Lawyers.com Editor in Chief : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

In a recent study of more than 5,000 businesses, Hubspot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at almost 3 times higher than both Twitter and Facebook.

So why might LinkedIn be the most efficient social channel for lead generation, and how can you use that to your advantage? Less content is generally posted to LinkedIn than to other social networks, which is probably because people almost exclusively post marketing-related content as opposed to their children's photos or social "chatter," according to Hubspot.

This means there is less clutter on LinkedIn, making a person capable of viewing more of the content that's active on LinkedIn at any given time. In other words, a business' marketing posts are more likely to be noticed on LinkedIn than somewhere else.

For more, see:

Business Development with LinkedIn and Blogs for Lawyers

5 Ways to Tell If Your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks

Top Ten Tips for Lawyers to Attract and Retain More Clients Using LinkedIn

Following are the points I made at Legal Tech New York today on the program "Growing and Retaining Your Client Base through Technology & New Media."

LegalTech had 12,000 participants, almost 200 presenters and nearly 40 industry sponsors -- a record on all counts. 

Research has shown repeatedly that blogs are the most effective, lowest-cost form of online marketing for lawyers. Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has:

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

3. Subscribe to the free newsletter "Best Practices in Lawyer Blogs." We started publishing this every two weeks in November, and you can get your own free subscription. Each edition features five of the best articles from across the web on writing a killer blog. Check out the most recent issue.

It is appropriate that social media evangelist Adrian Dayton and marketing consultant Amy Knapp met on Twitter. This led the duo to write a terrific, practical book LinkedIn and Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age.

LinkedIn and blogs are the two most effective means of online marketing for lawyers, and the book delivers dozens of practical tips in 130 pages, plus an index.

Blogs

Dayton wrote chapters 14-23 about blogs, which feature a 39-point checklist of ways to come up with ideas for your blog. Point #1 is solid business development advice, "what challengers are your potential customers facing?" Chapter 18 outlines five simple steps to writing a blog entry.

I like the style, which opens each chapter with a personal anecdote, presents the information in list of bullets, and concludes with an assignment.

He answers how much you should spend on your blog ($300 to $400), and the pros and cons of a group versus a personal blog. Dayton explains how to tell which of your blog content is most popular and other metrics that show your blog is succeeding, including subscribers to your blog, feedback , phone calls and new clients.

There are 6,379 lawyer blogs, according to Blawgsearch, and the author of each one will benefit by reading this book.

LinkedIn

This business social network has more than 135 million members in over 200 countries and territories, and it is a Happy Hunting Ground for Lawyers. Knapp wrote chapters 1-13 and notes correctly that introductions are worth their weight in gold, and LinkedIn makes them simple. The purpose of meeting people online is, of course, is a bridge to doing business "IRL" -- in real life, face-to-face.

After a lawyer has built a network of connections, Knapp says it's time to maximize your present with the Events tool and posting updates to you are viewed as an information source for articles and commentary.

There are 870,000 groups on LinkedIn and business development is facilitated by joining several and participating in the discussions, and using the Follow feature to track a person's LinkedIn activities. LinkedIn enables lawyers to target potential clients strategically, by identifying five companies who exemplify the perfect client and looking up the people at those companies.

Knapp offers a neat tip on how to send an email to up to 50 of your contacts.

I've been writing blog entries since 2004 and enjoyed reading this logical and pragmatic book. No matter how experienced you are, you can still learn a trick or two from LinkedIn and Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age. Dayton and Knapp are a top-notch writing team and this book should sit right next to your folder of blog ideas.

Steve Boutwell, Director of Client Services at Kean Miller in Baton Rouge, posted In-house Insight: Outside Counsel Rules to Live By" on LinkedIn:

1) Follow my Outside Counsel Guidelines. Read them. Please don't call and ask whether or not a certain practice is acceptable, especially if it's already in my guidelines.

2) Responsiveness. Return my phone calls, and emails. Even if it's just to say, "I'm tied up right now, but I got your message." 24 hours for phone calls. End of day for email if at all possible.

3) Clear and concise communication. Keep written communications short and to the point. One page is preferred. If the communication contains a lot of detail, give me a summary up front so I can scan it and come back to the detail later.

4) Provide recommendations, not just options. Don't be afraid to opine on my matters. A list of my options is okay, but what would you do if you were in my shoes?

5) In-house counsel are making business decisions, not simply legal decisions. Remember, we have clients too. They put just as much pressure on us as we place on you. Help me look good to my clients.

6) Lawyers who "see around corners" are highly valued. Anticipate what's coming and send me alerts. And, help me avoid situations, like the one you just resolved for me.

7) Designate one person as my billing contact.

8) For publicly traded companies, strive to understand my ASC 450 reserve-setting process. This can affect our 10-Q and 10-k reports.

9) Be honest, even if it's to your detriment. If you make a mistake, let me know early. Don't try to cover it up. This can be deadly for a relationship, and especially deadly for a public company.

10) Be smart with conflict waivers and waiver requests. Think about what your request says to me. If you're asking me to allow you to represent a company that I am in litigation with, this may cause me to question your judgment.

11) Become e-discovery experts and work seamlessly with us. We expect outside counsel to be well-versed in e-discovery / ESI in state and federal court.

12) Become diversity champions. Diversity will be a part of the 2012 grade for our preferred firms. Articulate to us what you are doing about diversity in your firm, in your supply chain, and in your communities.

13) Add value. We don't have the resources to provide training on legal issues to tens of thousands of employees. For example, we have a high turnover rate in a certain segment of our security team. If you can offer a post-incident report writing class for our security team, that's valuable to us - and greatly appreciated.

14) Be a member of our team. We want long-term partners, year after year, who know us and who we know. There is an inherent value in that.

Rules to live by....

According to WebMarketing123’s 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which surveyed 500 B2B and B2C marketing professionals, SEO makes the largest impact when it comes to generating leads. 

Hat tip to my friend Stephen Fairley who spotted this statistic.

53 percent of all survey respondents said SEO makes the largest impact on generating leads, followed by 28 percent for PPC and 19 percent for social media. Not surprisingly, 75 percent of the B2C marketers are most active on Facebook (75 percent), while B2B marketers are more active evenly across the three leading social networks – Facebook (34%), Twitter (26%) and LinkedIn (25%).

Here is an infographic outlining the findings from this survey:

In a new report  Greentarget found that blogs influence the hiring of lawyers, LinkedIn is the online network of choice for lawyers, and that social media use is going mainstream in the legal profession.

For example, 76% of 334 in-house lawyers surveyed said they attribute "some level of importance" to a lawyer’s blog when deciding which firms to retain.

Confirming what we know, the study reported:

• Survey respondents indicated they read blogs written by firms slightly more often than they read blogs written by journalists. In-house counsel also perceive blogs as credible (84%).
• LinkedIn leads all other social networks in professional usage and perceived credibility (88%). [We knew last June that LinkedIn Seen as Most Important Social Network and that LinkedIn is a Happy Hunting Ground for Lawyers]
• New media usage is going mainstream: the generational divide among in-house lawyers is leveling off. "This effect is driven by older counsel 'consuming more content' rather than a significant drop in consumption among younger counsel," the report says. [See 81% of Large Law Firms Use Social Media for Marketing]
• In-House Counsel Largely ‘Invisible Users’ of Social Media: This audience rarely contributes content on social channels, preferring instead to listen and consume. This approach makes their true level of engagement difficult to measure.
• Wikipedia Important, But Not to Research Law Firms: Very few in-house counsel (7%) are using Wikipedia to research outside firms, but they are using the online encyclopedia for issues-based research (51%). 
• Firm-to-Client Communications Going Social: Whether initiated by inside counsel or by firms themselves, the legal industry is warming up to social media as a "client services mechanism."

For more, see www.greentarget.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012GTZGICSurveyReportFinal-WebsiteVersion.pdfIn-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey

Thanks to Burkey Belser for this guest blog post:

I have some bad news for you. Your old, stale firm website isn’t cutting it. Sure, your competitors haven’t done much better, but that’s not the point.

Your firm’s website is the face it presents to the world--to potential clients and strategic partners. Research demonstrates that the vast majority of purchasers of professional services rely primarily on online resources when deciding which firms to hire. How much business do you think you are losing right now because your website is undermining your brand?

Your site is not judged by your industry. It is judged against all websites. In other words, our collective Internet experience subtly informs what we believe to be good, innovative, communicative, and helpful. If your firm site is unimaginative or uninteresting, it’s telling the world that your firm is too.

So, the question is: how can you create a website that will inspire and present the right firm image?

Today’s business purchaser isn’t just surfing the Web on a desktop in the office. There is a host of new technologies providing access to the Internet, and new tools are constantly being introduced.

Does your site display well on a smartphone? How about an iPad or Android Tablet? Launch your site on your smartphone and judge for yourself. You’ll have to be Harry Potter’s elf with bony fingers to manage the navigation unless the site has been adapted for mobile. How patient do you think prospects will be with your site if they can’t navigate it conveniently?

Even the smallest mobile platforms are lightning fast today. It takes just seconds to access the most complex pages. This means that designers can “paint” the entire page with an image and even place images within images. Or combine those images with motion for effect. And this same bandwidth also allows us to use computer-generated animation to display information in diagrams, maps, and charts.

In the past, there has been a tug of war between content and graphics. This is partly a reflection of the traditionally conservative nature of the legal field, and partly due to technological limitations that made downloading graphics painfully slow. Today, however, these limitations are a thing of the past, and savvy designers know the most successful sites are exciting. And exciting sites make use of the full canvas and all the rich interaction that image and transparency and motion can deliver.

Social Media Has Transformed Monologue To Dialogue

Social media buttons have become ubiquitous, now adorning almost every web page. Link me in. Friend me. Tell me what you like, and what you don’t (I know, this last bit requires courage). But what better way to engage your prospects and partners than to encourage them to reach out to you?

The most successful firms have embraced technology and grown with it. Don’t be afraid to be creative when you show the world who you are and what you have to offer.

Burkey Belser is the president and creative director of Greenfield/Belser. Greenfield/Belser can be found online at www.greenfieldbelser.com.

The latest edition of LexisNexis' Best Practices in Lawyer Blogs newsletter is now available. I started this newsletter to distribute the best ideas from legal bloggers across the Web. It's free, and you are welcome to subscribe at http://bit.ly/wguekl.

10 Ideas for Awesome Blog Posts

Have the January doldrums given you writer’s block? The new year actually offers some great opportunities for new blog posts. From 2011 retrospectives to predictions for 2012, there are plenty of topics to cover. Isaac Atia offers 10 more topics sure to help get your create juices flowing. Learn more ...

How to Build an Audience for Your Law Firm Marketing Blog

You can write the world’s best legal blog, but it’s of little value without any readers. Stephen Fairley offers invaluable tips on how to attract new readers and build a following for your law blog. Learn more ...

5 Reasons Your Business Should Be Blogging

Maybe you’re already blogging, but are having trouble persuading your partners to blog too. Or perhaps you’re thinking about starting a blog, but don’t think you can justify the time it will take. Marcus Sheridan offers five reasons why you--and others at your firm--should start blogging today. Learn more ...

How to Write With Your Reader in Mind: Three Crucial Points to Consider

Attorneys are often criticized for writing in legalese. Are you making the same mistake in your blog? Writing coach Ali Luke makes three suggestions to help ensure your blog content is written at a level appropriate for your readers. Learn more ...

Ultimate List of Blogging Tools for Pros

Blogging doesn’t have to be complicated … but sometimes it can sure be tough. How do you develop new ideas when you have writer’s block? How can you build an audience? Are there ways to make better use of your blogging time? Raven Tools has compiled a great list of blogging tools that covers everything from content creation to metrics, hosting and storage to productivity. Learn more ...

Adam Stock

The topic of the workshop was "Social Media to Drive Business." At the start of the workshop, my colleagues Adam Stock, Jasmine Trillos-Decarie, Steve Fisher and I showed how law firms are actually generating new clients with social media marketing campaigns. Then we broke the attendees into three groups, and assigned each to use what they had learned to devise a social media marketing plan for different kinds of law firms.

YouTube, as you know, is a social medium. To demonstrate how easy it is to record and upload a video, we recorded the presentations of our brave participants Nicole Ames, Susan Green and Laine Siklos. Remember, our speakers were working with no teleprompter, minimum preparation time and no studio lighting.

Adam Stock, the CMO of Allen Matkins in San Francisco and a Zen Master of video editing, transferred the videos to his Mac and turned each presentation into a gem.  Completing his work in 12 hours, he next uploaded them to the Lawyersdotcom (Lawyers.com) video channel and voila!

Please offer a comment about our team effort.

150 law firm marketing partners and chief marketing officers will gather under the sunny and tropical skies of Miami today at the Marketing Partner Forum at the Turnberry Isle resort. It's the premier law firm marketing conference of the year, and I plan to send live blog posts from the programs.

When  attendees register, they'll get two books: 25 Years of Legal Branding -- a color  coffee-table book by Burkey Belser and Donna Greenfield, and The Art of Woo by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa. There's also an issue of Corporate Counsel and Inside Counsel, plus lots of info on the exhibitors.

Today begins with three pre-conference workshops: "Marketing and Business Development Metrics," "Workshop for Managing Partners/Marketing Partners," and "Social Media to Drive Revenue.

The Social Media Workshop will be a lot of fun. My colleagues Adam Stock, Jasmine Trillos-Decarie, Steve Fisher and I will show how law firms are actually generating new clients with social media marketing campaigns.

We will also create three new YouTube video stars. After the presentation, the audience will be broken into three groups. Each will be given a fact pattern and asked to develop a social media campaign for a law firm.  We'll have video cameras in the room to record the presentations of the marketing campaigns, and will post them onto YouTube today.

It should be fun, providing all the equipment works. Hope to see you there.

Errol Antzis plays a nice Taylor electric guitar in his office, showing off some tasty licks that he clearly likes to play. He's not what you expect to see as the Managing Director of digital media and entertainment practice at Gruppo, Levey and Co.

He has 25 years of experience -- in law. He clearly has that and more experience playing an axe. Granted, he's a Manhattan investment banker -- but why can't lawyer bios look like this? I strongly believe it's time for lawyers to be Turning Your Bio into a Magnet for Business

Before joining GLC, Errol spent six years as an entrepreneur and principal in the entertainment industry, with firms including a diversified entertainment company, an online music services business, and a music magazine publishing company. As a result, he brings direct operating expertise to his work with client companies, and a better understanding of his clients’ needs and issues.

I love it when he says in the video, he says, "Please give me a call to discuss your business, the current environment, ways we can help you or just to talk about guitars.

I found this on Brafton News:

Check out my latest post on The Lawyerist blog:

There is a critical step in the marketing and business development process that I have seen many lawyers miss, time and time again. Lawyers have spent countless hours and hundreds of dollars pursuing potential clients, but they left money on the table because of this omission. It may seem obvious when you read it, but the missing step is following up.

We lawyers are actually not bad at marketing, raising their profiles and making potential clients aware of us. Where we fall down is taking the next step. It is unrealistic to expect a potential client to take the initiative and call us with a file. Rather, the onus is on us to follow up—after all, the lawyer is the one who wants the business and thus has the obligation to make the next contact.

Why Follow-Up Matters

The reason that follow-up is so important is because that is where all the revenue is. It is not found in the introductory event, pitch or handshake. The money will be in one of several follow-up steps in which a lawyer determines the legal needs of the other person and methodically builds a relationship. Bear in mind it takes 7 “touches” to establish a relationship. With online touches that number increases to 7-16 times.

Smart lawyers won’t undertake any marketing initiative without planning in advance how they will follow up.

To read the rest of the post please visit The Lawyerist at http://bit.ly/A1nIfk

Following is a guest post by Jason Brubaker, Business Communications Writer with Dinsmore in Cincinnati. He can be reached at jason.brubaker@dinsmore.com

How do you reach a mass audience in an increasingly global economy when your budget to do so continues to evaporate?  That’s where webinars, with their simplicity and ability to fill a necessary function, come into play. With travel budgets and expense accounts being thinned as the search for additional clients (and revenue) intensifies, webinars are the most cost-effective method of communicating to mass audiences in the business world.

Here are five reasons why you should consider a webinar for your next presentation.

1. Save money
Critics may bemoan the lack of face-to-face interaction in a technology-filled society, but sometimes it just makes economic sense. Trying to gather a group of business professionals from all corners of the globe, given travel costs and chaotic work schedules, is virtually impossible. But a webinar allows you to reach the masses without ever leaving your office. The message is the same, but it now comes unattached to print materials, booking a flight, or renting a venue.

A 2009 study by Osterman Research and Quantum Leap Marketing highlighted the cost savings of webinars when compared to trade shows and in-person seminars. In terms of out-of-pocket expenses, which includes number of employees required, staff time spent working on the event and other incidentals, the median cost for a webinar was only $100, compared to $2,500 for a seminar and $11,000 for a trade show. In terms of total labor costs, the study also showed that webinars cost approximately 40 percent less than seminars and up to 75 percent less than trade shows. Obviously, there will be fees associated with hosting a webinar, including advertising, but at a time when marketing dollars and labor costs are at a premium, it makes sense to get the most use out of them.

2. Reach a bigger audience
Unlike on-location seminars and trade shows, which can be limited by location and the venue, webinars enable you to efficiently reach a much larger audience full of prospective clients. For example, a half-day seminar in Cincinnati, no matter how well-prepared, is unlikely to draw clients from more than a driving-distance radius. However, the same presentation translated to a webinar may well attract clients from California, Texas, New York or overseas, given the ease of accessing it versus the cost of travel. For many clients, even those who may be close enough to attend a trade show or seminar, webinars are also a much better use of time. Rather than fretting about drive or flight times, unforeseen travel delays and other varying factors, clients can simply block out an hour or two to view the webinar from their office, making the process much more efficient for all involved.
 
3. Show your technological acumen
Evolving technology continues to change the business world. Each new generation of smart phones and tablets dramatically impacts the way we conduct business and communicate with clients, who are increasingly relying on technology to make their business more efficient and productive. Those clients also want to know that their legal counsel is on the cutting edge as well, capable of harnessing new technologies to improve their services to clients. Putting on a full-length webinar demonstrates an open mind to clients and potential clients when it comes to embracing new technology and making efficient business decisions.

4. Easy follow up
It’s one thing to deliver your message; it’s another to make sure it had the proper impact on those who heard it. At on-site seminars and trade shows, the brochures, pamphlets and information sheets inevitably end up being left behind or tossed aside, and at larger seminars, tracking participation can be an inaccurate science. However, the registration process for webinars can expedite the follow-up process. Thanks to online registration, relevant contact information, as well as certain demographics of participants, will be available in a usable document that will enable you to follow up quickly with current and potential clients who heard your message.

5. Ease of use
On-location seminars, trade shows and workshops come with unique challenges, as different venues have different amenities, features and limitations which can adversely affect your presentation. With webinars, there’s no worrying about setting up equipment and displays, making sure the room is large enough, or hoping the keynote speakers flight arrives on time. It’s as simple as clicking onto a website, which means you can focus more time on enhancing your presentation rather than worrying about setting up the room. Additionally, without the ancillary distractions, the message of your presentation comes in a more clear and concise fashion.

It's always useful to know what your competitors are up to. Of course you shouldn't let a competitor's marketing activities govern which initiatives you pursue, and you certainly wouldn't do anything unethical.  But if you were Microsoft, you'd keep track of what Apple was doing.

To this end, I ran across a collection of practical tips about competitive intelligence from Carol Tice on the Entrepreneur web site. From a dozen tips, I included the best below.

1. Tap your vendors. Product suppliers and service providers talk regularly with all their clients. If you're on good terms with your vendors, chat them up and see what you can get them to spill about your competitors. Don't be pushy, though. Keep the conversation casual.

You can reveal hidden pages by doing Google searches such as: "filetype: doc site: companyname" says August Jackson, a senior competitive intelligence analyst for Ernst & Young in McLean, VA. Change the file type to .pdf, .xls, or .ppt to turn up data or presentations. "It's surprising how many companies put this information up and think, ‘If I don't link to it, no one will find it,'" Jackson says. You also can view the site's source code to see the meta-tags or key words being used to optimize its position in searches.

If members of your industry hang out on Facebook, monitor their conversations. Music-rights agent Jennifer Yeko, president of True Talent Management in Beverly Hills, Calif., says she gets the scoop on the clients her competitors sign and the royalty rates they offer from posts made by her Facebook friends.

Many events have a Twitter hashtag that people use to chat and post speakers' comments live. If a competitor is speaking, tune in. Jackson has had success asking follow-up questions by responding and using the same hashtag.

Law firms frequently use

to share slideshow presentations but forget to take them down. Presentations may contain financial data, forecasts and information about new projects.

Visit 12 Ways to (Legally) Spy on Your Competitors for all the tips.

Register for Thursday's webinar and  complete a business development plan like this one for 2012. It shows you how to increase your revenue by $100,000 in 12 months.

1. Don't Pitch People. No one likes to be sold to, so don't waste time telling people where you went to law school or about the breadth of your law firm. A business development conversation is an interview. The best way to engage potential clients is to ask questions.  Leave the brochures, bios and newsletters back at the office. Instead, be prepared with three or four good questions to ask about the potential client's business. You will distinguish yourself by the questions that you ask.
2. Make time. "I don't have time for marketing" is the most common cop-out we lawyers give for not developing new business. So is "I have real work to do." I don't believe these excuses because lawyers do have time. The trick is to weave business development into the activities you are already doing. If you plan to stop at Starbucks in the morning, call a referral source and offer to buy him a latte and meet you. Reserve one day a week to go out to lunch with an existing or potential client. You won't develop any new files eating lunch alone at your desk. And once a month, attend a trade association meeting -- not a bar associating meeting -- but a meeting of business people.
3. Get face time with clients.  The best way to strengthen relationships with clients and get referrals from them is to call on them.  Go to their premises and meet them in person. To alleviate any concern that a client might thing you have nothing better to do with your time, explain that it is your policy to visit all clients. Say that you need to see the factory or the offices to better understand their business needs and to better serve them.
4. Ask and you shall receive.  Don't hesitate to ask clients for referrals. There are two magic moments to ask for a referral: at the initial client interview and at the end of the matter. In the first interview, ask clients if they will mention your name to friends and colleagues if they are satisfied with your work. And in the post-victory glow after a matter concludes, remind the client to share your name along with the good news.
5. Be a joiner. My Dad taught me this. Join a civic group or trade association because it is a great way to generate new business. But don't go to the meeting just to warm a chair and listen to the speaker. Pick a meeting where you can make a difference and get involved by joining a committee, writing for the newsletter or offering to speak.  Attend every meeting and become a regular.  The new clients will start to flow.

Here's wishing you a prosperous 2012.  To learn more, I recommend you attend Create a Business Development Plan that Results in a Prosperous 2012, a live webinar presented by business development specialist David Ackert and me this Thursday, January 12, 2012: 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern.

"Here's an excerpt from AttorneyAtWork's Lawyer Marketing Collection 2011. It's a free download.

This is from Six Steps to Single-Minded Marketing by Merrilyn Aston Tarlton:

Step one. Figure out what sort of legal work makes you happiest. Is it high net worth estate planning? Perhaps you like complex real estate deals because of the leg up your pre-law school job gives you. Maybe it’s as an outsourced general counsel for small businesses because you’re hooked on being part of a team. Think long and hard about this. You don’t want to make the mistake of marketing yourself to do work you dislike. Right?

Step two. Identify the category of people likely to be interested in hiring and paying people to do that sort of work for them. Small business? It’s the owner. Fathers? Well, dads, right? Most likely divorced or divorcing ones. Biofuels? Probably in-house counsel, unless it’s a company without one. Then it’s their outside counsel or the company’s CEO. You see where this is going?

Step three. Discover where those people get their information about which professionals can serve them in this field. Is it through connections they make at an American Medical Association conference? Speakers they hear at Chamber of Commerce luncheons? (Hint: Think small  businesses.) The lawyer they hear won a big case for their competitor? Yes, there are random opportunities—your kid’s soccer game, for example—but your time is best spent in a space, actual or virtual, where the folks from step two hang out.

Step four. Be there. And be visible. In a good way. In other words, there’s no point in becoming a National Allied Individual Member of the American Institute of Architecture unless you get active. That means write, speak, contribute and participate—in a positive and visible way. And you don’t always have to be demonstrating your lawyerly chops. Showing how you conduct an effective  meeting and get difficult stuff done communicates a unique capability that will draw clients to you as well.

Step five. Connect with those people in a two-way fashion. Make friends. Join working groups and identify decision-makers. Write for an online publication and then ask for comments. Better yet, interview people you’d like to have as clients for your article. Get business cards. Encourage followers if one of your venues is Twitter. You know ... identify the people you want to know you and get to know them.

Step six. Help these new friends and connections find solutions to their problems. Yep. The best kept sales secret is this: It’s not about telling and telling them about yourself, or convincing them you are so wonderful they can’t afford not to hire you. (Yucky concept, right?) It’s about listening until you find out what’s making them itch (maybe asking a question or two to draw them out), and then helping them find the solution. You might be the best solution. Maybe their problem is getting an introduction to the new mayor. You can help with that, too. Connect them with someone who can help them. It’s impressive when you are the source of solutions and you demonstrate that you care. And it’s wonderful when they hire you.

You can read Merrilyn's work and that of 10 other marketing experts when you download  AttorneyAtWork's Lawyer Marketing Collection 2011.

"Time for a healthy reality check to see if you’re doing everything you can do to drive more success from your LinkedIn Company Page efforts," writes Justin Brackett on the SocialMediaToday blog. As the VP of Marketing at @BizChangerZ, he outlines 5 mistakes and how to fix them:

1. You don’t check your page’s analytics. It’s important to utilize the Analytics tab on your LinkedIn Company Page.  All admins can access this page (it’s the fourth tab over on the top of the page).

How to Fix It:  Check your analytics! Create a baseline and record your results.  Your LinkedIn Company Page shows you Page Views, Unique Visitors and Clicks: Products and Services.  This way you can see what works and what doesn’t.  Is there a particular service that gets clicked often? Perhaps you can write the others in a similar fashion.

2. You haven’t included your services. We’ve all heard the phrase “Less is More” but not when it comes to your LinkedIn Company Page.  Not including the services your business offers on your company page is like having a website without content.  Why make it hard for people to figure out what you do?

How to Fix It: Go to your LinkedIn Company Page and click the Products tab.  Then click Admin Tools on the right hand side of the page and select Add a product or service.  This is where you get to be creative.  Select the category that best fits your product and/or service, name it, add an image, describe it, list the key features, add a URL to your website and finally, add a contact from your company.  Here’s your chance to make a great first impression.  Write your content in an interesting and engaging manner – you only get once chance at a great first impression!

3.  You aren’t posting status updates.  Yes, it can seem like a lot of work to post status updates from your personal account as well as your business page, but come on! It’s worth it in the long run, we promise.  No matter how hard you try to create a great LinkedIn Company Page, your efforts will be wasted if you don’t post status updates.

How to Fix It: This one is easy = post status updates from your LinkedIn Company Page.  Post one or two status updates each day.  The content can come from your website and/or blog, or you can post relevant news in your industry from other sources.  Share information your network will find interesting and engaging.  Don’t be spammy.  It’s very easy for connections to unfollow you and that’s what you don’t want.

4.  You haven’t created multiple variations of your page.  LinkedIn allows you the unique ability to be able to create multiple versions of your Company Page to serve custom audiences based on their profile content.  This is an awesome feature and if you’re not utilizing it, you’re missing out.  Perhaps one demographic is more interested in a particular service and you could spend some more time showcasing it on your profile.  You can create different profiles for people in different countries too.

How to Fix It:  The first thing you need to do is create your “default” version of your LinkedIn Company Page.  Afterwards, create multiple versions by clicking “New Audience”.  Write multiple descriptions and company overviews based what audience you are targeting. Include information on your company and your products and services. Tailor make it to your audience. Here comes the fun part.  You can show off your company with up to 3 banner images (640 x 220 pixels) and drive traffic by adding click-through URLs.  LinkedIn will create a rotating spotlight module to display on your page. You can add different disclaimers too.

5. You didn’t add the Company Profile plugin to your blog and/or website. Why create a page if you aren’t going to show it off? Not adding the Company Profile page to your website and/or blog is putting your hard work to waste.  I’m sure your competitors are doing it – get to work!

How to Fix It: Go directly to this page and don’t pass go or collect $200 until you add the plugin to your website and/or blog.  You can pick from a variety of styles and sizes so there’s sure to be a button that will fit your page design.  Decide if you’d like to display an inline, an icon and name or just an icon on your button.  You can also show your connections if desired.  The code is generated automatically and easy to plug in anywhere you wish!

You can also read "Does Your LinkedIn Profile Summary Stink Like a Pair of Old Gym Socks?" by marketing expert Kristina Jaramillo.

Business development specialist David Ackert and I will show you the Secret to Success in 2012: think and act like the rainmakers think and act. The key is to develop a personal marketing plan, which is simply a blueprint for you to get new business on a a systematic and disciplined basis. If you think like a rainmaker, take the same actions each day and build your skills over time – then you will produce the same results.

WEBINAR DATE: Wednesday, January 12, 2012
   ♦ 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern
LOCATION: on the web, on your computer
WEBSITE: www.PBDI.org

In this Webinar, you'll begin to think and act like a Rainmaker. The key is to develop a personal marketing program, a blueprint for getting new business on a a systematic and disciplined basis. If you think like a rainmaker, take the same actions each day and build your skills over time – then you will start to produce the same results...

• Do you have a roadmap for the actions you need to take to grow your business significantly?
• Do you find ways to market yourself systematically to build up business?
• Do you waste time by pursuing marketing that doesn’t work, such as networking with total strangers?
• Do you know how to build and mobilize the assets you have...your clients, allies, and your professional network?

Attendees of this LIVE Web conference will learn what the rainmakers know about getting new business, and the make-or-break steps that the Best take, the steps that can also generate a record-breaking year for you in 2012.

Register Now for this key skill-building seminar, just in time for advancing your career right now in 2012. Any number can attend in one room. Just Click Here.

Who should attend:

• New partners or associates looking to advance a career
• Attorney aiming to become a top producer
• Aspiring entrepreneurs who need to build or re-vamp their practice
• Firm leaders, practice groups and office members whose success is dependent on the business development productivity results of their team

Attorneys must see themselves as entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter if you practice at a large firm – or if you operate on your own. You are responsible for building your own business.

The seminar gives you an abundance of proven, practical ideas and suggestions to build your personal road map and improve your marketing activities.

Topics Include:

• Focus on your ideal prospective clients
• Define your personal value proposition
• Market to your best existing clients
• Market yourself inside your own firm
• Co-market with high power professional allies
• Build your network with a purpose
• Ask for introductions
• Build your professional reputation

Learn what the Best do on a systematic basis to make the difference in their business building.

To register: Click Here to register online by credit card.

Steve Matthews published a concise article "Think Global, Search Local: Claiming Your Spot on Google Places" in the ABA's Law Practice magazine. 

“Google merged its natural search results—the non-sponsored listings that usually appear on the left-side of the page, also known as ‘organic listings’—with its local search results,” writes Matthews, president of Stem Legal Web Enterprises.

“This new, combined approach means that for some local searches, 80 percent of the page-one listings now belong to local businesses. As a result, law firms without a Google Places account face the real possibility that they may fall from the number-one position to the bottom of the first page in a search result—or even off the page entirely.”

He sets out nine steps that will enable you to take advantage of the power of local search and respond to Google’s latest algorithmic changes.

1. Go to www.google.com/local/ add to set up your Google Places account. Complete the registration form as thoroughly as possible.
    
2. Ensure that the key contact information on your Google Places account is the same as on your firm Web site, particularly your business name, phone numbers, site address and physical address.
    
3. Carefully choose the categories under which your firm is listed, and use no more than five categories. Larger firms will want to cover service areas that match their brand and promote their most profitable practices, while solos and smaller firms can identify unique practice areas that may help them stand out.
    
4. Upload photos and videos to enhance your listing.
    
5. Keep your firm’s site involved in the effort. Include local terms in the title tag, acquire links that embed regional search terms, and embed Google’s map widget in your firm’s contact page (with the location exactly matched to your business’s marker in Google Maps).
    
6. Register your site outside of Google as well. Bing and Yahoo Maps are good places to start. Again, ensure that everything matches and that the formatting of the firm name and contact information is replicated perfectly.
    
7. Register your site with both generic local business directories and law-specific directories that feed Google Places and Google’s local searches.
    
8. Use Google’s keyword research tool to maximize your exposure for searches with the highest monthly volumes.
    
9. If your firm has multiple offices, each should jump on the opportunity to have its own Google Places listing (again, replicating the foregoing tactics for each office).

To read the full article, visit Think Global, Search Local: Claiming Your Spot on Google Places.