Two for Tuesdays

Subscribe to Two for Tuesdays via RSS

We have a late, breaking Two for Tuesdays for you tonight, and even better, it’s a special guest post from my dear friend Nancy Myrland! I’ve arrived in Chicago for the final prep and overseeing of our Annual Meeting (which accounts for the delay in getting this published) and Nancy kindly agreed to offer you some words of wisdom for this Tuesday. Without further ado…

***

TWO WAYS TO REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT

First, thanks to my good friend, Lindsay, for allowing me to grace the virtual pages of her blog by bringing you this week’s installment of Two for Tuesdays.

Lindsay and I talk a lot about Content Marketing these days. It’s the marketing phrase du jour, or at least one of them. Whether you choose to adopt the industry vernacular, or not, it is important to have this overarching umbrella term, and its related components, in mind when discussing legal marketing.

In a moment, we are going to talk about two simple ways you can repurpose content you may have already created.

Let’s take a half of a step back, and define Content Marketing. To do so, we need to know what Content is. In a recent post of mine on LinkedIn called What Is The Difference Between Content and Content Marketing, I offered this simple definition:

Content is the words and messages you deliver, regardless of the delivery mechanism. Content Marketing is the use, or marketing, of those words in an effort to reach other people.”

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Repurposing Your Content

Attorneys, do not panic. I haven’t lost my mind when I ask you to think like a marketer (I promise, bear with me). 

How many of you (raise your hands) think of marketing as something that some group in your office does once in a while? 

How many of you think of marketing as brochures and advertisements? 

How many of you think marketers are just people who ask you for money and then put pretty logos together or make sure you have enough business cards? 

Okay, put your  hands down. I’ve got news for you – marketing is everything.

So says this excellent blog post from Blue Kite Marketing that I read this morning. The truth is, and we’ve talked about it here before, every interaction that you and your firm have with clients, potential clients, and influencers counts as marketing. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Think Like a Marketer

For today’s Two for Tuesdays, I want to spend some time talking about Facebook. I can hear many of you rolling your eyes, either because we’re talking social media, or because we’re talking Facebook, or both. 

But, as I say regularly, social media is nothing more than a set of tools for building relationships – just as client lunches, cocktail receptions, and conferences are. If you use these tools to connect with people, and share yourself in the same way as you would in person (and, of course, combine the use of these tools with meeting in person), they can be extraordinarily valuable. 

So why Facebook? There’s a couple of reasons – the first is that likely most of you reading this are already on LinkedIn, which I consider to be the most professional of the social media tools. I think that will always remain the case (unless another, unique platform comes along), and I find LinkedIn to be incredibly valuable. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Facebook

We’re switching it up here again on our Two for Tuesdays, and instead of bringing you tips today, I’m bringing you two thought leaders in the legal industry to pay attention to! 

Thought Leader One: Tim Corcoran, Corcoran Consulting Group

If you don’t already know Tim, you should. From his bio, we learn that he: 

advises law firm leaders and in-house counsel on business process improvement, legal project management, alternative fees and business development. He also advises legal technology vendors and service providers on market strategy and sales force readiness. The essence of his consulting practice is to help law firms, in-house counsel and legal vendors profit in a changing marketplace."

Tim regularly speaks, writes, counsels and advises on some thought-provoking topics that surround some of the most cutting-edge ideas in our industry – ideas that make many uncomfortable, but are necessary conversations to have in today’s marketplace. 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Thought Leaders to Follow

Today’s Two for Tuesdays is going to address a problem I’ve seen fairly consistently over the last decade in legal – a failure to respond to emails. It’s a rather HUGE pet peeve of mine, and I want to talk today about why it’s important, as well as another tip for managing your professional relationships. 

Tip One: Answer. Your. Emails. 

I know attorneys are busy. I know that their time, literally, is money. So I can be forgiving of the attorneys who may not read and answer all of the emails that I send them.

However. 

It boggles my mind when someone emails an attorney to say that they want to refer work to them, and the attorney doesn’t answer. 

If someone sent me an (legitimate) email that basically says, "hey, I want to pay you money," I would answer it (Nigerian princes notwithstanding).Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Best Practices for Professional Relationships

I’ll be kicking off my recaps starting a bit later this afternoon, but first, I want to bring you a Two for Tuesdays, courtesy of a couple of great things I heard at LMA14. If you really listen to those in the LMA who are smart, thoughtful, hardworking and constantly challenging and improving themselves, you end up learning a lot and being a better marketer yourself. 

One of the best sessions of the conference was the wrap up on Friday afternoon, moderated by conference co-chairs John Byrne & Jose Cunningham, along with LMA president, Tim Corcoran. The moderators invited us to share the takeaways we’d gotten from the conference, and there were two that really stuck out for me – lessons that we can use to make ourselves better at our jobs.

Tip One: "When there’s a gap between exactly what we do, and what we hear from speakers, it’s our job to bridge it."

This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, and has been for several years – you may remember my comments about it here and here. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Using LMA14 to be a Better Marketer

As we head into #LMA14 this week, I’m excited that we’ll be revealing the best of the best in legal marketing with our Your Honor Awards (which I was fortunate enough to serve as a judge for this year). 

As much as I’d like to reveal the winners (calm down Jill and Marcie, I would never do that!), instead, I thought I’d use this week’s Two for Tuesdays to give you two tips on smart marketing – we really saw some amazing and brilliant submissions this year, and they all had a couple of things in common. 

Tip One: Know your audience

I say this a LOT here, but any good marketing or business development activity HAS to start with knowing your audience. The best submissions that we saw really took the time to identify not only who their audience is, but what their needs and wants are. They made sure there was nothing else in the market that was meeting their needs in that way, and put together carefully crafted campaigns or events or apps or what have you that were actually of use to their clients and potential clients. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Smart Legal Marketing

Something you may not know about me is that I’m a big fan of the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Every day, Ellen reminds us to laugh, to dance, to do something for others, and most importantly, to "be kind to one another." 

In the course of business, we can sometimes forget that it’s possible to be successful AND nice.  I’m not suggesting being a pushover or not being a fierce advocate for your clients (as the famous line goes, "Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness"), but I am suggesting that it’s possible to be excellent at your job without tearing someone else down. That extends to marketing as well. 

It’s long been a pet peeve of mine when one brand uses their advertising to tear down another brand.  It’s more than just an adverse reaction to the "bullying;" it’s the sense that the company must not really be any good if they have to resort to such immature tactics. If a company or firm is excellent, does excellent work and provides an excellent product, then that all stands for itself without having to show how they’re "better." 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Be Kind to One Another

Today’s Two for Tuesdays will be a little bit different, because I’m talking about tools rather than tips. Though using each of these tools is actually a tip…it’s possible I haven’t had enough coffee today. 

So, jumping right into the tools instead! The first of these tools is one I knew about, but didn’t understand the benefits of until recently, while the second is one I’ve been using for a while, but finally started to use a bit more fully. 

Tool One: Zite

The first tool I recommend is Zite. Yes, I know they were just purchased by FlipBoard, and ultimately, the technology will be incorporated into FlipBoard, but for now, I’m recommending Zite all on its own. If you read my recap of Kevin O’Keefe’s last webinar, you’ll already know that he mentions Zite as a tool that he uses as a blogger. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Tools