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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

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?

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!

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

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