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Archive for ‘Practice of Law: Marketing’

Moral Outrage and Social Media: The Perfect Storm

Cecil the Lion has dominated world headlines since the announcement of his killing at the hands of American dentist Walter Palmer. Cecil’s death has brought the controversial practice of trophy hunting, the serious issue of poaching and the concerns of the animal conservation movement into the spotlight.

The outcry has been especially prevalent on social media, where news is amplified and extended at rapid pace. Lawyers representing clients accused of criminal, defamatory or regulatory transgressions are often wary of how online attention can remain focused on an issue long after traditional outlets have moved on.

When social norms and trust . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law: Marketing

Of Google Indexing the Twitter Firehose and Implications for SEO and Lawyers Who Tweet

I probably won’t be making it to the Chicago Bar Association’s CLE on “How To… Get the Most Out of Twitter” tomorrow. But that’s not to say that I wouldn’t have been choked to miss Catherine Reach’s tweet mentioning it. Mostly that’s because there was something else she linked to which caught my attention: Kevin O’Keefe’s post from last Thursday heralding that “Twitter is teaming up with Google to bring Twitter’s real-time content to Google’s search results.

So there it is. Google and Twitter are getting friendly (once more). And just when you thought Mobilegeddon was . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information: Information Management, Practice of Law: Marketing, Technology, Technology: Internet

Build, Buy or Bury

You are running a business, let’s call it a legal practice, and you have a problem. You are spending too much time dealing with a small irritation. The irritation could be just about anything, but let’s say the issue is that your invoicing system doesn’t connect with your contact management system. “System” may be too strong a word for many. Essentially, when you issue an invoice for your services, the bill doesn’t automatically show up in the file where you keep other details about the same client. As a result, each time you issue a bill, you have to remember . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law: Marketing, Practice of Law: Practice Management

5 Benefits of a Social Media Sabbatical

Have you ever wanted to cease and desist from all social media communication? I have. And I did. Here’s what happened…

…well, actually, nothing happened. Despite dire warnings from bloggers proclaiming the “10 online activities you must do every day to build a valuable personal brand”, nothing bad actually happened. In fact, my business grew.

The benefits of a social media sabbatical

  1. Rest. Being somewhat introverted, I can only handle so much social activity online or off. By the end of December, I felt beleaguered by the pressure to maintain a constant social media presence.
  1. Regained control over my
. . . [more]
Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law: Marketing

The Best Things I Read in January 2015

Information overload! There are just too many posts, tweets and articles flying around in the Twitterverse and elsewhere on social media and the Web. None of us can even pretend keep up. And while there is a lot of spam, self-promotional crap and other junk out there, there are some real gems that get lost in the sheer volume of content thrown at us on a daily basis. The trick is finding the content that is really interesting or helpful to you in a practical way. Patience is required, hashtags and a bit of luck can help, and identifying good . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law: Future of Practice, Practice of Law: Marketing, Reading, Reading: Recommended, Technology, Technology: Internet, Technology: Office Technology

Engaging Ideas

“Is anybody out there?” Have you ever looked at your website traffic or social media engagement statistics and wondered if you’re all alone in cyberspace?

The good news is that you’re not alone. Most of your colleagues have probably asked the same question. The bad news is that you’ll need to move beyond your comfort zone if you want to break away from the silent online majority.

Why Engagement Matters
There are two perceptions of you as a lawyer: who you are and what you do. It’s easy to publish a list of what you do on a webpage. But . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law: Marketing, Technology: Internet

Time for a CASL Check Up

Some of the dust kicked up during the stampede to comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) has settled. In October, Ipsos released survey results showing that most Canadians are aware of the legislation and that they are taking advantage of it.

David Canton has published excellent commentary and practical advice regarding the legislation, which came into effect on July 1, 2014. Judging from discussions with clients and colleagues post-implementation, most compliance campaigns helped firms clean up their databases and wrangle administrative procedures. Although, some in-house marketers and administrative staff might still be recovering from the process….

Ipsos conducted the survey . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law: Marketing, Practice of Law: Practice Management

Sponsorship and Sincerity

I recently attended a workshop that was sponsored by several law firms, major corporations and large organizations. The event and the law firms will remain anonymous (for obvious reasons), but the sponsorship implied trust, integrity and commitment by the business community to a contemporary organizational issue.

Event attendees participated in a productive discussion; some were clients of the firms whose logos were included on the promotional material and some would probably be good clients for those firms to have.

There was just one problem. None of the law firms who sponsored the workshop had sent a representative to participate in . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law: Marketing

Canadian Law Video Site LegalTube.ca Launched

Congratulations to the folks at LawyerLocate.ca Inc., Natalie Waddell and Mark C. Robins, for launching their new Canadian law video distribution site LegalTube.ca.

The website is aimed at the public, giving easy video access on a wide range of law-related topics. The site is made up of video content from lawyers listed on LawyerLocate.ca, with videos originally housed on YouTube or Vimeo, pulling everything together by topic as well as by participant profiles (lawyers and law firms). I found the site very easy to navigate with major law topics across the top. There is also a category . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Publishing, Practice of Law: Marketing, Technology: Internet

Misquoted in the Media? Set the Record Straight.

Being interviewed for a news item or feature story on your area of expertise is a great way to build a professional reputation. It looks good in a Google search. It associates your esteem with that of the publication. And you can refer to the coverage in marketing materials without sounding self-aggrandizing.

But what if you’re misquoted?

As reporters rush to meet deadlines and editorial departments dwindle, your erudite articulation might come across as an arcane patois.

Communications expert Marsha D’Angelo has some advice on options to set the record straight. D’Angelo has worked with an impressive list of clients . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law: Marketing

Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Experience: A Young Lawyer Carves Her Own Path

When Carli van Maurik shares her practice philosophy with other lawyers, she’s usually met with one of two responses: raised eyebrows or enthusiastic support.

Thankfully, most colleagues fall into the latter category.

Ms. van Maurik is a lawyer with the British Columbia business law firm Whiteboard Law. She’s based in Victoria, where she honed her legal skills at one of the city’s well known firms before branching out to follow her entrepreneurial instincts.

Most lawyers eventually narrow the focus of their practice or notice that clients could be better served by a different approach. But not many take the . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law: Future of Practice, Practice of Law: Marketing, Practice of Law: Practice Management

Do You Analyze Win-Loss?

A post on the Strategic Librarians LinkedIn Group led me to the Cooperative Intelligence blog where Ellen Naylor (CEO of The Business Intelligence Source, Inc.) posted about templates for win loss analysis.

As more and more legal work filters to law firms through procurement groups, RFPs, and RFIs, I wonder about the use of sales methods in law firms. As a librarian, I worked with legal information suppliers selling information to my organization. I also sold the services of the library department to my internal clients. In my new role of process improvement, I will likely use techniques . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Practice of Law: Marketing