Legal Technology Archives - Page 15 of 24

Facebook for Attorneys: How to Double Your Likes in No Time

Yesterday’s post detailed how business attorneys can double their connections on LinkedIn, but for consumer attorneys the most likely social media platform for your attention is Facebook.

And just like all social media networks, the lion’s share of the attention goes to those who interact frequently – and genuinely – with followers and fans.

Knowing how valuable and limited your time may be for social media marketing, you need to make efficient use of it to get the maximum benefit. The infographic below from WhoIsHostingThis.com gives you specific steps you can take to double your Facebook “likes” in just five minutes a day:

Article By:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

LinkedIn for Lawyers: How to Double Your Connections in No Time [INFOGRAPHIC]

If you practice business law of any type, then you should know by now that you need to be on LinkedIn.

But just like being on a treadmill without turning on the power won’t budge your waistline, “being on” LinkedIn is not enough to get you any benefit from this fantastic social media platform for business. You have to be active!

The infographic below from WhoIsHostingThis.com shows you how you can double your LinkedIn connections in just five minutes a day. Specifically, you need to:

Send an invitation to at least one new connection a day
Participate in relevant LinkedIn discussion groups at least once a week
Ask people you know to endorse you
Share your blog content, an article, a video or a presentation
Add a link to your LinkedIn profile to your email signature and post on your social media profiles
Keep your profile updated

Article By:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

Accepting on-site registration for 14th Annual SuperConference from InsideCounsel

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming 14th Annual Super Conference hosted by Inside Counsel. You can still register on-site!

Now offering an exclusive National Law Review discount until May 12. Register HERE.

When

Monday, May 12 – Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Where

Chicago, IL

The annual InsideCounsel SuperConference, for the past 13 years, has offered the highest value for educational investment within a constructive learning and networking environment. Legal professionals will gain the opportunity to elevate the quality of their performance and learn ways to become a strategic partner within his/her organization. In two-and-half days attendees earn CLE credits, network with hundreds of peers and legal service providers and hear strategies to tackle corporate legal issues that are top of mind throughout this comprehensive program. SuperConference is presented by InsideCounsel magazine, published by Summit Professional Networks.

Now celebrating its 14th year, InsideCounsel’s SuperConference is an exclusive corporate legal conference attracting more than 500 senior level in-house counsels from Fortune-1000 and multi-national companies. The three-day event offers opportunities to showcase your firm’s industry knowledge and thought leadership while interacting with GC’s and other senior corporate counsel during exclusive networking and educational opportunities. The conference agenda offers the perfect blend of experts and national figure heads from some of the nation’s largest corporations, top law firms, government and regulatory leaders, and industry trailblazers. The conference agenda and educational program receives consistent high marks.

Innovate, Embrace Change, Don't Fear Failure: Takeaways from LMA (Legal Marketing Association) Annual Conference

One message rang true at this year’s LMA Annual Conference: innovation and change are requirements for success. Change may be scary but innovative firms stand out from the rest. At times they may fail, but these failures serve to make firms stronger, not weaker.

Build Unusual Partnerships

Look at Cinnabon’s President Kat Cole, who gave the keynote address this year. When market share started to dip for Cinnabon, she boldly partnered with Pinnacle Vodka, and with competitors like Pillsbury and, Dunkin’ Donuts. These unusual collaborations helped to dramatically grow revenue to over one billion dollars annually for the company. She not only had to take a risk but she also had to convince management to do the same if they were to expand the brand and business. Yet, for her, being innovative was a necessity, not an option. If she didn’t do it, someone else would have. She credits her success to understanding how the business got started and what sets it apart from competitors. This formed the basis for her collaborative partnerships which proved hugely successful.

Work with Multiple Generations

Change has also come to impact law firms simply by the fact that multiple generations are now present in the market. The most senior partners are not retiring. A generational rift exists both within law firms and between law firms and their target clients. While the senior and boomer generations still hold the majority of power within the firms, clients and prospects are frequently fitting into the Generation X demographic. The different generations have completely separate expectations, motivations and desires, some of which are diametrically opposed. Understanding those generational differences and reshaping our internal cultures and power dynamics will be a key to retaining talent and attracting new business.

Help Grow Your Clients Business

Providing excellent legal work is a given. But clients expect their lawyers to understand their business, to help them mitigate their business risks, and to come up with ideas to help them generate revenue. Clients expect to see their attorneys at the same industry conferences they attend – speaking, networking and making recommendations.

The General Counsel panelists reported they have to do more with less money and time. One way lawyers can help is to personally forward client alerts and draw the GC’s attention to a specific section (e.g., see “bullet point 3”) — instead of making them read through the entire article. The GC panelists also agreed that the articles talking about the law itself are not helpful; talk about how the law affects the client or prospect’s business. Co-authoring articles with clients was another suggestion – it makes them look good and brings the relationship closer as well.

Innovate

The pre-conference CMO Summit focused on innovation, i.e., new products and services. Jordan Furlong of Edge International and Law21.ca led an interactive discussion on using research and development to establish a competitive edge in the legal industry. What are some of the new products and services, or yet-to-be-developed possibilities that lawyers could offer? A variety of apps and toolkits, a virtual general counsel set-up or client hot-line, a mobile or shared workforce to reduce overhead, and more…the key being to identify the needs of industries and clients, and respond to those needs innovatively.

Many other topics were covered at the conference but the overarching theme is that those who innovate and embrace change will be the ones to find the most success. Step out on a ledge and don’t be afraid to fail – you will find greater success and learn more than those who just watch from the window!

Article By:

Susanne L. Mandel

Ioana G. Good

Of:

Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A.

How LinkedIn Publishing Could Kill The Law Blog

For one brief, bright, shining moment in the history of mass human communication, everyone had the ability to talk to everyone else and no corporate gatekeeper was not in control. In that moment — after the mass media no longer decided whose message would get through and before the social networks truly took over — you could hear and choose to listen to anyone who had something real to say.

It might be time to say goodbye to all that. But that goodbye comes in the form of a great opportunity for you to distribute your legal content to a huge business audience. LinkedIn has become a content aggregator, one that boasts the power of 275 million business people. LinkedIn is a social network where two-thirds of corporate general counsel go to gather business information on an at least weekly basis. Publishing a very timely and relevant piece of legal content on LinkedIn’s publishing platform can get you more qualified business eyeballs than you dreamed possible, and more comments than you’ve ever seen on your blog in a month of Sundays.

With the entrance of LinkedIn to the content aggregation world, your blog might start to look like a ghost town. Publishing that blog post on LinkedIn generates views, shares and likes that have the power to outstrip what your blog delivers. This is where the people are, and they no longer have to click through on a shortened link – the article is right there on LinkedIn for them to review. If your goal is to have your content read by relevant audiences (and it has to be), then you must master publishing on LinkedIn, National Law Review, JDSupra, and possibly Mondaq and Lexology. And by doing so, you might kill your own blog. Its either that or let that your content die of loneliness.

This trend has more implications than I can explore in a single blog post, the most important of which are:

What does this mean for your Google juice? Blog posts done right mean that you are providing an answer to the most pressing questions your potential clients are asking of search engines. Now, will the answer to those pressing questions lead those potential clients to your articles on LinkedIn rather than to your blog?
If your article, published on LinkedIn, shows up in Google or Bing search results, will potential clients find the information they need to choose you as a lawyer on LinkedIn? Will your LinkedIn profile be what it should be? How’s your LinkedIn company page? Because those two things just got a lot more important!

I loved it when a law blog was a destination, but I’m a modern girl, and I think this is the next wave. What was originally called blogging has recently been re-named content creation because it is about the writing, not about publishing it to your blog. So I suggest you get onto the content aggregators and join me in a lament for the brief moment that was all about blawgs. We loved them, but it’s time to expand our thinking.

Article By:

Amy L. Knapp

Of:

Knapp Marketing

You can still register for Inside Counsel's 14th Annual Super Conference in Chicago!

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming 14th Annual Super Conference hosted by Inside Counsel. It’s not to late to register!

Now offering an exclusive National Law Review discount until May 12. Register HERE.

When

Monday, May 12 – Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Where

Chicago, IL

Chasing Leads – You’re doing it all wrong.

1. Don’t be cheap on lead acquisition.

I’m constantly amazed at how cheap many lawyers want to be on getting someone to identify themselves as in need of legal services and then closing the deal. Folks, we are in a high transaction business! Your emailed newsletter (alone) will never cut it. We must be arranging our businesses to outspend our competition on the generation of a new lead. It won’t happen overnight, but this has to be your mindset.

My view is that in order to do this, you must be very efficient in your marketing. Being “efficient” does not mean being cheap. It means being “smart.” When you sit down to create an ad, ask yourself: What exactly are we trying to accomplish? Before that ad is let loose, there are usually about 7–12 different steps/other pieces that must be created in order to make the ad work. This will usually involve at least one (and sometimes two) videos, with well-thought-out scripts, one or more physical marketing pieces that must be designed, and a funnel with follow up specific and appropriate to that ad created. Going through this process is the only way to achieve the goal of “spending more than your competition is willing to spend to acquire a good lead for your office.”

2. You need real clarity and comfort with whatever it is you are selling.

You can’t really have any “moral ambiguity” about the fact that you are a lawyer and you are selling. Everything I do is marketing and selling. Every conversation with a client, every conversation with a judge or opposing counsel is a marketing opportunity. (Tip: after every trial, I send my opposing counsel one of my books, congratulating them on a job well done for their client. Not necessarily a marketing book—sometimes it’s a business book, sometimes it’s “The Ultimate Success Secret.”) If you follow most of the lawyer listserves that don’t have anything to do with marketing, you will see a trend “against” the marketers. It’s just so easy to jump on that bandwagon. I see it all the time, lawyers who don’t have a clue about the quality of another lawyer’s legal work slamming them in a listserve because of the ads they run.

Here’s what to think about if they are the least bit squeamish about marketing and selling: I have two questions for you.

Is there a potential new client out there for whom you would be the perfect lawyer?
Someone with a problem that you would, in fact, be the best lawyer for and with whom you can make money? (If you can’t answer Yes to that question, then you really need to be looking for another line of work.)
Assuming that the answer to the above is yes, why in the world would you leave it up to that person to choose the lawyer to solve his problem by random chance?
It’s your moral obligation to get yourself in front of that client, just as it is your moral obligation to reject and send elsewhere that client you have no business representing.

Article By:

Ben Glass

Of:

Great Legal Marketing, Inc.

Google+ Is (Walking) Dead? Or Simply Changing?

In response to the grievous reports of Google+’s death last week, a famous misquote from Mark Twain comes to mind: “It appears the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

In late April, a bold headline was turning heads: Google+ Is Walking Dead. The article made some pretty strong claims regarding Google’s struggling social network in response to Vic Gundotra’s announcement that he would be leaving the company. Mr. Gundotra was Google’s Vice President of Social and head of Google+.

This left online marketers with several questions: What will become of authorship? How will this affect Google search? Will this change Google+’s YouTube integration? What about the time and money we have put in to growing our Circles, engaging in Community discussions and posting content?

Once you delve a little deeper and look past the pessimistic headlines, things are not as grim as they appear. Apparently, Google+ is not dead (not even “walking dead”). However, there may be changes on the horizon—which should be nothing new for veteran Google+ users and online marketers.

How Does Google+ Fit In to the Google Brand?

Google+ has never truly competed with Facebook or Twitter. But look at it from a different angle. Google’s social network provided a way to tie together Google’s disparate services while establishing a clear identity of each user. This helps Google provide better search results and sell better targeted ads by better tracking and consolidating user data.

“Google+ is really two things: an identity layer that tracks and connects all of Google’s products and a social sharing app,” says JR Oakes, the Director of Search Marketing at Consultwebs. “I think we will see a movement towards individual teams (Android, Maps, Gmail) just leveraging the identity layer to add value to the products from the standpoint of what makes the product better instead of what makes G+ better.”

The Facts

Many Google employees have taken to Google+ to address these rumors and provide facts.

Yonatan Zunger, Google+ Chief Architect, denied the death of Google+, saying that “this entire TechCrunch article is bollocks.” He also confirmed that Dave Desbris will be the new head of Google+, which suggests the company currently has no plans for dismantling the social network.

In response to a Google+ post, Chris Lang asked Moritz Tolxdorff, Google’s Consumer Operations and Community Manager, to confirm if anyone on the Google+ team had been moved to Android. Tolxdorff responded, “No one is moving anywhere. Everything will stay as it is.”

In light of these public responses, marketers can breathe a sigh of relief—at least for the moment.

Responding to Possible Changes

Even though powerful voices of Google have spoken on this issue, online marketers know that anything can change in the blink of an eye. With a new head of Google+ on the way, we can likely expect to see some changes, even if minor.

Let’s take a look at a timeline of major changes and gradual integration that has occurred through the years:

Google+ is heavily integrated into several of Google’s most popular products: Local, YouTube, Gmail and last but definitely not least, search. The slightest change could create a ripple that affects all of these. I think that is what scared marketers the most.

The best way to respond to situations like this is logically and in the best interest of your business and clients. This is not the first time rumors have panicked the online marketing world. Does anyone remember when the buzz was that Facebook would soon be a paid service? This eventually led to the company’s slogan, “It’s free and always will be.”

It is crucial to respond quickly to changes, but only changes that are validated. Responding too quickly to false claims can result in missed opportunities and wasted time and money. It is best to relax, keep your eyes open for confirmed changes and respond accordingly.

Online marketing best practices are going to change. That is something we have to accept. What makes our jobs challenging (and interesting!) is keeping up with these changes, adapting new best practices and staying ahead of the curve. Whether it is a Google algorithm update, changes to Social Media sites or a change in popular tech devices, we must be vigilant and respond accordingly.

Article By:

Kenneth Harris

Of:

Consultwebs.com, Inc.

Study Shows Smaller Law Firms Value Big Picture Approach to Marketing

Marketing has become a critical function of all law firms, big and small. Large law firms (over 200 attorneys) tend to have vast resources that can be devoted to all marketing aspects, while small to midsize firms (40-200 attorneys) must be more creative in the ways that they utilize their marketing resources, in order to maximize the benefits of their efforts. J. Johnson Executive Search, Inc., commissioned a study, conducted by ALM Legal Intelligence, in order to examine the marketing trends of those small and midsized firms and show how marketing departments’ efforts help their firms gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

A group of 90 legal marketing professionals were surveyed via web between November 18, 2013 and December 18, 2013. Professionals from small law firms (40-75 attorneys) made up 42% of the 90, while the other 58% was comprised of professionals from midsize law firms (76 or more attorneys). Part one of this two-part article will discuss how small to midsized firms are valuing marketing departments and dedicating their resources to marketing efforts in a concentrated and consistent manner. Part two will discuss the shift in the way that small and midsized firms conduct their marketing activities in order to remain competitive in our current economy; the results showing that smaller law firms do have a big picture approach to marketing.

Dedicated Marketing Functions Have Become the Norm

Ninety-percent of the firms surveyed had at least one dedicated staff member responsible for their marketing efforts, such as business development, practice development, marketing, communications, and public relations activities. Smaller firms have naturally lower budgets and resources, but according to the study, are on target to mirror larger firm marketing structures.

The ideal is to have one marketing professional for every ten attorneys at the firm. Eighty-one percent of the small firms surveyed had 1-4 dedicated marketing professionals, 48% of midsized firms have 1-4 people, and 47% of midsized firms had five or more marketing professionals on staff. In this delicate economic climate, more firms are focusing on the importance of having a marketing initiative, simply because previously used methods no longer suffice.

Additionally, the overall firm resources devoted to marketing have grown to reflect the increasing importance of marketing roles in the law firm. Forty-four percent of the firms surveyed had increased their marketing budget from 2012 to 2013.

From “Nice to Have” to “Must Have” Team Members

Traditionally, attorneys were responsible for their own rainmaking activities and the development of a dedicated marketing department may have been seen as threatening to the process and responsibilities of attorneys. Now more than ever, firm management has requested that attorneys spend more time on client development efforts, which can conflict with an attorney’s need/want to bill time. This is where having a marketing team can be crucial for their attorneys.

Two-thirds of respondents in the study confirmed that the marketing department is an important factor in winning the firm business. For smaller firms, marketing is an evenmore critical factor in the win by greater than a 3-to-1 margin. Gone are the days where corporate counsel will hire a firm simply from how they rank in publications. Winning business is predicated on building relationships.

For example, the marketing team at Porter Hedges, a smaller firm out of Houston, Texas, helped coordinate a marketing plan that gets the managing partner out in front of the clients and introduces the clients to the attorneys in the trenches. Their marketing department was able to coordinate and execute a program where clients were able to feel valued. The marketing group is also responsible for organizing client events, so that their firm has a presence among potential clients. On the whole, Porter Hedges is distinguishable from their competitors because of the emphasis they make on client connection. Developing these relationships would have been more difficult to coordinate without a dedicated marketing team.

Justification for Marketing Efforts

The firms surveyed have seen their marketing efforts pay off in several ways. In total, 82% of respondents saw a growth in their law firm and 79% saw client retention as a direct consequence of marketing efforts. There are also several other areas of success, such as an increased image or awareness of the firm in the marketplace (80% of respondents experienced this), and an increase in the firm’s competitive advantage over their competitors (64%).

This study shows that the perceived (and actual) importance of marketing departments has steadily risen over the years. Smaller and midsized firms are recognizing the value of marketing departments and investing in them because of the increased need to remain competitive with their larger brethren.

Stay tuned for part two, where I will discuss exactly what small and midsized firms have been focusing their marketing efforts on and how effective they have been.

Article By:

Nicole Angeline Cudiamat

Of:

The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

New ALM Report Says Small Firms Investing in Big Marketing

A new report from ALM Legal Intelligence entitled, Small Firms, Big Marketing reveals that small and mid-sized law firms (40-200 attorneys) have upped their investments in marketing because of a belief that effective marketing is mandatory for a firm to succeed.

ALM Legal Marketing

The survey was commissioned by J. Johnson Executive Search, Inc., and relies on data collected from 90 small and midsized firms in the U.S – 42% of responses were from firms with 40-75 attorneys and 58% were from firms of more than 76 attorneys.

Some key findings from the survey:

90% of responding firms said they had a dedicated marketing team in place
75% said marketing was critical to winning new business
54% use marketing for research and client feedback
Marketing is key not only for obtaining new clients but also for retaining existing clients
75% of firm management says marketing is a critical piece in winning new business
Spending on outsourced marketing functions increased 44% in 2013 and is expected to rise in 2014

Firms justify their investment in marketing in the following ways:

ALM Reporting Marketing

The firms surveyed found these 10 marketing tactics to be the most effective for their firms:

marketing

The full report is available free for download here.

Article By:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

Category: Legal Technology

Accepting on-site registration for 14th Annual SuperConference from InsideCounsel

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