photo-1452690700222-8a2a1a109f4cRemember the good old days when we just did a bunch of things and didn’t have specialized terms for them? Yep, these aren’t them.

“Social media marketing” came about when social media platforms were introduced and we learned how to use online technology to build relationships that we’d previously been building offline (that’s tremendously simplified, but you get the idea). Then “content marketing” came along to describe what many law firms had been doing for years – writing about the law and its impact on their clients, and then sharing it with them. As a term, content marketing is broader than that, but in terms of the legal industry, that’s pretty much the short version.

As we worked through the introduction of the terms, we separated people into two camps: the “broadcasters” and the “engagers.” The “broadcasters” treated social media and content marketing as a means to spread their message around, but without the end goal of developing community with anyone. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a different valuation – some of the goals that firms/lawyers who embrace this philosophy might be pursuing are reputation enhancement, being considered a thought leader on a particular subject, etc. Many firms/lawyers have been successful, and even built a large following this way, and spend little or no time engaging with their audience. Continue Reading Two Ways to Translate Content Marketing into Relationship Marketing

photo-1433170897235-615700336230Of all the social media platforms out there, I’d venture to say that LinkedIn is the one that lawyers are most comfortable using. It has a reputation for being the most professional, and as a result, it’s had the widest adoption within the industry. In recent years, LinkedIn has really expanded their offerings, and provided a robust, deep platform that allows us to engage in new ways, all which make it an even more valuable platform than it was at the beginning.

Like any social platform (or any tool, really), LinkedIn is what you make of it – you can treat it as a place to broadcast from, and as long as you have something valuable to say, you may find that many people are listening to you. But if you want to use it as a business development tool, then you need to get serious about the steps that you take to leverage its features. I read a great article today over on Inc which talked about three ways to use LinkedIn to attract your ideal customer. Since “sales” is a dirty word for lawyers, we’re instead going to talk about using LinkedIn for business/relationship development (which, by the way, is really the same thing, but said in a more palatable way).

Since it’s our Two for Tuesday day, we’ll just presume that you already have a robust LinkedIn profile. I promise that at some point this year, I will update my LinkedIn for Lawyers book, which is a step-by-step process for setting up a profile, but for the moment, let’s set aside that tip and focus on the other two that Inc author, Bill Carmody, suggests.  Continue Reading Two Ways to Use LinkedIn to Attract Your Ideal Client

photo-1451653500993-04a9a6368221Although it’s officially tomorrow, I thought I’d use today to mark Zen & the Art of Legal Networking’s SEVENTH “blogiversary.” It’s hard to believe that it’s been seven years since I started blogging, and even more, that I’m still enjoying it. Here’s a roundup of the anniversary posts that I’ve done:

The 7th anniversary gift is typically copper or wool, and a fun fact for those of you who may not know me well is that I am a very fast crocheter. It’s a skill I learned from my grandmother at a young age, and one I’ve kept up through the years, often making gifts for family and friends. A GREAT way to take advantage of a love of crocheting is by donating your time (and wool!) to some excellent causes, which is something I do on a yearly basis. Two things I do are crocheting scarves for our troops (although it’s often warm during the day where they’re deployed to, the dramatic temperature drops at night, and in the winter, mean it can get a bit cold, so they do actually need scarves) and crocheting hats for cancer patients undergoing chemo who have lost their hair.  Here are the links for those who’d like to use their own knitting or crochet skills to do the same, or who’d like to make a monetary gift to support these awesome causes!

Continue Reading Happy 7th Blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking!

LGHS
Working on a project in our high school cafeteria.

After eighteen years, tomorrow marks the first time I’m going back to high school.

Sure, I was in the gym for my sisters’ graduations, but other than that I haven’t actually been back in the building since the day I graduated and headed out into the world, a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old, excited for the next phase in my life. A friend of mine who is now a guidance counselor at the school asked me to sit on a panel of graduates to talk about my life since graduation, and how attending IHA (Immaculate Heart Academy) prepared me for college and the workforce.  We’re speaking to a group of sophomores who are in a special program because of their top scores on the high school entrance exams, and although we’ve each been given five minutes to cram our entire post-graduate lives into a snapshot, all I keep thinking about is “What do I really want to communicate to these girls?”

This is an institution, in an area of the country, where the pressure is on – it’s quite acceptable for the girls to strive for excellence at great sacrifice to their happiness and mental health. Academic rigor is prized – by the school, by the girls, by their families; and add to that the addition of being well-prepped for college by being involved in sports, extracurriculars, and going above and beyond in every way imaginable. I’m not trying to put down the school – IHA was a rigorous foundation for me – the focus on writing and critical thinking meant that by the time I got to college, I had the basic skills so ingrained in me that I was able to focus on what I was really there to do – learn. I was fortunate to have some amazing teachers at IHA from Mr. McLoughlin to Ms. Fritsche to Ms. McDonough to Mrs. Sandt and more, who all cared about challenging me every day to be my best self. They gave me the building blocks upon which the foundation of my education was built, which allowed me the confidence to pursue my interests (rather than strictly the requirements) in college. And as much as I didn’t think of myself as a writer when I started at IHA, the emphasis on writing as a skill has been invaluable to me – first in college, where we also had a strong commitment to writing, and subsequently as a professional, where I write on a daily basis. Continue Reading Stay Open & Enjoy the Moments: How High School Lessons Apply to Lawyers

What good would looking at commercials from Super Bowl 50 be without looking at the worst of the worst? That’s right, today’s post is all about the UGLY commercials of 2016. And boy, did we have some ugly ones.

While this ad still managed to get some good press and actually (if you can believe it) immediately started trending when it aired during the game, for me, this commercial was the WORST of this year’s crop:

Mountain Dew: Puppy Monkey Baby

https://youtu.be/ql7uY36-LwA

I know, I’m sorry, I have to include it again for you to appreciate why I chose this ad for the ugly list.

So, why is this one so terrible? First of all, it’s creepy. The Huffington Post said:

#PuppyMonkeyBaby quickly became a trending Twitter topic, and most agreed on one thing: there’s a line between cute and horrifying.”

I particularly loved when they said “Mountain Dew? How about Mountain DON’T.” Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Ugly of 2016

photo-1417024321782-1375735f8987It’s not always easy to find content inspiration.

We’ve talked about a few different ways you can stay up to date on the hot topics of the day, and find inspiration for your next post, but some days, it will be a struggle and you know that you need to find something to get your creative juices flowing. Earlier today, I was reading a piece on 5 Unexpected Places to Find Inspiration for Your Blog Content. These were pretty far out of the box, and I could just picture the faces of my own lawyers if I tried to suggest any of them find inspiration in a stock photo site for their next post.

But it did get me thinking about two places lawyers CAN find inspiration for their next post – they’re not unexpected, but you will find them legitimate, I promise.  Continue Reading Two Places to Find Inspiration for Your Blog Content

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February/March 2016

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Robinson Sheppard Shapiro (RSS) – Montreal, Canada!

Robinson Sheppard Shapiro, a mid-size firm steeped in tradition, is located in Montreal, a city rooted in a rich cultural heritage with a unique civil law system. Founded in 1921, their firm has a long history of providing global and in depth legal advice and services in transactions and judicial proceedings alike.

Their firm’s 80 bilingual attorneys offer comprehensive multidisciplinary expertise to their diverse local, national and international clientele. The attorneys in their Insurance Law practice group and Business Law practice group (including their mergers and acquisitions, tax, finance, real estate, transportation, employment, IP and commercial litigation groups) are recognized leaders in their fields. They bring extensive knowledge, skill sets and high level strategic thinking to all legal and business matters. RSS is also home to one of Montreal’s largest and most respected Family Law practice groups. Their attorneys have been consistently recognized by peer – rating publications as being amongst Canada’s best. Their approach across all practice groups is rooted in a strong belief that valued and valuable legal counsel demands a disciplined practice of uncompromising integrity, high efficiency, practical counsel and superior expertise. Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Robinson Sheppard Shapiro – Montreal, Canada!

We’ve seen the great commercials from 2016, and we’ve seen the pretty good ones, but now it’s time to get into the fun stuff – the bad commercials from Super Bowl 2016.

There are five strong candidates for “bad” commercials this year, because we had such strong contenders for the “ugly” category – but we’ll get to those next week. I’m sure you can guess what they are. With so many mediocre commercials this year, the biggest issue is that many of the spots were just flat out forgettable. I took notes on every commercials, and for the most part, it was the name of the spot, followed by “eh.” As I said on Monday, if you’re spending Super Bowl-sized money on your advertising spots, you should be spending Super Bowl sized money on the advertising itself – and that means at least evoking *some* reaction from the viewing public.

The following commercials did just that. They weren’t the worst of the worst, but they were fairly terrible. Let’s take a look at each of them, and discuss why they failed.

LG Man from the Future

https://youtu.be/PzLfPx-8OuM

Oh boy, did I want to love this commercial. I mean, it’s Liam Neeson. And, for you eagle-eyed viewers out there, yes, that’s his son appearing with him in the spot. Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Bad of 2016

On Monday, we discussed what I saw as the “best” of this year’s crop of Super Bowl commercials (which my sister tells me is two words – “Super Bowl”), and although the general consensus seemed to be that most of the commercials this year were mediocre, we did find some to love. A few people even privately asked me why other commercials weren’t included on that list (and they’re included on today’s), so there were more than those eight mentioned that hit as favorites.

Today, we’ll look at the ones that made my “good” list for 2016; surprisingly, there were more on here than I thought. I worked to narrow it down to five, with a few honorable mentions, and I had trouble knocking some off the list. So see what you ultimately think of this list, and whether there are some that you were fond of that I missed altogether.

Audi: Commander

https://youtu.be/yB8tgVqmKzw

Audi does several smart things here – they liken their car to a space ship, touching on many kids’ dreams to fly into space (Hey! You can do that just by driving our car! This former astronaut even thinks so!); and they tug at your heartstrings not once, but twice – first by having the son make his father feel like a young space commander again, at the helm of his space ship, and again by playing a David Bowie favorite, calling to mind the recently lost musician. I’m not even a fan of David Bowie, and this commercial choked me up. Continue Reading Super Bowl Commercials – The Good of 2016

Picture, if you will, the Staples commercials that aired a few years ago, with the parents sailing through the aisles as they got ready for their kids to go back to school as “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” played jubilantly in the background. For me, that’s what Super Bowl commercials are like.

While football is all right (these days, I’d much prefer to watch the Six Nations, where it seems that the men are men), to me, the Super Bowl is really about the ads. If a company is going to spend up to $5 million for 30 seconds of ad time (yes, you read that right), then they should really be bringing their A game to the ad game.

Unfortunately, I’d have to say that this year overall was a bit of a letdown. While I did have some standouts and so will be able to do a “best of” as well as my “good, bad and ugly,” in general, the commercials were at best, mediocre. And that’s just not okay.

Companies (and firms, this goes for you, too): if you’re going to be investing in a marketing project, invest in it. Don’t spend the money on the advertising dollars, only to go cheap on the ad itself. Some of the ads were misses for me, but at least I could tell that the agencies tried. Most of them felt like an afterthought. And I see more and more of that in legal marketing these days too – we have some brilliant and talented people in our industry, who are, unfortunately, being asked to do more and more and are spread very thin. As a result, there’s less and less creativity being seen because there’s only so much time in the day.

But I’d love to see more from all of us. Bring back the days of thoughtful, smart marketing that gets people excited about what they’re going to see. We don’t need the budgets of these big companies to learn and apply the lessons that their commercials can teach us!

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at my five favorites from this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads – along with a couple of Honorable Mentions:

Prius: The Longest Chase

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MYeM-8hO3hM

Continue Reading Super Bowl Commercials – The Best of 2016