When creating content and managing your social media channels, it is very important to always remember that there is much more than meets the eye to your analytics and readership
Your professional biography is one of the most important pieces of copy you’ll ever write about yourself. It’s your opportunity to showcase your work, capabilities, areas of expertise and what makes you stand out from your competitors.
Many in-house counsel cite lawyer bios as one of the most important sources of information regarding researching outside lawyers (yes, everyone is Googling you and your bio is usually the number one search result of your name). In addition, lawyer bios are among the most trafficked pages on law firm web sites.
Your bio can serve as an important business development tool if it is well-crafted. Yet within the legal industry, so many bios are still lackluster, outdated, not client-focused or just plain poorly written.
Given the power of bios, it has always baffled me that many lawyers do not update theirs at least several times a year or write them with a client focus. Any down time you have or right before a pitch or a speaking engagement are all great reasons to take a fresh look at your bio and them more engaging and client-focused. Now let’s get to work!
I’m often asked how to develop a successful social media strategy. Firms of all sizes and budgets can do it if they are resourceful and creative.
Here are some ideas
“Be yourself” was one of the most important pieces of advice that I gave to students at Fordham University School of Law when I spoke to them about about how to build a strong professional brand. I told the students that I’ll never be someone who wears conservative black suits to work every day and that’s okay (notice the French bulldog shirt that I’m wearing when I spoke to them – I also often wear my lucky Darth Vader earrings when I’m giving a presentation because they make me feel fearless).
Maybe you love bow ties or have pink hair or wear something signature that speaks to you. It’s important to find ways to express yourself, inject your personality and be unique while also being professional. You CAN do both and still be successful in corporate America and at professional service firms. Find the type of work environment that lets you be YOU. Also, it’s never too early (or late) to build your brand or reinvent yourself.
I’ll be presenting a workshop at the 2019 Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference (which is the premier yearly gathering of legal marketers) on how to align your social media efforts with your business development strategy with Jennifer Simpson Carr on day two of the LMA Annual Conference (at 1:30pm on April 10). This is going to be a hands-on, immersive program with lots of actionable takeaways for marketers of all firm sizes and levels. It’s another reason that we hope you stay until the end of the #LMA19 conference. Here’s a sneak peek of our session! Thank you to Rob Kates for filming this segment.
Mark your calendars for March 7 for a Legal Marketing Association webinar titled, “How to Build Your Personal Brand Using Social Media Tools Before, During and After #LMA19” with me, and good industry friends Roy Sexton and Andrew Laver on how to use the upcoming #LMA19 conference in Atlanta on April 8-10 to build and enhance YOUR personal brand using social media! We’ll provide actionable takeaways and ideas for marketers of all levels, including how to build your network before, during and after the conference, how to master the art of the “humblebrag,” how to become a thought leader and published author (even if you’re not a great writer) and how to use free online tools to add eye-catching visuals to your social posts (like the one I created in this blog post, which I used to promote the program on social media as well). Join us!
If you build it, they will come. Well, not necessarily. Today with the abundance of content being created and pushed out via so many various channels – email, social, etc., it’s just not enough to create good content, you have to distribute it to the right people at the right time, and through the right channels. And it takes focus, diligence and patience to build a strong following and to have actual ROI (meaning leads, a more recognizable brand, more speaking engagements or writing opportunities – and the holy grail – more clients – or whatever you decide that your ROI is) on your content. Here are steps you can take to ensure that the content that you spend the time to create actually gets read.
I hope that you did great things on the marketing and business development fronts in 2018. With the new year here, we get a great new opportunity to start fresh and add new strategies and tactics to our marketing mix. My new JD Supra article “16 Easy Ways to Enhance Your Business Development, Social Media and Branding Efforts in 2019” provides actionable ideas in the business development, social media and branding areas to incorporate in your marketing and lead generation efforts in 2019 regardless of your firm size or budget.
The tips include: getting to know your clients better, setting achievable business development goals for yourself, creating a target list, incorporating evergreen content into your social media strategy, refreshing your biography several times per year, providing personalized, value-added content to clients and contacts, being more active on the conference circuit, getting to know your clients better, becoming a smarter networker, developing a smart and inexpensive visual content strategy, becoming a LinkedIn master and more!
There are a lot of law firm blogs competing for market share, they are a huge commitment and not all blogs wind up being successful.
So are they worth it? The short answer, yes, IF you can find a niche and a strong team committed to its success.
Blogs are great branding and lead generation tools – they can often lead to speaking engagements as well as new clients (the holy grail of content efforts). As Susan Kostal writes in her latest article for Attorney at Work, “blogging is also a significant equalizer for those in small and midsize firms. With consistency, many authors from less well-known firms compete more than ably against those in national brand-name firms.”
Use LinkedIn today. Not tomorrow. It is THE most important networking tool for professionals and will help you quickly build and grow relationships, strengthen your brand and stay top of mind with key individuals in your professional network.
Today, networking online is just as important as making in-person connections. And in the professional world, LinkedIn continues to be the most important social media channel for business development.
Don’t forget that your LinkedIn profile is often the first or second Google search result when someone searches for you online. LinkedIn is powerful, period.