photo-1439556838232-994e4c0d3b7cAlthough we’re well into 2016 now, it’s not too late to make some resolutions for your content marketing. I came across this Forbes article from the end of last year with 6 Content Marketing New Year’s Resolutions to Make This Year, and there is some great food for thought in there that I’d like us to consider. As it’s a Two for Tuesdays day, we’ll focus on two of them to start with.

Why content marketing resolutions at all?

It’s easy to get too into the weeds with content marketing, and be so focused on the process of producing and distributing content that we forget to take that step back once in a while to make sure that we’re sticking to our strategy, working with a strategy that makes sense for us, our practices, and our firms, and continuing to produce and distribute content that meets with what our audiences really want to consume. Continue Reading Two Content Marketing Resolutions for 2016

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January/February 2016

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Brauneis Klauser Prändl Rechtsanwaelte GmbH – Vienna, Austria!

Brauneis Klauser Prändl (bkp) is one of the Austria’s leading business law firms. They are known for providing clients with high-profile services, along with efficient and target-oriented advice. Due to the size of their firm, they are able to advise and represent clients in all aspects of business law. Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Brauneis Klauser Prändl Rechtsanwaelte GmbH – Vienna, Austria!

200HWhile you don’t need to break the news to be a successful content marketer in the legal industry (and in many cases, it’s really better if you don’t), it doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from writing about or producing content for the latest trends. You may think that because someone else has already weighed in on something, that you shouldn’t add to the commentary out there – but you may have something valuable to say, or a different perspective to add.

What we refer to as “evergreen content,” or “SEO content that is continually relevant and stays ‘fresh’ for readers.” (thanks, WordStream) is extremely valuable for lawyers and law firms. It’s content that is always relevant to your audience, and will live on well after you’ve produced it, thus doing the work of marketing for you without you having to actively do anything at all. But it’s only part of the story – the other part is covering the latest trends (both those in law, and those outside of the law, from a legal perspective) to give those in the industry a reason to keep coming back to your content. As Ann Smarty says in this piece for the Content Marketing Institute:

Covering relevant timely and newsworthy content is a great way to grow your site audience and take advantage of trends that get people more interested and thus more engaged.”

It’s likely that you already have a number of different sources set up for how you identify the latest trends in your area of practice – whether you’re an active content producer or not, you’re staying up-to-date on the latest legislation, case decisions, and industry discussions that may or may not affect your clients. But as the world expands and evolves, so do the means with which we keep up with the latest trends – and for those of us interested in translating these into content that we can use proactively, there are various tools out there that we can leverage.  Continue Reading Two Tools to Turn Trends into Topics

photo-1436397543931-01c4a5162bdbRather than our typical “Two for Tuesdays” post today, I want to share a great piece I came across while browsing Klout (remember when I mentioned how much I’m loving Klout’s “explore” feature?).

Megan Conley wrote a post for HubSpot’s blog on “11 Impressive B2C Campaigns That B2B Marketers Can Learn From.” If you’re a regular Zen reader, you’ll already know why I like this, but Conley does a beautiful job of summing it up:

[O]ur best ideas come when we take a step outside the scope of our work and seek inspiration from unlikely sources.”

Yes.

We’ve said before that it can be tempting to stay within the confines of the legal industry, because we’re just so darn specialized. But as Conley points out:

For B2B marketers, this means that the creative spark you’re looking for might not be found directly within your industry. In fact, there’s actually a lot B2B marketers can learn by observing the approach of B2C companies.”

And lest we forget, just because we’re working at and for and with law firms, we’re still, at the heart of things, B2B marketers –  yes, lawyers, even you are B2B marketers because even though a large part of your day-to-day is consumed with the actual practice of law, there is a not-insignificant portion of it that is involved with informing people about why they should commit to trusting you to be their advocate, be they existing or potential clients.  Continue Reading 11 Consumer Companies that Legal Marketers Can Learn From

photo-1418225162054-0f773a996f9eAlthough you may be expecting our final Two for Tuesdays post of the year to focus on content marketing, I’m actually going to take a surprising break from that today in favor of sharing with you a couple of networking tips instead (try not to fall over in shock).

This time of year is perfect for networking because we’re all thinking of fresh starts and how we can make new business development connections. And, of course, you’re all joining me for our January LinkedIn Challenge, right?

Since it’s easy to get bogged down in the usual ideas of “okay, so I have to go to more networking events?” and “do I really have to revisit my elevator speech again?” I’m always looking for new and unique ways to breathe some life into my networking efforts without having to get too uncomfortable. I happened to come across this article from HuffPo the other day through Klout – and a quick aside on Klout. Typically, those of us familiar with Klout have long thought of it as a place for egomaniacs, because it’s a service that provides you with a “score” for your social media activity. It’s also generally accepted that this “score” is not altogether accurate – while it does a nice job of feeding your ego, it doesn’t always accurately reflect the quality of what’s being shared, or the level of engagement happening, and a number of us in the social media space were more than alarmed when some companies were hiring based on someone’s Klout score. Continue Reading Networking Hacks from Undergrads

yJl7OB3sSpOdEIpHhZhd_DSC_1929_1It’s that time of year again, the time of year when every post is a round-up, or a look at trends for 2016. We’re saying goodbye to the old, and ringing in the new, as the close of a calendar year has taught us to do.

Like everyone else, I’ve been thinking about what 2016 will have in store. While I won’t be doing any typical “top ten” posts this year, I am using today’s Two for Tuesdays to look at two goals I have for content marketing (my own and the ILN’s) in 2016. I’ve been thinking about these for a while, and fortunately, industry trends seem to be bearing them out. We’ll get to what they are in a moment, but first, I’d like you to think about what your content marketing goals are for 2016 – I read a great quote in an Inc. article this morning that reminded me that we all have to up our game:

A client, whose company was in a very fast growing industry, once said that as their market matured, they would be forced to become better marketers, not simply capturing new and pent-up demand. The same holds true for content marketing. Those who make the effort to do it right–assigning dedicated resources, developing written business plans with clear goals, leveraging tools like Buyer’s Personas to develop content for the customer’s benefit rather than the brand’s and producing a variety of content types–will continue to drive heavy engagement.”

We’re at that jumping off point in the legal industry as well. Content marketing isn’t new to us – we’ve been doing it forever. In the last year, we’ve seen more strategy implemented around it, and moved into an era of more sophisticated tracking. We use data to inform our next steps in what content we produce, and the channels we use to distribute it. There are a few firms lagging behind, but they’re catching up. We’re all being forced to be better marketers, and it’s fantastic – I love listening to brilliant colleagues doing creative, interesting things.  Continue Reading 2 Content Marketing Goals for 2016

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December 2015/January 2016

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Glusman & Co. – Tel Aviv, Israel!

The Law Offices of Glusman & Co. focuses on the business arena and provides an overall one-stop-shop for premium legal services to both corporate and private clients from Israel and abroad, in various fields, combining personally tailored client relations with professional expertise. Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Glusman & Co. – Tel Aviv, Israel!

iStock_000016006182Small“Social media.”

“Content marketing.”

These terms are thrown around willy nilly these days, because in addition to everything else we’re doing in our daily professional lives, the accessibility of LinkedIn, Facebook, blogging platforms, SnapChat, Vimeo, YouTube, etc. has turned us all into social media and content marketing practitioners.

But while social and digital media are inextricably linked with content marketing, it’s important to distinguish them – they are NOT, in fact, the same thing, and shouldn’t be considered interchangeable. In today’s Two for Tuesdays, while it may seem a bit elementary to some of you out there, it’s come to my attention that there’s some confusion around the difference between social media and content marketing. We’re going to look at the difference between the two (I’ll start with the short version, then delve into the long one), and why it’s important not to confuse them.  Continue Reading Content Marketing ≠ Social Media

iStock_000023864354XSmallLast week, I was listening to a podcast with Jabez LeBret, CMO of Get Noticed Get Found – the podcast was on the 5 Things You Should Never Do on LinkedIn, and of course the title got my attention.

You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what those are – it’s only about 30 minutes long, so head on over for a listen.

But one of the things that struck me was something Jabez said right at the end. His co-host asked if he had any advice for listeners, and he said that sales training often suggests that you go through your contact list, and call three people every day for a month. Not to sell them anything, but just to check in and see how they’re doing.

So his suggestion is to apply this to LinkedIn. And I love it, so I’m passing it along to you:

Every day, for a month, reach out to three of your connections by email.

Now, there are some rules, here, of course.

  • Before you send them an email, you should first look at their profile and their recent activity to see what they’ve been up to lately. In reaching out to them, you want to make your email about THEM, and not about YOU.
  • Your email is not to pitch them on anything or remind them of services you offer, even if you’re reaching out to a potential client. I know for 99.9% of you reading this, that’s obvious and I don’t even have to say it. But for that 0.1%, I do, so I’m including it.
  • Bonus points if you reach out to people who are in your city and offer to meet up with them for coffee or lunch in the next four weeks too.

We all have a lot of LinkedIn connections these days (it’s really easy to say yes to them!), but how well do we know our connections, and how well are we actually connecting with them? If you’re like me, even if you log into LinkedIn (which I do actually do daily), you’re only scanning through your feed and maybe “liking” a few updates, adding a “congrats!” here and there for an anniversary or new job, and maybe clicking on one or two interesting articles that someone has shared.

So there’s a huge opportunity to amplify my LinkedIn community efforts by better engaging with my network there every day. If I email three of my connections every day for the 31 days in January, that’s 93 people I will have reached out to by the end of the month.

I’m taking the challenge in January to do it. Will you?

twofortueToday’s Two for Tuesday’s post comes to you from high above the clouds, as I’m flying home from a two and a half day trip to London. It will be a bit late because there’s no in-flight wifi this time (a pity, though it does prevent me from doing more work than I probably should anyway), but I will try to keep it short for you, since I hope that in your spare time, you’re working on your 2016 planning!

Our tips today focus again on content marketing, and may be things that you’re already doing as part of your content mix – but in case you’re not, these are two ways that you can freshen things up a bit, and add in some additional opportunities for people to engage with your content. And if one of your content marketing goals is to build relationships with your target audiences, then that’s exactly the type of thing you want to be doing! Continue Reading Inject Your Content Marketing With New Life in 2016