iSGu85T8TXS9zXJ20iBU__MG_9585With Instagram offering multi-account support (yay!) from within the app, it’s an appropriate time to talk about some marketing strategies for how to get noticed for using Instagram professionally.

Instagram is my favorite social media platform, and if you’re not yet familiar with it, or using it, Wikipedia tells us that it is:

a mobile, desktop, and Internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately…Instagram lets registered users upload photos or videos to the service. Users can apply various digital filters to their images, and add locations through geotags. They can add hashtags to their posts, linking the photos up to other content on Instagram featuring the same subject or overall topic. Users can connect their Instagram account to other social media profiles, enabling them to share photos to those profiles as well. Originally, a distinctive feature of Instagram was its confining of photos to a square; this was changed in August 2015, when an update started allowing users to upload media at full size. In June 2012, an “Explore” tab was introduced, showing users a variety of media, including popular photos and photos taken at nearby locations, trending tags and places, channels for recommended videos, and curated content. Support for videos was originally launched in June 2013, and had a 15-second maximum duration and limited quality, with Instagram later adding support for widescreen and longer videos. Private messaging, called Instagram Direct, was launched with basic photo-sharing functionality in December 2013, and has gradually received major updates incorporating more features, most notably text support and “disappearing” photos. In August 2016, Instagram introduced a “Stories” feature, letting users add photos to a story, with the content disappearing after 24 hours. Instagram added live-video functionality to Stories in November 2016, augmented reality stickers in April 2017, and face filters in May 2017.”

Many of you may be thinking “so what? It sounds like something for kids to use, and not that big of a deal.” So let’s look at the usage statistics:

After its launch in 2010, Instagram rapidly gained popularity, with one million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and ultimately 700 million as of April 2017. Its users have uploaded over 40 billion photos to the service as of October 2015. As of April 2017, Instagram Direct has 375 million active users, while, as of June 2017, the Instagram Stories functionality has over 250 million active users. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The popularity of Instagram has sparked an engaging community, including dedicated ‘trends’, in which users post specific types of photos on specific days of the week with a hashtag representing a common theme. Instagram has received positive reviews for its iOS app, and it has been named ‘one of the most influential social networks in the world’.”

Continue Reading Instagram: How Lawyers Can Use it & Get Noticed

Raise your hand if you’ve received an overly friendly email from a stranger, asking you for a favor.

Everyone? I thought so.

Why do these bug us so much? Aside from the fact that we’re busy enough trying to do our own work, balanced with some personal time, and fitting in helping out people we actually know, the reason is that when a stranger asks us for a favor they’re doing so without having any relationship equity.  Continue Reading Build Relationship Equity First

The legal industry is in the midst of challenging and exciting times. To many firms, so much change and uncertainty may feel like a bit of a crisis, while others see it as more of an opportunity. Regardless of how you see it, it’s certainly a time of upheaval.

I have finally gotten around to reading Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” which has been lounging on my bookshelf for the better part of several years. While there are many lessons in the book that firms looking to become “great” should take to heart, there was one observation that the authors made that really struck me as relevant for firms in today’s marketplace – the Stockdale Paradox.

Collins observes that every “good to great” company they examined in the course of the book’s research had faced “significant adversity.” The difference between those companies who became great, and those companies who didn’t is what Collins refers to as the “Stockdale Paradox.” Continue Reading Great Law Firms Will Embrace the Stockdale Paradox

Four years ago, we were talking about the “new normal” for law firms. It’s almost comical to believe that we’re still talking about it as if it’s new. It’s not.

Even at that time, Above the Law was telling us that the new normal was really more of the “old normal,” though if we’re honest, there is a lot to show that it really is more new than anything else. But that being said, Above the Law’s advice from four years ago still manages to hold true today. Many firms move at a glacial pace, so we can still be learning and adjusting based on their suggestions (which is a bit scary, but let’s just go with it).  Continue Reading Three Essential Lessons for the New “New” Normal at Law Firms

We’re thrilled to welcome a new member firm in South Korea, Lee International IP & Law Group!

Lee International is a full-service law firm, serving its clients with a range of practice areas in addition to its long-standing intellectual property practice. These areas of service include advice and representation in finance, real estate, M&A, general corporate, antitrust and fair trade, health care, domestic and foreign litigation and international arbitrations, labor, tax, general commercial, entertainment, customs, international trade remedies, government investigations, criminal matters and others. Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Firm in South Korea, Lee International IP & Law Group

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, VGCD, Colombia!
Valbuena Gamboa García Cardona (VGCD) is a Colombian-based firm located in Bogotá. This firm was created to provide legal services domestically and internationally with a focus on providing the highest standards of quality, efficiency and creativity to its clients.

The firm serves its clients with four partners and a team of twenty three lawyers, each with experience in a range of practice areas.

This full-service firm has a cross section of practice areas, including the following: exchange law; labor law; corporate law; fusions and acquisitions; public law; civil rights; family rights; personal data protection; competition law and consumer; real estate law; litigation, arbitration and insolvency; tax law and tax planning; financial and securities law; intellectual, industrial property and copyright; and mining law.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – VGCD – Colombia!

How can we network better?

Many posts offer the same tips, spun in a different way – and that’s important, because I can always get something out of implementing the tried and true.  But when I find something unique, I’m always happy to share it.

Recently, I came across this piece from Branding Magazine, with “5 Tips to Network Like the Pros.” Despite all of the change happening in the legal industry, we still know that relationships are paramount – and maybe even more so than ever.

Bearing that in mind, let’s work on supercharging our networking. Branding Magazine offers 5 tips, but let’s take a look at two of them, and how they relate to the legal industry. Continue Reading Two Easy Tips to Power Network Like a Pro

“Change or die.”

How many times have you heard that over the last eight years?

A friend of mine in the legal industry pointed that out to me recently, along with commenting that it always sounds so dire. And it does sound dire.

But after the statistics that we covered in a recent post (1/3 of clients are openly dissatisfied with their outside counsel, chief legal officers rank firms at a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale for commitment to change, and clients are moving their legal work to other firms or to non-firm vendors), it would seem that we should be properly incentivized to speed up the pace of change. From the Peer Monitor/Georgetown 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market, which cautioned BigLaw against a “Kodak moment” Continue Reading What’s Holding us Back from Real Change in Legal?

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Ferrari Pedeferri Boni Studio Legale Associato – Italy!
Ferrari Pedeferri Boni is an independent Italian law firm that handles legal issues on business law, with main office in Milan and secondary office in Trieste. They strive for excellence in their services and are proud to meet the highest international standards of the legal profession. Their clients are entrepreneurs and executives, Italian and foreigners, and their philosophy is to take a pragmatic and business-oriented approach when assisting them. They regularly handle cross-border and international transactions and litigation cases. Over the years, they have garnered significant expertise in international market and have developed a trusted network of professionals that they put at the disposal of their clients when needed.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Ferrari Pedeferri Boni Studio Legale Associato, Italy!

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a titanic shift in the legal industry, and one thing I know for sure is that we’ve all got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Change, innovation, disruption – it’s all here to stay, and how it shakes out will be different for each law firm and law firm client.

What we do know is that the client is king – they always were, but now they know it too. And that means clients expect their firms to get creative about ways and means to provide value. This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways, depending on your strategy, goals, and clients, but a piece of that puzzle is the law firm network. Continue Reading 5 Ways a Law Firm Network Can Make Your Firm More Successful