bring you two more! The first post focused mostly on what changes you could make to your profile, while today, we’ll look at what you should be doing in terms of your usage of LinkedIn.

Tip One: Make it Effortless

The first few years I was using LinkedIn, I had to try to remember to check it periodically. I was mostly reminded any time I would get an invitation from someone to connect (or if someone accepted my invitation), but otherwise, it certainly wasn’t at the top of my mind. I’d wager that that’s the case for busy lawyers and marketing professionals as well. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: More LinkedIn

Only one thing could bring me in from my vacation, and that was the Legal Marketing Association’s Social Media Shared Interest Group’s webinar with Peter Shankman (@petershankman) and Jasmine Trillos-Decarie (@jasminedecarie), entitled "Bringing Law Firms ‘Back to The Future’ of Social Media."

I wasn’t alone in thinking that, if the tweetstream was any indication – valuable tidbits from the conversation were flying over on Twitter! We even had a legal marketer join the LMA just to be able to attend the webinar, and she said it was well worth it! 

LMA members can access the full recording over on the website, but for everyone else, I’ll share some of the valuable information that came out of the presentation.

Jasmine kicked it off from the law firm perspective – she’s got more than 20 years of experience in legal marketing with AmLaw 50, 100, and 200 firms, so she knows what she’s talking about! 

Continue Reading Bringing Law Firms “Back to The Future” of Social Media

It’s another Two for Tuesdays here, and apparently, I’m feeling the need for lots of alliteration today, as we’re looking at two tips for Twitter. 

Why bother with Twitter? 

Let’s look at a couple of stats first, and then why those might be important: 

  • 255 million monthly active users (that’s ACTIVE users)
  • 500 million tweets sent per day
  • 77% of accounts are outside of the US

And lawyers may be a bigger deal on Twitter than they think. According to Kevin O’Keefe, the "median active Twitter user (tweets at least once a month) has only 61 followers." So it follows that…

If you’re a lawyer seeing yourself as a Twitter laggard because you have only a few hundred followers, fear not. You’re in the 80th to 90th percentile. Reach 1,000 followers and you’re at the 97th percentile of active Twitter users."

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Tips for Twitter