October 7 2008 1 lexBlo g TM Building Blogs for Lawyers Law Blogs : What You Must Know : Creation, Use, and Ethical & Liability Issues New York City Bar Association New York, NY Daniel E. Clement, Attorney at Law, NYC Scott H. Greenfield, Attorney at Law, NYC Eric Turkewitz, Attorney at Law, NYC Kevin O’Keefe, CEO, LexBlog, Inc, Seattle
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October 7 2008 1 lexBlog TM Building Blogs for Lawyers Law Blogs : What You Must Know : Creation, Use, and Ethical & Liability Issues New York City Bar.
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October
72008
1
lexBlog
TM
Building Blogs for Lawyers
Law Blogs : What You Must Know : Creation, Use, and Ethical & Liability Issues
New York City Bar AssociationNew York, NY
Daniel E. Clement, Attorney at Law, NYCScott H. Greenfield, Attorney at Law, NYC
Eric Turkewitz, Attorney at Law, NYCKevin O’Keefe, CEO, LexBlog, Inc, Seattle
2lexBlog
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
What we’ll cover
• Introduction to blogs• Ethical & liability issues• Blog publishing platforms• Better blogging practices• RSS, the secret to successful blogging• Growing traffic to your blog• Social networking for lawyers
What’s a law blog?
3 lexBlog
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
• Web site• Covers niche area of law or locale• Published by one lawyer or practice group• Directed to regular readers within target
audience of blog publisher• As easy to update as writing an email - no coding
experience needed• Distributes content via RSS and email• Unique domain name & url address• Found via search engines, known domain, or links
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
What it’s not
• Journal• Posts archived by calendar• Blend of personal information, random
thoughts and political views with legal information & insight
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http://privacylaw.proskauer.com/
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Where do you find them?
• Google – standard search• Google Blog Search• Other blogs• Blog directories
– ABA (blawg) legal blog directory– Justia (blawg) legal blog search
• LexMonitor – journal of law blogs
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Key features
• Name of blog• Blog publisher• Authors• Categories/topics• Promotional categories
– About you– Your services– Contact info with intake form
• Email subscription• Comments• Social bookmarking
7lexBlog
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
General advantages• New blog launched quickly• Easy to use ‘Learning curve is very low’• Inexpensive ‘Insignificant marketing
expense’• Comprehensive publishing, content
syndication (RSS) and interactive communication tool
• Cannot tell difference between well designed blog and website
Relationship to firm website
8 lexBlog
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
• Complementary to site• Blog is ‘educational magazine’
published by law firm• Networking ‘leaving the office’ • Joining the conversation ‘blog is your
voice’• Draw traffic to site & lawyer bios• Can a blog be your website?
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Advantages to a lawyer
• Enhance reputation of lawyers as trusted and reliable authorities
• Establish brand based on expertise• Educational & tasteful marketing • Syndication of content via RSS• Far superior search results to Web
sites• Cost savings
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Why superior search results?
• Software architecture designed for publishing & getting content indexed
Texas Appellate Law Blog by Todd Smithhttp://tinyurl.com/3pdj4o
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Create good titles : Why?
• SEO• Readers using RSS readers• Posts displayed by syndication
• News sites • Social networking sites
• Common sense
Th
Think syndication
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
• Short• Subject is well defined• Keywords are in beginning of subject
Create good titles : How?
Chicago IP Litigation Blog by David Donaghuehttp://tinyurl.com/673cza
D & O Diary by Kevin La Croixhttp://tinyurl.com/5z8yz6
American Constitution Society Bloghttp://tinyurl.com/6452cr
Palm Beach Criminal Lawyer Blogby Ron Chapman http://tinyurl.com/6aufed
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• SEO• Organizational tool/hyper
search• Readers• You
• Social media & networking sites
Effective use of tags : Why?
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Effective tags : How?
• Specific to subjects in post• Not rise to level of category or
subcategory• Limit number to 4 or 5• Use consistent text for similar tags
Connecticut Employment Law Blog by Dan Schwartz http://tinyurl.com/59u4dr
Pennsylvania Employment Law Blog by Russell Krafft http://tinyurl.com/5jenfc
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Frequency of posts
• Once a week• Make it easy on yourself
• Use reader• Engage in conversation• Answer questions you receive
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
RSS: The Secret Sauce of Blogging
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• Why use RSS
• How to use a RSS newsreader
• How to subscribe to particular sources
• How to subscribe to particular subjects
• How to subscribe to mentions of you, your blog, and your firm
• How to reference content discovered in RSS feeds
• How to use RSS feeds to further enhance your reputation
• How to use RSS feeds to market your blog
What we’ll cover
lexBlogBuilding Blogs for Lawyers
RSS Newsreaders
lexBlog Desktop RSS Newsreader
lexBlog Google Reader
lexBlogBuilding Blogs for Lawyers
How to subscribe toparticular sources
Subscribe to blog’s posts
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Grab the RSS feed url
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Subscribe to News Website
Grab the RSS feed url
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Grab the RSS feed url
lexBlogBuilding Blogs for Lawyers
Subscribing to particular subjects
Google Blog Search
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Google Blog Search
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Subscribe to Google Blog Search Result
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Subscribe to Blog Search Results
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Google News
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Google News
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Subscribe to Google News RSS Feed
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Subscribe to Google News RSS Feed
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Subscribe to your self for vanity feeds
• Name• Company/firm’s names• Blog’s name• Blog url• Website url
lexBlog Search and subscribe to your url
lexBlog Referencing content from RSS
feeds
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lexBlogBuilding Blogs for Lawyers
• ID A-list bloggers• Legal area
• Industry
• People with interest in legal area & industry
• ID A-list publications• ID A-list keywords & phrases
• Topics
• People
• Competitors
RSS feeds to further enhance yourreputation & market blog
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RSS feeds to further enhance your reputation & market blog
• Enter discussion with thought leaders• Network with media – trade & mass• Network with conference coordinators• Best blogs send people away• Blogging at its best is a conversation• Marketing is a conversation
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Marketing Your Blog : Growing Traffic
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• Defining success
• Entering into the “discussion” with other leaders
• Registration with blog directories and blog search engines
• Law blog announcement sites
• Twitter
• Social networking sites ala LinkedIn, StumbleUpon
• Blogroll
• Meeting “A-list” bloggers
• Commenting on other blogs
• SEO
• Press releases
What we’ll cover
41lexBlog
Building Blogs for Lawyers
Defining success
• What is your goal?• Traffic is not goal• Be realistic• Influence takes time
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lexBlogBuilding Blogs for Lawyers
Entering into the discussion with other leaders
• Talk about their posts• Talk about what’s relevant to them• Don’t be a troll• Best blogs send people away• Best way to become influencer
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
Blogs are a Rotary meeting
• Find the discussion• Listen to the discussion• Engage in the discussion• Empower your audience• Use your blog to organize in person
meet ups
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Register with blog directories and blog search engines
• ABA Blawg Directory• Justia BlawgSearch• LexMonitor• Vertical law blog directories• Local blog directories• Inter alia – blog announcement site
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Twitter
• Get your account• Individual versus firm• Personal versus information tweets• Add value to the discussion• Share your posts• Reference context of post• Follow leaders to grow twitter followers
46lexBlog
Building Blogs for Lawyers
Social Networking Sites
• LinkedIn• StumbleUpon
• Getting others is key
• Facebook• FriendFeed
Blogroll
• What is it?• Custom on each blog• A list blogs • Blogs of interest• Using to get noticed• Leveraging blogroll to gain intro’s
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Meeting A-list bloggers
• Email• Twitter• In person• Comments in blogs and
FriendFeed
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Commenting on other blogs
• More than valuable than posts• Bloggers love comment love• Legal blogs• Industry blogs• Local blogs
SEO
• Post titles• Blog categories• Blog post format
• Anchor text in links• Bullets• Bolds• Headers
• Garnering organic links• Effective blogging leads to SEO
50 Building Blogs for Lawyers
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Mainstream press
• Press releases• Building a relationship with
reporters– Report on what they report– Email– Post as a resource on ‘news story’
• They have jobs – understand what it is
• They are your friend• Use of LinkedIn with reporters
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Building Blogs for Lawyers
And more…
• Syndication of content– Existing sites– Keep your eyes open
• Guest posting• Having guest posters• Interviews• Cover events• Let LexBlog know of successes –
‘LexBlogosphere’
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Results of social networking & use of social media