Kevin O'Keefe's Recent Articles from LexMonitor

Hyperlocal law blogs offer lawyers big advantages

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:23:08 GMT

Following online publishing, it's becoming more and more clear that hyperlocal is the way things are going. Rather than trying to reach a broad geographic region, success is achieved by publishing relevant information to consumers and businesses in a smaller clearly defined locale.

Wikipedia defines Hyperlocal content, often referred to as hyperlocal news, as being characterized by three major elements.

Refers to entities and events that are located within a well defined, community scale area.
Intended primarily for consumption by residents of that area.
Created by a resident of the location.

Hyperlocal means more than just publishing content for the locale. It means being part of the local community. It means engaging in other forms of social media being used by members of the locale. It means commenting on other blogs and news sites focused on the locale as well as engaging community members through Twitter and Facebook.

What a perfect scenario for a local law blog. Imagine a West Seattle Law Blog published by a general practice lawyer living in West Seattle. Better yet a West Seattle Family Law Blog.

West Seattle has a population of over 58,000. It has the widely read West Seattle Blog. Lots of people in West Seattle, like everywhere these days, are active on social media solutions such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

Of course West Seattle doesn't have its own laws on divorce and family law matters. But do you honestly think publishing a blog on Washington Family Law is going to generate the warm and fuzzies with people in West and Seattle, the exact thing you need to demonstrate you're one of the local community?

Publish matters of general family law. But give it a West Seattle conversational tone, telling stories, and giving answers based on questions you're getting from folks in West Seattle. Questions from clients and prospective clients.
Comment on local blogs, using your own name, and when permitted by text fields, leave your business email and blog url. People are curious about who's commenting. They'll be pleasantly surprised to see a local West Seattle lawyer commenting on a blog post. Don't limit yourself to legal subjects. Be part of the local civic discussion, just as lawyers have done for a hundred years.
Identify some of the mover and shakers from West Seattle using Twitter. Use advanced local search to see people Tweeting in West Seattle or to follow topics of local discussion. Get to know them by following them and sharing Tweets demonstrating not only knowledge of the law, but also demonstrating you're part of the local community.
Look for local Facebook groups. Don't go in shouting I'm a lawyer. Look for groups in which you have a true interest in the subject. If you have kids, you're involved in soccer and there's likely a Facebook group for local soccer.
As you get to know folks, host a small seminar or become part of a local support group. If a divorce lawyer, maybe it's a spousal abuse group. For a general practice lawyer, maybe it's on the issues to address in buying or selling a home or condo.
Meet with local influencers for coffee. Use a blog and social media effectively for a year, and most people are going to know you.

Blogging is so much more than publishing content under a banner heading that covers an area of 4 million people (Seattle Divorce Law Blog). It's about engaging people you want to represent, your sources of referrals, and the people who influence them. It's about joining a local conversation. It's being a part of the community.

50 years ago a West Seattle lawyer could have a rewarding law practice, financially and personally fulfilling, by becoming a part of the West Seattle community. It's the same today. Just easier and faster.

Law firms best not to get ahead of themselves on social media

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:22:13 GMT

I was meeting with a large law firm last week which wanted to pick my brain on the use of social media. Listening to the questions, it became clear that though the law firm was using various forms of social media, they weren't having a whole lot of success.

The law firm was using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs, and other social media solutions. But I don't think they were using any of them particularly well. There didn't seem to be a clearly defined strategy, their lawyers didn't seem to understand that social media was no different than traditional networking by lawyers, and the firm's management, though going along with the social media campaign, couldn't be seeing any big successes.

Before just using every form of social media as a law firm, why not just master the basics? Rather than use a whole lot stuff badly and embarrass yourself unknowingly in the process, why not use something well?

Blogging is a basic as it gets in social media. And there's not a better way for a lawyer to demonstrate their expertise, establish themselves as thought leader, and get work the old fashioned tasteful way - by word of mouth.

To start a few blogs, do them poorly, and have lawyers struggling to continue to publish to the blogs while starting off on Twitter and Facebook is the height of folly. You've identified the most effective tool offering the highest ROI, a blog. Rather than learning how to use the tool wisely, you do a crummy job, leave the lawyers hanging, experience no success (other than saying we have blogs) and move on to the next great thing. Lunacy.

Don't get me wrong, Twitter and Facebook have their place. But telling me you are getting a bunch of your lawyers, who don't have a clue what social media really is, Twittering sounds silly. Sillier yet is telling me you started a law firm fan page at Facebook and you can't figure out why clients and the business community are lining up to follow you. Get real.

Education comes first. What is social media and social networking as it relates to law firm client development? It's not identifying tools. Then comes learning how to use well one of the most basic tools, a blog.

Don't do these two and you're going to set social media in your law firm back a couple years. The reason being that you'll have little success, little lawyer buy in, and ultimately have your law firm management conclude social media doesn't work.

Two questions a law firm needs to ask its blogging and social media agency

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:03:01 GMT

Where do you start as law firm when looking for help on social media and blogging? A PR firm, a web design firm, a marketing company, a consultant, or a combination of all four?

Widely respected Internet marketing strategist, B.L. Ochman, says you need only ask two questions when considering a company or agency which says they can help you.

Do they walk the walk? If they aren't not participating in social media and blogging as thought leaders, then you don't want them advising you.
Do they have case studies to share with you to demonstrate their success incorporating social media into clients' overall marketing strategy? If they don't, they'll be learning on your dime.

It's possible there are a few other questions you'd want to ask, but Ochman's point is well taken.

You need to find a company with street cred. Per Ochamn:

Does the prospective agency, have a credible social media presence of its own?
How long have they been using social media? If they have only recently established a presence in social media, ask why it took them so long.
Do they have a following? Many agencies have no more social media presence than what they pass off as blogs. Many of those are thinly disguised press releases, or are updated every month or so, if at all.
...[T]hey need to be there themselves to demonstrate that they understand how new media actually works, and how community is built in real life, not in theory.

Second, you need to find a company with a track record of achieving success for their clients. Ask for stories or case studies of client successes. Make sure the clients are similar to your law firm.

Social media and blogging is not new. Ochman's correct that "Social media has been part of the online landscape for a more than a decade, beginning with chat rooms and forums, and evolving into its current form." If your agency or consultant hasn't been helping clients achieve success in social media for years, keep looking.

Great questions for law firms. As Ochman warns, "Ignore them at your peril."

LexBlog client webinar on the Art of Effective Blogging

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:11:33 GMT

Anyone can slap a news update online and call it a blog post. But what sets top bloggers apart is how they craft strong posts that showcase their own expertise, as well as demonstrate their awareness of the broader conversation in their field. They write posts you actually want to read: insightful, dynamic and engaged.

In our next webinar, exclusively for members of the LexBlog Network, I’ll discuss what I believe is “The Art of Effective Blogging.” This webinar will be held on this Thursday, December 17, at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT.

Among other things, I’ll cover:

The difference between conversation and publishing content
Why insight and commentary matter
How to link effectively and intelligently
The value of well-crafted titles

This is consistently one of our most popular webinar topics — we already have close to 200 registrants — and I’m looking forward to discussing it with new and veteran bloggers alike.

To register yourself, visit our Event Center and sign up for the event titled Client Webinar: The Art of Effective Blogging. If you need the password, direct message Support on Twitter or contact a member of our Client Services team at 1-800-913-0988.

I look forward to seeing you all at Thursday's webinar.

5 ways lawyers can get more out of LinkedIn in 2010

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:11:30 GMT

There's no question that LinkedIn is the leading directory for professionals, including lawyers. But far too many lawyers mistakenly look at LinkedIn as a directory and nothing more.

CIO Magazine's Kristin Burnham offers 5 ways you can get more from Linkedin in 2010 in an article this morning. Burnham may not have been addressing lawyers, but she may as well have been.

Groups. Participate in groups related to your area of practice or the industries you are looking to serve. Search for "Groups" on the LinkedIn navigation bar. Network with individuals in the group by adding them to your professional network on LinkedIn, adding your blog to news feeding the group via the news feature, or by asking or answering questions in the discussions feature. If there's not a relevant group, start one of your own.
Recommendations. A recommendation from a client (assuming allowed in your state), coworkers, association leaders, publishers, people who have heard you present, bloggers, or others who can vouch for your expertise make your LinkedIn profile more dynamic and bring more credit and validity to your profile. Word of mouth and peer reviews are huge in the selection of a lawyer. Recommendations give you both.
Events. Find the Events module on the right side of your home page and click on 'See events your connections are attending' at the bottom of the module. You can view events (including webinars) that your connections are attending, search popular events and find ones to attend. Though I haven't used Events and didn't see much Events activity among my connections who are legal professionals, I could see Events growing in popularity among lawyers.
Advanced People Search. The "Advanced People Search" allows you to find contacts based on geographic area, company, keyword, industry and more. Advanced People Search also gives you the option to search based on when users joined LinkedIn, which you can use to you introduce yourself and welcome those new to LinkedIn.
Company Buzz. Under Applications on the right bottom of your LinkedIn page, click on Add an application and you'll see a list of applications that you can add to your homepage and profile. Company Buzz is an application that allows you to see what people are saying about companies and topics you care about. Company Buzz uses information from your profile such as companies and schools to find relevant discussions on Twitter. Company Buzz also shows you how frequently your company or topic has been mentioned and the top words associated with your company and the topic. You may add new topics and customize existing topics with new search terms to get just the results you are interested in. Again, not a feature I use, but I'm going to start testing it tonight.

I'm experiencing great success using LinkedIn for client development at LexBlog. I also hear from lawyers they're expanding their network and experiencing client development success through LinkedIn.

As with networking offline, using LinkedIn takes time and effort. We're not talking about a directory where people look up a lawyer, their area of practice, their locale and dial the lawyer with largest ad and 800 phone number. We're talking something much better, a place to build a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority.

A simple social media policy for law firms

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:57:49 GMT

Your law firm's lawyers and staff are going to use social media (Facebook, Twitter, and the like) no matter what you do. They're going to use social media at work and at home.

And it's okay. You want your employees to be engaging others to increase the size of their professional and social network. It's what brings in work by word of mouth - by reputation.

At the same time, I understand a law firm's desire to craft social media guidelines (a policy as law firms will call it) to guide its employees and protect the firm. But rather than draconian rules coming down from above drafted by lawyers who don't use social media, why not some simple rules that show your lawyers and staff you trust them?

Florida Journalism professor, Mindy McAdams, shared The Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) social media policy in a post this week. McAdams was drawn to the policy because of its simplicity. She thought it appropriate for any journalist or staff.

And why not for law firms too?

Do not mix the professional and the personal in ways likely to bring the ABC [law firm] into disrepute.
Do not undermine your effectiveness at work.
Do not imply ABC [law firm] endorsement of your personal views.
Do not disclose confidential information obtained through work.

Guidelines like this show your lawyers and staff that you regard them as responsible professionals. A long list of do's and don'ts prepared by people who don't understand social media, and in some cases turning off access to social media at the law firm, indicate a lack of respect for the intelligence and integrity of your firm's professionals.

Will Avvo legal directory surpass lawyers.com in 2010?

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:37:48 GMT

The Seattle startup legal directory, Avvo, appears to have caught Martindale-Hubbell's lawyers.com in the number of unique visitors per month. This per the below comparison I ran with Compete.com, a web traffic analysis service.

Avvo only trailed lawyers.com by 85,000 unique visitors in November (838,000 versus 753,000). In October the gap was even closer, a difference of 42,000 unique visitors (911,000 versus 869,000). It's possible Martindale's multi-million dollar national television ad campaign increased the gap slightly In November.

Perhaps more telling is the rate of growth for each website. Lawyers.com's traffic is up 43% the last year while Avvo's traffic is up 127%. You'd have to think Avvo is going to pass lawyers.com in unique visitors in the coming year.

This increased Avvo traffic is resulting in exposure for lawyers listed in the Avvo directory and participating in Avvo website features such as Avvo Answers and Advice. Lawyer contacts such as emails, phone calls or website visits from prospective clients totaled 160,000 last month, per Mark Britton, Avvo's CEO.

Increased traffic is also resulting in increase sales at Avvo. I'm told their account managers have been fulfilling orders for their Avvo Pro product at a volume that was unexpected for the pre-holiday season.

Avvo may not be right for all lawyers (more focused on consumer & small business lawyers), and I have been critical of Avvo on some items, but there's little question Avvo, with it's rising traffic, is going to be included in lawyers' Internet marketing buys and be a strong competitor to Martindale's lawyers.com.

Real time search comes to Google : Twitter results displayed

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:10:33 GMT

Real time search came to Google yesterday. Twitter results are now streamed into the top of search results pages so that you can see what people are saying about the subject searched in real time.

Lawyers should not view this as gimmick. Imagine being able to get lawyers' and business peoples' reactions to cases, news, and legal stories in real time. Doing so you may be able to find the people with the most knowledge on the subject. Want to get real time information on items being discussed at a conference and who's discussing them? Turn to real time search at Twitter.

Here's a YouTube Video depicting the Twitter search results displayed on Google. Below that are three screen shots to show you how you can get to the Twitter results if you are not seeing them on Google.

If you're not seeing the results, click on the plus sign next to 'Web,' as depicted below.

You'll then see a left column displaying search options. Click on the Updates as depicted.

You'll then see real time search results referencing 'Tweets' referencing 'LexBlog' posted my me and three other people.

No one knows how real time search is going to play out, how it's going to be displayed, and how its going to be used, including Google. And especially legal curmudgeons who question any innovation.

But just as search of the Web had value before Google got the world addicted to search, there's value in real time search. We'll be witnesses to how Google and others develop it. We'll then become addicts all over again.

LinkedIn Legal Blogging Group discussions back and kicking

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:11:58 GMT

The Legal Blogging Group on LinkedIn has grown to over 3,400 professionals. The group is for legal professionals and others interested in the use of blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social media by lawyers and other professionals.

With that growth, we've seen a number of people take advantage of the group's discussion board by posting messages unrelated to blogging and social media or posting spam touting their services. Discussion should be limited to questions and commentary related to blogging and other forms of social media.

I spent the last couple hours deleting irrelevant postings and spam. I gave deference to some unrelated posts which had already drawn a number of comments. If I deleted one of your posts, I'm sorry. I just wanted to get us started with a cleaner slate and make the group more attractive to folks with an interest in legal blogging and social media.

Going forward I'll monitor the posts more closely and delete items that are beyond the group's focus. I'll also try to answer your questions and invite others to do the same. When I can, I'll post items being discussed here on my blog and in Twitter. That way we attract more users and generate more discussion.

In addition to the discussion, you may submit a relevant news article to the group with an accompanying link. This can include news items or blog posts.

Posting of items to the discussion board and news articles you submit, in addition to being posted at the group's site in LinkedIn, will be distributed by email to group members who have opted for that feature.

Head to the Legal Blogging Group LinkedIn Page to join the group.

Want to get hired as lawyer before first meeting client? Blog

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:20:41 GMT

Lawyers are well aware we generally don't get paid after the first date.

Lawyers take phone calls from potential clients answering any number of questions. We'll have people into our offices to review their legal situations, we'll present likely outcomes, outline what we can do to help, and to estimate the cost of our legal services. All without any expectation that we'll get paid for such calls or meetings. We're just looking for the chance to go to work and get paid.

Much of what you're doing as a lawyer is earning the trust of the prospective client. Until people see you care, that you understand their legal issues, and that you can help, you can't expect people to hire you.

How do increase the chances you'll be trusted and be hired? Blog.

Seth Godin, in a recent blog post, says basically that. To establish yourself digitally.

Digital transactions are essentially free for you to provide. I can give you permission to teach me something. I can watch a video. I can engage in a conversation. We can connect, transfer knowledge, engage in a way that builds trust... all of these things make it more likely that I'll trust you enough to send you some money one day. I can contribute to a project you're building, ask you a difficult question, discover what others have already learned.

Seth points out that expecting someone to give you money the first time you transact may work if you're a pretzel vendor on the street. But as lawyer?

TweetDeck is another reason to use own name as user name on Twitter

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:53:00 GMT

Need another reason to use your own name, as opposed to a pseudonym, as your username on Twitter? Beyond the fact that your own name is how people know you.

For making it easy for people to give you proper attribution on Twitter on TweetDeck, a desktop application many of us use to Twitter.

I share relevant blog posts of others with my Twitter followers. Rather than just post a blog title and a link, I want to attribute the blog post to its author. I do this by putting the Twitter username of the blog author in parentheses after the text in my Tweet.

See the below example of my Twitter post where I shared Attorney Sam Hasler's blog post, 'What Other Indiana Family Law Blogs Are Saying.' In addition to the post title and link, I gave Sam attribution for the link I am sharing with the '@schasler,' Sam's username on Twitter.

How'd I know that Sam's Twitter name was '@schasler?' I just keyed in 'has' in TweetDeck's autocomplete feature that came up after I hit the '@' key. Up popped Sam's Twitter user name in a brief list of people I follow on Twitter who also have 'has' in their name. See the below for what I mean.

If Sam used a Twitter username such '@Indianadivorcelawyer,' something many lawyers too clever for their own good do, I could have never recalled such a username. I follow a ton of people on Twitter and know Sam as Sam Hasler, not some pseudonym.

In addition to giving proper attribution in your Tweets because it's proper net protocol, using a Twitter user's name lets the person know you've shared a blog post of theirs. If the person didn't know you before, they do now. Getting known is how you get the influencers to follow you and how you network to build relationships.

Law firms should beware social media snake oil

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:00:23 GMT

BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker has an excellent piece this morning warning businesses to beware social media snake oil.

Over the past five years, an entire industry of consultants has arisen to help companies navigate the world of social networks, blogs, and wikis. The self-proclaimed experts range from legions of wannabes, many of them refugees from the real estate bust, to industry superstars such as Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk. They produce best-selling books and dole out advice or lead workshops at companies for thousands of dollars a day. The consultants evangelize the transformative power of social media and often cast themselves as triumphant case studies of successful networking and self-branding.

There's no shortage of social media 'experts' when it comes to the law. The hype from these marketing 'experts' promoting the value of blogs, Twitter, and social networking sites obscures the real potential of these online tools.

Many legal professionals, reporters, conference coordinators, and bloggers are letting these 'experts' get away with it. They're defining social media expertise by the number of Twitter followers, blog mentions, LinkedIn connections, or website hits one has.

Bloggers, reporters, and conference coordinators are getting their social media expertise from people who practiced law briefly, if at all. The 'experts' often have never run a law firm or played any significant role in a law firm's management. That's nuts.

When looking for social media expertise as a lawyer or law firm, don't leave your common sense behind. It's not always about what social media 'experts' proclaim in regard to being transparent, engagement with everyone, buzz to get followers and hits, and breaking down the silos.

Using social media tools is about realizing a return on investment in your situation as a firm. What feels natural to your lawyers and your law firm is key. How does a social media and blogging strategy fit within how your law firm networks for reputation enhancement and client development? Where do we as a law firm begin to test blogging and social media to gain a comfort as to how these tools work? These are types of questions you should be asking as a law firm.

My fear is that law firms are going to pass judgment on social media based on the messengers preaching overnight success. Baker warns that just as companies swore off the Internet as a business tool with the fall of the dot-com hype, companies could reduce social media investments just as the industry takes off because of all the social media hype.

That would be a shame. As Baker says, companies shouldn't ignore the harder-to-quantify dividends of social media, such as trust and commitment. "A Twittering employee, for example, might develop trust or goodwill among customers but have trouble putting a number on it."

Social media for networking by lawyers and client development by law firms is real. Rather than look at social media as something new and techie, look at social media as traditional networking and engaging with your target audience. Go with what makes sense from someone who seems like a trusted and reliable source.

State bar associations stymying lawyers' use of blogs and social media

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:15:34 GMT

I can't tell you how often I'm asked by lawyers 'What about the state bar rules that prevent us from blogging and using social media?'

Without even giving thought to what they rules are, it's just presumed by lawyers and law firms that ethics rules will stand in the way of their use blogs and social media. Note, there are no rules that I know of that limit blogging and social media by lawyers.

Who's fault is this? The state bar associations. The vast majority of state bar associations have done little to promote blogging and the use of other social media by lawyers.

Strange in that social media, including blogs, may be one the most effective means ever for lawyers to engage real people and build meaningful relationships with the public. The byproduct being an improved public image for the legal profession. God knows something we sorely need.

There's a couple reasons I see for the state bar's inactivity. One is a total lack of understanding of social media and blogging.

The knee jerk reaction of the state bar's is to view blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and the like as just another form of cheesy lawyer advertising. You know, 'It's just for a lower class of lawyers who need to hustle for the next client, the type of thing certainly not be to be endorsed.'

The fact is blogs (the good ones) and social media (good use of it) are as far from advertising as they could be.

Blogs and social media are all about engaging your target audience in a real and meaningful way.
They're about listening to people, finding out their needs, and offering value where you can.
They're about offering the intellectual capital of a lawyer in way that can make a difference in others' lives.
They better allow the public to connect with lawyers in a intimate way before they select a lawyer.
They allow the public to make an informed chose of lawyer by listening to what their peers are sharing.

The second reason is that state bar associations tend to be run, or influenced heavily, by old guard lawyers whose reputations are well entrenched. Though most of these lawyers don't advertise, those that do have war chests which allow for heavy law firm advertising.

Old guard lawyers and law firms aren't looking to give younger lawyers and firms without war chests a competitive advantage. And God forbid, a competitive advantage earned through the use of something the old guard doesn't understand.

I went to law school to make a difference in other's lives. I used to think, naively so, that bar associations stood for the same thing. 'How could we, as an association help lawyers make a difference in other's lives? How could we as an association improve the image of lawyers, something that benefits both lawyers and the public, who would more likely turn to a lawyer in a time of need?

But in the 30 years since I started law school, the law has become less accessible to people, the reputation of our profession has diminished greatly, and far few lawyers feel the pride of being part of a noble profession.

Social media and blogging could stem of the decline. It's a shame state bar associations can't see that and do something about it.

All law firms should be using social media at some level

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:38:23 GMT

'If you don't have social media, it's like having an unlisted phone number,' says Charlie Wollborg, a partner at a marketing strategy and creative design firm in Pontiac, Michigan. This from an article on the business of social media by Jennifer Youssef in the The Detroit News.

A growing number of smaller companies are beginning to see the business value of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that let users post information and communicate with others. Users also can meet new people through their contacts, giving them access to a broader audience.
Marketing experts say if used correctly, the sites can be of tremendous value, allowing businesses to inform customers about activities within the company, creating a personal connection and giving the company more exposure.

While Attorney Henry Baskin, quoted by Youssef in the story, doesn't believe social media works for marketing professional services because his clients don't use social media, business people using social media seem to prove him wrong.

Madeleine Miehls, who operates an online oral history and writing business used to feel like Baskin until she found clients through LinkedIn. She used to laugh off social media as a waste of time. Now she finds it not a waste of time at all but a faster way to connect with people for business.
Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer for a midsized accounting, tax and management consulting agency encourages employees to use LinkedIn account to meet potential clients and peers. By showing new hires how to build up their circle of professional peers on LinkedIn, they become more comfortable networking. Social media also gives gives his company another way to publicize job openings, events and industry-based publications.
Jennifer Cherry, vice president of a public relations and marketing firm finds social media a powerful PR tool for building and maintaining a brand among your constituents. "It tells a company's audience and prospective clients who they are and what they do. Retailers should be using social media as a tool to hear what people are saying about the company and their competitors."

Like websites 10 or 12 years ago, social media is not mainstream for law firms yet, but as Antaya says "It's like a snowball rolling down the hill, it's picking up speed. Five years from now, it's going to be the standard."

Big law firms don't blog well? Says who?

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:52:21 GMT

I wonder what people would think if I started offering insight and commentary on legal issues relating to the pharmaceutical industry?

I take tylenol and ibuprofen from time to time. I've even been prescribed antibiotics for pneumonia on two occasions. And anyone checking with Vern's Winslow Drug on Bainbridge Island would find my 5 kids have consumed a lot of prescription drugs for which I've paid a ton in co-pay.

I could offer opinions on which drugs are effective, which ones are not. How we could move more and better drugs through the FDA. Maybe get into IP issues as they relate to drugs.

But my VP of Client Development, and others on my executive team, may start to question my judgment. Why would someone who's developed some expertise on Internet marketing for law firms, particularly as to blogging and social media, and who knows little about the pharmaceutical industry start to opine on such things. Why would a guy with a six year old blog about law firm marketing, blogs, Web 2.0 and a little baseball start talking about drug and device law?

They'd be probably be right. I couldn't expect folks to view me as a much of an authority on the subject.

But it's never stopped Mark Herrmann, a leading defense lawyer at Jones Day, with a particular expertise in pharmaceutical claims, from offering commentary on the effectiveness of law blogs on his Drug and Device Law Blog (excellent blog on that subject). Wilder yet, lawyers and even the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, have cited Hermann's commentary on the subject for the proposition that law blogs don't work well for client development..

The latest is Hermann's commentary on why Why Big Firms Don't Blog Well. And why don't large law firms blog well, per Herrmann? Because lawyers in large law firms aren't funny enough.

Be funny! Be provocative! Do something that will draw readers in.
That's the key for many successful blogs, such as Simple Justice. It's not a first source of news. It's not breathtakingly intelligent (although it's not bad on that score -- don't take offense, Scott). But it has a voice. It's funny, and it can be thought-provoking.

Hermann proposes three hypotheses why large law firms don't succeed. Here's the first two.

1. Most lawyers at big firms are not funny.
That may be true of many lawyers at big firms (although it hasn't stopped us). But it's surely not true of all. So some lawyers at big firms could write blogs in an engaging voice.

2. Lawyers at big firms are trained not to be funny in writing.

Now we're on to something. Opinion letters are not funny. They may do a fine job of analyzing issues and protecting the firm from allegations of malpractice, but they're not funny.

And briefs are generally not funny. (At least not intentionally so.) Briefs present the legal issues in a persuasive and intelligent way, and they give proper dignity to the occasion of a legal dispute. They're written in formal prose, with no room for contractions, the first person, or colloquialisms.

Briefs also avoid humor, and for good reason: Humor runs a risk. If you say something cute in a brief and the judge appreciates it, you might earn yourself a smile. And maybe some good will. But you're unlikely to win the motion on the basis of personality.

On the other hand, if you say something cute and the judge finds it to be offensive, you may have done your client a world of harm. So most lawyers appropriately use humor only very sparingly in briefs.

Perhaps years of brief-writing beats the humor out of lawyers.

The fact is there are some great large law firm blogs written by lawyers who've experienced practice and client development success through blogging. Here's just a few from the LexBlog Network:

Francis Pileggi of Fox Rothschild, publisher of the Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog. Pileggi, the "dean of Delaware law bloggers" has been blogging for several years now, and receives regular accolades from other attorneys, judges, and members of the media. See more in our Q&A with him about his blogging experience.
J. Russell Jackson of Skadden Arps, publisher of the Consumer Class Actions and Mass Torts. Jackson posts regularly and insightfully about complex class actions and mass torts - he actually started blogging because Herrmann encouraged him to. See our Q&A with him.
Ken Odza of Stoel Rives, one of the publishers of the Food Liability Law Blog Odza and his team constantly provide updates, commentary and analysis - not dull law review type posts or simple aggregation. Says being part of a large firm is actually beneficial because he has a larger body of knowledge and attorneys to draw from. See our Q&A with him.
Joseph Rosenbaum of Reed Smith, publisher of Legal Bytes, blogs about developments in law, marketing, and technology. Rosenbaum says having a blog at a large firm has helped internal firm communication and helps them serve clients better. See our Q&A with him.

Hermann's a nice guy I've enjoyed a beer with. I've described him as a little quirky, Woody Allen like (in a good way), when asked about him by our team here. But being a funny guy on your blog is not a prerequisite to publishing a good blog as a lawyer in a large law firm.

And when deciding who to take seriously on whether large law firm blogs can be a client and practice development success, please look at the source.

How does a law firm measure ROI on its social media and blogging efforts?

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:40:28 GMT

How do we measure the ROI on social media, including blogging? I'm asked that all the time by law firm marketing and client development professionals.

Ultimately it's easy, an increase in legal business. No question that's the case with a strategic and well run blogging initiative.

I tell lawyers and firms joining the LexBlog network that if I'm not hearing from them at the end of a year that the decision to blog was the best client development decision we ever made, then LexBlog did something wrong. That's because I hear about client development success all the time, with success being defined as an increase in business.

With social media and blogging being engagement and networking tools it's important though that there be some interim milestones we can use as a measurement of ROI. We're dealing with a process that takes time. Cordell Parvin, a nationally recognized career and client development coach for lawyers, says it can take up to two years to reap the rewards of such efforts.

Marketing consultant and speaker, Valeria Maltoni, in a blog post this morning, offers some sound advice for measuring the ROI on social media.

I suggest that performance can and should be measured as part of a process along a continuum designed to expand reach, increase engagement, build influence, and request action on behalf of your business - with social media integrated in the communications mix.

When looking at social media and blogging don't compare them how to you measure the return on a website. Client development through blogging is closer to going to a Rotary meeting where all the Rotarians are your target audience than web or Internet marketing. And you don't measure the ROI of networking through civic involvement by looking at webstats.

Ask these questions when looking at the ROI on your law firm's social media and blogging efforts:

Am I expanding my reach? Are more people within my target audience seeing me? It could be via search engines, but more importantly do they see you quoted in blogs and by reporters? Do they see you speaking at conferences or seminars they attend?
Am I engaging my target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three (reporters, bloggers, association leaders, conference coordinators, and publishers)?
Am I building my influence among this target audience? Measure influence by how often you are cited in other blogs, Twitter, and the like. Citations are a measure of whether you're viewed as a reliable and trusted authority in your niche.
Does your target audience request action? Are they asking to talk with you? Do they want to review with you a matter they are working on?

If you're getting good answers to these questions, you're headed in the right direction. You're engaging your target audience, building a reputation in your niche, and increasing your influence. All things smart law firm client development professionals would love to accomplish.

Engagement versus vanity

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:00:11 GMT

Yesterday, I had the honor of being included in the 100 best law blogs as judged by the ABA Journal. The top 100 blogs and their authors were the subject of a feature story on the ABA Journal online. Each of the blogs were linked to in the story.

Also yesterday, Eric Turkewitz linked to a year old blog post of mine in a blog post on Turkewitz' blog. The text in the link to my post read 'ratings system is toast.' In his blog post, Turkewitz also referenced and linked to 16 other sources other than my blog post.

Glancing at my webstats from today I noticed that in the last 24 hours 58 unique visitors visited my blog from Turkewitz' link to my blog. During the same time, 3 unique visitors visited my blog as a result of the link to my blog in the ABA Journal Top 100 Law Blogs feature story. 20 times the traffic from Turk as the ABA Journal.

I'm always preaching engagement over vanity when it comes to law blog success. Engagement meaning listening to relevant conversation online and when appropriate offering value to the conversation through a blog post of your own. Vanity meaning press releases announcing your blog, top blog contests, blog directory listings, and the like.

Vanity marketing is old school. 'Marketing is a conversation' is new school. Today being part of a conversation in which your target audience and their influencers is taking part in or following is more important in drawing attention to yourself, establishing a word of mouth reputation, and getting peer reviews and references than the attention we have bought in the past.

Don't get me wrong, I love what Ed Adams, the Editor of the ABA Journal, and his reporters and editors are doing to shine a light on lawyers who are giving of themselves through blogging. I further appreciate that the ABA Journal is differentiating good law blogs from the law blogs being published by lawyers who think they are blogging while merely scrapping news stories for SEO. The latter is crap and demeaning to the profession.

I'm honored to be included among the better blogs by the ABA Journal. I hope it reflects my effort to help lawyers improve their practice and station in life.

At the same time, it's a privilege to have gotten to know Eric Turkewitz, as a person and as a blogger. I met him through blogging years ago. Either he or I must have referenced what the other had written in a blog post, we started to follow each others' blogs, and have referenced each other in blog posts on multiple occasions over the years.

I asked Eric to join a New York City panel on blogging I was moderating a couple years ago and we had dinner afterwards. Found out his roots in the Internet, like mine, go back to AOL days, that he's also a distance runner.

Eric's a good lawyer and a widely respected blogger (also in the ABA Journal top 100). When he references something I've written on my blog, it's akin to a tacit endorsement of me, or at least my opinion, from a well respected lawyer and blogger. That carries a fair amount of influence with not only New York lawyers, but lawyers around the country as well as reporters and bloggers covering our legal industry.

This 'endorsement,' if you will, further enhances my reputation and generates a word of mouth reputation. And if you're worried about traffic to your blog, it does that too. All the result of joining the conversation. By engaging others.

So when chasing blog accolades (some good, some worthless), give some thought to whether you'd be the greater winner by getting out and engaging folks through your blogging.

Martindale-Hubbell now spamming lawyers' blogs? Are lawyers to blame?

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:24:32 GMT

A marketing company doing work on behalf of the legal directory Martindale-Hubbell has acknowledged spamming the comment field on New York Attorney Eric Turkewitz' blog.

Turkewitz blogged about the Martindale spamming. Martindale's marketing company in a 'heart felt' apology left in a comment to Turkewitz' post acknowledged they had done the spamming. Martindale remains silent.

Spamming blogs is done by shady marketing and SEO companies by leaving gibberish comments on blogs along with the name and url address of a company in the accompanying fields. It's done to garner links to a target site (martindale-hubbell.co.uk in this case) in order to improve the target sites search engine performance.

How low does this type of marketing go? Per Turkewitz:

Is it possible to go lower than a spammer on the web? Probably, but I haven't seen them use pornography to market the law firms that have hired them.
So what does this mean? It means that the most 'venerable brand in the legal community' is now using one of the lowest forms of Internet 'marketing' that exists: This is the cyber-equivalent of trespassing on someone's land (their blog) for the sole purpose of plastering its advertisements. Nice.

It's bad enough that Martindale, once viewed by me as a top shelf company, is pulling this crap. But I agree with Turkewitz that lawyers buying Martindale's service are partly to blame for outsourcing their marketing to companies who use such tactics.

I've written befefore about attorneys that outsource their marketing also outsourcing their ethics. This happens when one of the bazillion attorney search search sites that have popped up are hired to do promotion for lawyers. The lack of care when it comes to ethical violations or other abhorrent conduct can happen regardless of whether the search site is large or small.
When it comes to protecting your reputation, this is one simple rule for lawyers to follow: No one cares as much about your reputation as you do. So when you entrust others to do your work, you are virtually guaranteed a lower standard of care.

Turkewitz is spot on in asking lawyers and law firms who use Martindale-Hubbell:

How would you rate M-H?
How do your clients feel about spammers?
Since you've hired M-H as an agent to market for your law firm, how do you feel about your agent being a spammer?

I'm afraid many lawyers don't give a darn. They'll pay whatever to get the next client, no matter how shady the means and no matter that it pulls our profession down into the gutter.

But I'd hope that some you as upstanding members of our profession who care about the legal profession and its reputation would examine what you're buying when it comes to Internet marketing and who you are buying it from.

What do they do to earn your money? Do they also believe in our legal profession and for the good things it stands for. If not, I'd hope you'd spend your money elsewhere.

After hours use of social media by law firm employees key to client development

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:12:58 GMT

When I practiced law I wanted all of my firm's employees, lawyers and non-lawyers, to network on behalf of the firm while engaged in social activities.

It didn't matter if anyone called it networking. I just wanted people out socializing, being themselves, meeting people, and enjoying life. Of course I wanted people to share where they worked, what they did, and to meet people they could learn from. I didn't pound on people to do that, it was a natural by-product of being social.

I expected more of lawyers, but I wanted paralegals and other administrative employees to proudly share where they worked and what they did. I wasn't looking for a sheepish 'Oh, I work at a law firm' when someone asked what they did or where they worked while at a kid's soccer game. I wanted our employees to proudly say they worked at 'Parke O'Flaherty' and to share what they did. (Note I chopped off the names of 4 partners from the firm name, mine included, so everyone could say the name of where they worked)

Today it's not just kids' sporting events, civic groups, church committees, and spouses' Christmas parties where your law firm's employees get the opportunity to engage others. Social media in the form of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and more is how your employees are engaging the people they know. Instead of it being right in your locale, your employees may be engaging people all over your state or, for that matter, the world.

Better yet, using social media your employees are more apt to share information and knowledge that relates to their work. They're also apt to network with people they can learn from and vice versa. For those of you afraid of social media, this is good news.

In a blog post this morning, Milwaukee's Augie Ray, a Sr. Analyst in Social Computing at Forrester Research, brings home the value of your employees using social media outside normal business hours.

Increasingly, it no longer pays to protect and manage information--knowledge withheld is no better than a lack of knowledge in the first place. Instead, employees are now promoting themselves and increasing their networks by sharing what they know, contributing where they can, and increasing their knowledge via interactions and experiences throughout the enterprise.
While the transparency of knowledge and information is increasing within organizations, we are also seeing transparency increase outside the organization. Employees are not employees only between 8 and 5--their actions on social networks are visible to peers, bosses, business leaders, competitors, and customers. The things people say and do 'personally' are no longer just personal, and we've seen instances of employees helping and hindering both their own careers and their employers' objectives as a result of tweets, status updates, and other activities on social networks.

Sure, promoting your employees use of social media has risks. Just as employees could do offline, they could say things that embarrass themselves or your law firm.

But I'd rather hire smart people and trust them. Trust them to learn and trust them to network in an environment where they feel very comfortable. It's to your law firm's benefit.

25 blogs to help law firms stay up to speed with social media

kevin@lexblog.com (Kevin O'Keefe) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:49:11 GMT

Everything I've learned about blogging and social media, I've learned by reading, talking with people, attending conferences, and, of course, trial and error.

The lions share of my learning has come from reading lots of blogs. Blogs I subscribe to in an RSS reader where I can browse headlines by folders I set up by particular subjects.

Social media, including blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, social networking sites, and hell of a lot more, is hard for me to keep up with. And I'm leading a company that's serving as a social media partner to law firms, not practicing law or running a law firm like you.

So it piqued my interest when Ritu Pant, a web strategist of a couple years, posted a list of 25 blogs to help you stay current with social media on the Freelance Folder blog.

I'm going to use the list to do a better job of staying up to speed with social media news, trends, and ideas. I'll share what I think worthwhile for lawyers and legal professions on my blog and in my Twitter feed.

As a legal professional you may wish to subscribe to the blogs to learn more about how to use social media. You'll always see things I miss.

For those unfamiliar with the power of a RSS reader, here's a list of the 25 blogs in a social media folder in my RSS reader, NetNewsWire. Scanning headlines from these blogs organized by folder so I see the aggregated post titles is the only time effective means of consuming such blog content.

I can't vouch for the list yet, but reviewing the blogs in the list, a number I already subscribed to, and titles of posts from the list, the 25 blogs look pretty good. As with all my subscriptions, I'll fine tune the list cutting some blogs and adding a few more to my social media folder.