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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

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

In my last post, I talked about using Twitter as a broadcast tool, and Nancy Myrland added some valuable comments to the discussion about making sure to incorporate as much personality as possible.

Today, we’re going to talk about what many people consider to be the most important use of Twitter – engagement. As Nancy always says "Twitter is a contact sport." 

So how do you engage with your Twitter followers? It’s the same as you would in real life – share others’ posts and tweets, comment on their tweets, start conversations and periodically reach out to them. Then, take these relationships offline – meet people for lunch who are in the same city as you are, or when you’re traveling or at a conference. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part III

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s jump into the meat of Twitter for law firms. In my presentation, I went through what I consider to be the three uses of Twitter for law firms, beginning with the dreaded "broadcasting."

When I was initially using Twitter, I would have completely advised against this, but I’ve changed my mind. Twitter has become an excellent source of news, and pretty much every news source is using Twitter to share headlines these days, like CNN, Fox News, the NY Times, the Huffington Post, etc. If a law firm has individual attorneys and marketers who are using Twitter under their own account names and engaging with people, then I have no problem with the firm’s branded account being used primarily as a news feed. There are many firms out there who have been using Twitter this way, and they’ve been very successful in getting journalists and other influencers to follow them. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part II

Last week, we gathered for another meeting of the NJ LMA city group…only this time, I was the presenter! I’d volunteered to talk to everyone about Twitter, and after accepting questions beforehand, I put together a presentation that tried to be as interactive as possible. 

I started with my background on Twitter – I joined Twitter in April of 2008. Although I initially joined for other reasons, I soon found a group of legal marketing colleagues that I could bounce ideas off of, find inspiration through, see what real concerns both marketers and attorneys have, and eventually become friends with. Using Twitter, I started to get real-time news from people in the know, both in and out of the legal industry. I connected with thought leaders in other industries and saw how they shared content, both theirs and others, to become considered go-to sources. I started to do the same. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part I

Amy Adams had some social media tips to report back to us following her attendance at the LMA’s post conference social media session: 

  • Engage: It’s not just about serenading people, it’s about getting them to sing along.
     
  • Audience: Focus on your audience – what are clients interested in?
     
  • Post at roughly the same

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