Tagged with 'Legal Marketing'

In a recent  Legal Marketing Association listserv discussion, legal marketer Larry Bodine opined that “IMHO, the whole purpose of blogging is business development.” I don’t agree that the business development objective squeezes out every other.

Perhaps I’ve been spending too much time with people involved in any number of open source movements.  But in these communities, the idea of sharing ideas through any number of tactics, including blogging is to hypothesize, postulate and otherwise endeavor to move the ball – forward, preferably.  Whether it be legal marketing or Drupal module development, to begin a long list, there are a lot of methodologies subject to exposure, evaluation and opinion. Tossing those ideas out there via social media may have a business development benefit, but if they elicit thought and  stimulate expressed opinion the synergies of two-heads being better than one begins to kick in.

In the same discussion thread, law marketer Jayne Navarre says, “The most successful bloggers I know put their personality into it and even stick their neck out a little bit to make it provocative, conversational and distinctive.”  Again, I don’t know if bloggers only “stick their neck out” for the reasons Jayne says.  Rather, or maybe additionally, it is because we have a point of view which might not be yours. And if it’s an interesting enough presentation, you perceive it as provocative.

Marketers, of course, pressed for ROI for any tactic requiring resources, seize social media and blogging for all of its business development potential.  That’s ok. But let’s not forget that there is really nothing wrong with simply making a contribution to your industry or profession. And, in fact, specifically striving for the latter may achieve the former.

So you’ve got this 2 ½ year old start-up company, Avvo, running a conference in Seattle, Washington called “Advanced Social Media Training for Lawyers.” As I explained in an earlier post, the nexus of social media and legal marketing got me hooked on going. I’ve gone to legal marketing events where social media is a component of the event, but not a legal marketing event where social media is the focus. I was curious to see a) who would go b) what would be their interest and c) what was the content of the event.

Is this Conference Legit?

My first concern was the integrity of the conference organizer.  Company produced conferences might often be viewed by internal staff as shooting fish in a barrel. With all those live one’s in a room it’s hard to resist the temptation to reel in as many as possible. While Avvo CEO Mark Britton opened and closed the conference, he served as effective conference bookends and actually had something of value to say. Although sales staff silently trolled, they mostly stayed busy helping to manage event logistics.

About the Attending Lawyers

The event was attended by  about 200 lawyers including some bar association types and a very small smattering of legal marketing consultants. Lawyers were mostly small boutique firms liberally represented by plaintiff and consumer law. Although Perkins and Coie was an event sponsor, I didn’t meet any others from BigLaw.

Attending lawyers were largely media and technology savvy. Off-topic conversations included discussions of office efficiency and personal productivity. As a group they had crossed the chasm. Few were questioning the social media proposition as much as they were working to define their strategies and tactics to leverage new media. Only the professional crowd I met at EduWeb, a conference I attended for higher education educators earlier last year, showed a higher level of media and technology savvy than this group of mostly younger lawyers.

All About the Content

The best presentations and presenters connected their message directly to the attendees. Doug Mandell, discussing LinkedIn, had taken the time to evaluate every attendee’s LinkedIn profile against 14 criteria. When the performance average proved to be 8 of the 14 (57%), Mandell assigned the crowd an “F”. That got everyone’s attention. Tim Stanley of Justia riveted the crowd, ending the first day by going 50% over his allotted time (with permission) and then still apologizing for talking so fast.

The second day began with an optional 1 hour of CLE credit on the subject of Ethics in Marketing. Although not an attorney, I “audited” the session and found the information compelling. The downside of social media and the ethical issues dominate most lawyers’ thinking on this marketing strategy. Yet keynote speaker Bob Ambrogi @BobAmbrogi observed, “”As far as I know there has never been a disciplinary action against an attorney for answering questions online.”

Susan Lyon @SusanLyon from Perkins and Coie presented the perspective of a large firm practicing attorney who also maintains a broad public persona on Facebook and Twitter in addition to the more business-oriented LinkedIn. Susan confronted common concerns by lawyers about establishing the right balance between privacy and social networking.

Random Acts of Meanness

The event was not without some mild excitement. Midway through the first day, event organizers were confronted with some non-attending jackass Twitter flame throwers. Although there may have been a message in their sarcastic comments, it was obscured by their rude and disruptive behavior. Conference organizers didn’t blink at this menace and the dialogue flowed around the scofflaws and at a higher level.

Always Finish with Beer

We closed the conference properly with  Beer for Bloggers at Kell’s Irish Pub with local resident and legal blogging maven Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog picking up the tab. Thanks, Kev.  All told it was a bold and successful move by Avvo. And we had some great beer, too.

P.S.

Yes,  I went bird watching on the Kitsap Peninsula after the conference with a friend who works at Amazon. We found 43 bird species and I added 8 life birds to my list.

Should you put a link to LinkedIn on a biography page of a law firm website? That was the question posed recently on the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) listserv by Gail Lamarche Director of Marketing at Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt.

I opined that, for professional services firms such as this law firm, the attorney biography page is the best thing we have as a “money page” on the website. Therefore, driving visitors away from the money page was, strategically, a bad idea. Moreover, it seemed if there were really content on LinkedIn that was valuable to the site visitor, then that information should be on the bio page. And if it wasn’t there, the bio page was somehow deficient.

Smug I was in the righteousness of my response. But I got an earful of dissent from LMA listserv contributors. The arguments are worthy of consideration:

Jayne Navarre, LawGravity, presented these points persuasively:

• Branding – The LinkeIn link is like a hip badge of Web 2.0 awareness
• Connections – LinkedIn provides a transparent view to an attorney’s connections, arguably a value to any prospective client
• Authoritative – Access to the LinkedIn Questions & Answers provides additional proof of the attorney’s authority

Heather Milligan, Director of Marketing at Barger Wolen emphasized that LinkedIn:

• Human – helps make the attorney “dynamic, human, liked”( in case we have any residual concerns about their humanity) and helps the attorney pass the “known, liked & trusted” test of prospective clients.
• Dimensional – And in rebuttal to my “bio is deficient” comment, Heather notes that to maintain a certain appearance consistent with other bios and the overall website, “the firm bio is controlled for content, style, etc….(while) LinkedIn is the perfect place where an attorney can bring together their outside interests and professional careers, making them more human and likeable.
• Connections – Perhaps the most valuable feature, LinkedIn is fundamentally a connecting tool that might serendipitously reveal a third party connection to the site visitor which presents all kinds of opportunity for real introduction.

It’s not a slam dunk either way. The answer to Gail’s original question seems to be, “It depends.” The circumstances dictate the strategy. I’ll give it a nod of possibility and something worth trying.  Yes, I know, “first I was against it, now I’m for it.” Thanks to the enlightenment of my marketing peers.

But I’ll have this last (never!) word.  Think doubly hard about sending your site visitor from the most valuable conversion page of  your site to an information wasteland. Don’t do it unless the LinkedIn profile to which you are sending visitors:

• provides a rich set of business connections
• demonstrates some effort to contribute authoritatively to the online Q&A discourse
• otherwise expands on the website attorney bio page
• (if possible) provides a path back

And whatever you do, measure the results. Professionals keep score.

Now you can link away to my LinkedIn profile.