Online Thought Leadership for Lawyers - Blogs, Social Media, and Twitter

Online Thought Leadership & Reputation Management LeadershipSBOT Hyatt Lost Pines - Bastrop October 17 2008 1 Building Blogs for Lawyers lex Blog TM

What we’ll cover
Why become a thought leader?
Ability to become a thought leader online
Online tools for becoming a thought leader
Small town lawyer who became national thought leader solely via online tools
2 Building Blogs for Lawyers lex Blog TM

Why?
Professionally rewarding
Personally rewarding
Opportunity to serve others
Right thing to do

Professionally rewarding
Become “lawyers’ lawyer”
Learn from other leaders
Professionally
Personally
Better skills
More confidence

Personally rewarding
Feels good
Spouse/partner happier
Role model for children
Financially rewarding
You & spouse/partner
Children & grandchildren
Society

Helps others
Bar
Lawyers
Civic & business groups
Society
Image of our profession

Ability to do it
Easier than ever
Build muscles by acting outside your comfort zone
Opportunity lies online
Online for all ages

The how: online tools
Blogging
Social media
LinkedIn
Twitter

What’s a professional law blog?
Web site
Covers niche area of law or locale
Published by one lawyer or practice group
Directed to regular readers within target audience of blog publisher
As easy to update as writing an email - no coding experience needed
Distributes content via RSS and email
Unique domain name & url address
Found via search engines or known domain

What it’s not?
Journal
Posts archived by calendar
Blend of personal information, random thoughts and political views with legal information & insight

lex Blog TM

Blog advantages
New blog launched quickly
Easy to use - learning curve is low
Inexpensive
Comprehensive publishing, content syndication (RSS) and interactive communication tool

Relationship to your firm’s Web site
Complementary to site
How you network and enter conversation with thought leaders
Draw traffic to site & lawyer bios

Advantages to you
Enhances your reputation as trusted and reliable authorities
Establish brand based on expertise
Educational & tasteful
Syndication of content via RSS
Far superior search results to Web sites
Cost savings vs other networking

Why superior search results?
Relevant content
Regular content updates
Incoming links
“ Blog = b etter l isting o n G oogle”

Importance of search engines 15 Building Blogs for Lawyers
Two-thirds of people do online research before selecting a service or product
Nearly 70% of business executives and in house counsel go online to research lawyers during the hiring process
lex Blog TM

Advantages over current Internet networking
Web site articles
Poorly indexed & optimized for search engines
Pdf’s especially
Frequency of content?
Difficult search
No table of contents/navigation with each article
Users do not return to site
Email newsletters
Corporate firewalls may block
Spam filters may block
Far less viral marketing effect

Lawyers’ adoption of blogs 15 Building Blogs for Lawyers
3,000 plus law blogs
4 new law blogs per day
> 30% of large law firms
49% growth in large law firm blogs from November to March
BBC News 5/21/04 lex Blog TM

Who is reading blogs? 16 Building Blogs for Lawyers
75% of reporters to locate experts & get insight on stories
Senior executives
20% plus read business blogs
96% familiar with blogs
30% have familiarity with blogs
Busiest people read blogs
lex Blog TM

RSS feeds 17 Building Blogs for Lawyers
Oxygen of Internet today
Streams content to target audience
Syndicates content
Content reaches amplifiers
Bloggers
Media - trade & general mass media
Email as well
lex Blog TM

Newsreader Collects RSS feeds lex Blog TM

Blogs are a Rotary meeting
Find the discussion
Listen to the discussion
Engage in the discussion
Empower your audience
lex Blog Building Blogs for Lawyers 18

Early blog design (preconceived notion of blogs)

Professional marketing blogs -- The LexBlog Way

lex Blog TM

http://privacylaw.proskauer.com/

lex Blog TM

CT Employment Law Blog Dan Schwartz
5000 visits in first 6 weeks
Few calls a week, new client
Nearly 100 incoming links from third party websites and blogs
Regularly cited by leading law & employment bloggers (3 of the most read)
CT law periodical coverage

Where’s content coming from?
Current content - extend it’s reach
Online news
Legal cases
Info from trade magazines & newsletters
Info from CLE’s
RSS feeds = “The Discussion”

21 Building Blogs for Lawyers Time commitment?
Brief posts
2 to 3 paragraphs, 2 to 3 sentences each
Expectation is less than that of articles
Harvard Business School - 1x/week *
Less than articles, newsletters & alerts
* Harvard Management Communication Letter, Vol. 2, No. 4, November 2005 lex Blog TM

Blogging in current economy
Forget the economy
Time to grab market share & be bold
Let others run scared
Be deliberate
Invest in your network and reputation
Have long-term eyes & vision to succeed

Backend of Blog Platform

LinkedIn
Professional networking tool
“ Facebook for business people”
216,000 private practice profiles
Law firm profiles with demographics
20 million users
150 industries
3.2 million visitors/month
Building Blogs for Lawyers 23 lex Blog TM

lex Blog TM

Twitter
“ Microblogging”
Updates are called “Tweets”
140 characters
Links are shortened
Who?
Lawyers
Reporters
Fire departments
New York Times
Fortune 200
Building Blogs for Lawyers 24 lex Blog TM

Small talk leads to big things
What talk?
Personal
Professional
Social media - ‘pass it along’
Twitter amplifies
News of China’s earthquake broke on Twitter

lex Blog TM

Search.twitter.com – Twitter Search lex Blog TM

TweetDeck– Desktop Twitter application lex Blog TM

Re lex Blog Results of blogging, networking & social media

Ethics 26 Building Blogs for Lawyers
Governed by cannons of ethics
Cannot give specific advise
Cannot breach client confidences
Do not create attorney client relationship
No false or misleading communication
Use disclaimer
lex Blog TM

Building Blogs for Lawyers lex Blog TM

Who is LexBlog, Inc.?
Leading provider of professional marketing blogs to law firms
500 blogs, almost 1,500 lawyer authors
75% of AmLaw 200 firm blogs use LexBlog
96% client retention over 5 years
Led by former practicing lawyers
Team of IT, design, web development, client service, and marketing professionals
Founded by Kevin O’Keefe
Practicing lawyer of 17 years
Successfully marketed own law firm on Internet
Founder of Internet consumer & small business legal resource, now sold to LexisNexis
Former VP of Martindale-Hubbell

Thanks & for more info or questions: Kevin O’Keefe CEO, LexBlog, Inc. 411 First Avenue, Suite 304 Seattle, WA 98104 Direct: 206 340 8204 Cell: 206 321 2627 mailto:kevin@lexblog.com Building Blogs for Lawyers lex Blog TM

www. lexBlog .com

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Online Thought Leadership for Lawyers - Blogs, Social Media, and Twitter

by Kevin OKeefe on Oct 19, 2008

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Online Thought Leadership for Lawyers - Blogs, Social Media, and Twitter — Presentation Transcript