Craig McGuire

Here's a practical post by Craig McGuire from the Law Firm Marketing Center blog:

For solo practitioners and small law firms, a general all-purpose blog is not as effective as a practice-specific one. Law firms that blog on practice-specific topics have better marketing results: more Web visitors, inbound links and indexed pages, and, ultimately, more clients.

Consumers Search Online for Legal Topics, Not Lawyers

When an individual faces financial crisis and is considering bankruptcy, that person may look to the Internet for answers to address concerns and plan legal action. But he or she is not likely looking to hire an attorney, at least not at that stage.

If you are a bankruptcy attorney in that person's area, you want that business. When you have the content on your website and blog to answer the questions this consumer will enter into Google, you have a better chance, as long as your site is optimized so that this individual can find you. But if you are blogging about many different practice areas or about other topics not specific to bankruptcy law, you likely will not be highly visible in search engine results and that consumer will find his or her way to the site of a competitor.

Search engines reward fresh, relevant content. So if you blog on a regular basis on various bankruptcy topics, peppering your copy with the keywords that consumers are actually searching for when researching bankruptcy law, you will be rewarded with higher search rankings.

Click to read the rest of Using Your Law Firm Blog to Promote a Specific Practice Area.

There's a nifty new guide you can download, Twitter for Small Business - a Guide to Get Started -- published by of all organizations, Twitter itself. It's a free 21-page guide that is useful for novices as well as veteran users.

Here are some highlights:

• Listen first. It's tempting to start tweeting right away. But before you begin, it's a good idea to follow and observe businesses similar to yours to see what they are doing well, and to learn from their mistakes.
• Offer your readers something. Tweet about a fermium they can get, like a white paper, webinar recording or checklist.
• Use @username mentions. Include the @username of whomever you want to mention in your tweet, and it will appear in the mentions sections.  All @username mentions are clickable an link to the person's profile.
• Be responsive. Reply to tweets and send tweets thanking others for their re-tweets.
• Tweet at least once a day.
• If you a running a promotion, plan our your tweets over a week's time. Decide what point or discount you'll offer each day and make them appear to be part of an overall campaign.
• Use the question+answer technique. For example: "What are the top ten things to do after you are in an auto accident? Answer: link to a blog post about the subject."
• Share photos and videos in your tweets, because it increases the likelihood they will be retweeted.

 And be sure to put your @username in your web bio, your blog and Lawyers.com profile. You can click Twitter for Small Business to download the free guide.

Look for me at the free LEXPO technology event sponsored by LexisNexis tonight at 5:30 PM at Hilton Short Hills. I'll be introducing technology /marketing author and leading legal industry analyst  expert Ari Kaplan, who will speak on "Practical Advice to Win More New Business."

If you're in the New York or New Jersey area this evening, don't miss this free special event where you'll hear Ari share practical and creative advice that will benefit any lawyer looking to build their business, including his insights on how lawyers can thrive using the new Web and social media tools. 

Attendees will learn more about:

• Generating new business with social media and blogging
• Leveraging LinkedIn®, Facebook®, Twitter® social sites—and best practices for each
• How to “syndicate” yourself through self-promotion and market to your target audience
• Gaining the confidence to try out new, innovative ways to reach your audience
• The latest website design, hosting and optimization solutions available from LexisNexis
• Innovations in research tools including updates to Lexis Advance and Lexis for Microsoft Office to help you be more efficient

RSVP to Kim Riley 937-247-0210 if you want to attend.

Ari speaks at 6:30 PM.  Bonus product demonstrations include Lawyers.com^SM, Martindale-Hubbell®, PC Law®, Juris®, Time Matters®, Lexis Advance™, Lexis® for Microsoft® Office and more.  BONUS!  Attendees will receive a free, signed copy of Ari's book, "Reinventing Professional Services:  Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace."

See you there.

Here is the PILMMA Bright Idea of the Week by Ken Hardison. The important function of responding to new callers is often relegated to whoever's available. "As business owners, we understand the new callers and clients are our lifeblood," he says. Ken, who is president of the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing and Management Association (PILMMA), offers these tips.

• Hire at least one person who is dedicated to answering new callers. Get people who are pleasant, empathic and good listeners. By using a Plantronics wireless headset, the person can answer a call no matter where they are working in the office.
• When the call-taker is not busy taking calls, they can be busy scanning and opening new mail, filing, making copies, sending out letters, and closing and opening new files.
• You must train these people and give them scripts to follow. Once they're working test them with "mystery shoppers" and record incoming calls (be sure to check local laws about this). You can also can train people by using role-playing.

These tips will give you more cases, a happier staff and happier new callers.

You can now get CLE credit for watching Daniel Gershburg's video presentation Launching Your Small Law Firm in the Digital Age on Lawline.com - for free. Other marketing topics include Death of a Salesman: Ethical Concerns and Legal Marketing, featuring Allan Colman & David Grossbaum, and A Lawyer's Guide to LinkedIn: The Use of Social Networking to Develop Your Practice, featuring David A. Barrett

Lawline.com recently opened up its entire course catalog for free access to attorneys.  This unlimited access is a game changer for the legal industry and online education everywhere," said Stephanie Paeprer, a CLE Consultant for Lawline.com.

"The reason that our course catalog being available for free is simple.  Our CEO David Schnurman has always been a fan of what is referred to as an "open education" policy.  With over 1,000 hours of free content, David and the Lawline team are now able to advocate that idea instead of just be a fan. 

If you want to receive CLE credit for a course, then you have to pay. But you don't need to decide until after you watch the course. At the end, if you want credit, simply click the button on the page that says, “Get credit,” and you will be taken to a payment page.

Lawline is following in the footsteps of The Network of Trial Law Firms Offers FREE Online CLE. The Network of Trial Law Firms which launched its YouTube-powered TRIAL.COM Online CLE Center at www.TRIAL.COM/cle. Amazingly, the service is 100% free and attorneys watching the videos can qualify for CLE credit in CA, FL, GA, HI, IL, LA, NJ, NY and other states.

Hubspot just issued a set of PowerPoint slides with some fresh data about getting business online. You can access the PowerPoint of all 10 New Statistics by clicking here.

These in particular caught my eye:

• Email opens on smartphones and tablets have increased 80% over the last six months.

• 20% of Facebook users have purchased something because of ads or comments they saw there.

• YouTube users watch more than 3 billion hours of video per month.

 

• 91% of online adults use social media regularly.

 

• 38% of people have recommended a brand they “like” or follow on a social network.

 

• 45% of us businesses are conducting some form of mobile marketing, with mobile websites (70%), mobile applications (55%), and QR codes (49%) the most common tactics.

 

Marketing Takeaways

The best source of new business will always be in-person relationship marketing, but there is clearly a huge business development conversation taking place online. You can be part of it, or ignore it and miss all the new business.

The time has come to focus on how your brand and marketing appear on smart phones and tablets. Smartphones are outselling computers and you need to be concerned how your web presence appears on a smaller screen. If you don't have a mobi-friendly website, you need one right away.

Social media is clearly a source of new business.  Just read Survey: Law Firms Embrace Social Media for New Business if you have any doubts. I attended a panel discussion of CMOs last week in Chicago at the LegalPRChicago meeting, and each one had a serious social media marketing initiative.

I'll see you online.

I found this at DIY Blogger Net.

I picked up this interesting post on Martindale Connected by Shelly Dunstone:

I often hear lawyers say "Most of my work comes through word of mouth".

It's a matter of pride that satisfied clients will tell others, who then become clients.

What it usually means, though, is "I don't spend money on advertising". Now, in itself that makes a lot of sense, because word of mouth promotion is more effective than advertising. However, I worry that many lawyers rely on "word of mouth" as an excuse not to do any form of marketing. There's a common belief that if you are any good as a lawyer, word will spread and clients will come to you automatically, without the need to engage in any marketing (which tends to be regarded as unpleasant and a bit grubby). If you want to build a client base you do need to engage in marketing activities.

There's a real danger in relying purely on word of mouth to build your practice. You may be an excellent lawyer, but your practice might not grow in the way you would like it to, and that can leave you feeling frustrated and demoralized.

Here are three limitations of word of mouth marketing:

1. It's hard to make people tell others. Marketing people say you should ask existing and past clients for referrals. However, this can feel awkward, unnatural and needy.
2. Word of mouth does not necessarily bring the type of work you want to do. People don't always have a clear picture of the kind of work that you specialize in, or the kind of work you want to attract.
3. Even if someone is referred to you, they might not contact you. They might have their own adviser; they might trawl the Internet for free information or they might decide to do nothing. One recommendation is not necessarily enough. If a second or third person mentions you, that starts to carry some weight. Or they will Google you, and see if they can find any proof that you are good.

If they check you out online, what will they find? Many times, when I Google a lawyer, I find nothing at all; not even a LinkedIn page. And lawyers' profiles on firms' web sites are usually quite bland and uninformative. They are really just advertisements.

However, if the Google search produces a "body of work", e.g. informative thought leadership articles, blog posts and answers to questions - by you, that offers proof. If they see that you have presented at seminars and conferences, that offers proof.

Thought leadership amplifies word of mouth in two ways:

• When people are referred to you, it gives them added confidence to act on the recommendation, and
• It positions you as a source of valuable information, which people can share with others.

Word of mouth doesn't just happen. It's up to you to provide the proof. 

Here’s a guest blog post by Gere Jordan, a business development associate at Continental Message Solution, a nationwide contact center and provider of attorney answering services. Learn more at http://www.continentalmessage.com.

Google’s online phone service Google Voice is a great free tool for use in legal marketing campaigns.

With ad dollars tied up in a variety of marketing initiatives, it’s important to have an affordable way to track and close incoming referrals. Google Voice provides a free local telephone number, voicemail transcription, free text messages, and a variety of other features that make it an awesome marketing tool.

Getting started

To get started, simply travel to voice.google.com and sign in with your existing Gmail or Google Account. If you don’t have a Google Account, sign up for one. Once you’re logged in you’ll be prompted to choose your free telephone number.

Tracking leads

After you have your free number placed in a marketing campaign, you’ll need to track incoming leads. Google Voice’s history feature makes this easy. When you’re logged into the dashboard, select “history” from the menu on the left in order to view all of the calls and text messages sent to your number.

From the history page, you can leave notes on each message for future follow up, star important messages, or extract the data into a spreadsheet for further analysis.

Making every communication count

A free phone number and tracking functionality is great, but you need to effectively communicate with your leads in order to close them. This is where Google Voice’s call and text forwarding capabilities come into play.

By selecting the gear icon in the upper right and clicking “settings,” you can set and change call forwarding numbers, forward text messages to an email address, and record greetings in the name of your firm or organization.

Recording professional greetings is important, otherwise callers will hear generic Google Voice prompts when they call or reach voicemail. That being said, you should try to answer every call live.

Google Voice allows you to forward calls to multiple numbers at once and update those settings on the fly via their portal. So during the day you can have calls forwarding to your office, then update it after hours to forward to your cell phone or after-hours answering service. This flexibility helps ensure every call reaches a person and not your voicemail.

There you have it! A few simple steps and you’re setup to track and close leads for free.

This is a guest blog post by Jane Smith, a Houston-based writer who blogs about the importance and difference a thorough employment background check can make. For more information feel free to contact her at janesmith161@gmail.com.

It’s a question that seems to come up often now, over a year into the service’s existence. It’s a valid one too—there are so many social media tools and marketing services out there, you have to wonder how much you really need Google+ to maintain personal and professional contacts. You probably already use Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Facebook for the entirety of your online networking and socializing needs. Where can Google+ possibly fit in among those well-established services?

Of course the answer varies depending on who you talk to. Some people still haven’t heard of Google+, others begrudgingly signed up because they were goaded into doing so from their Gmail account, and a relative few actually use the service as their go-to networking service.

Let me put this in a numerical perspective: Google+ has about 150 million active users, while Facebook boasts over 900 million. Facebook has had much more time to expand its reach, and its wild success the world over doesn’t make for a very flattering comparison to Google+. A better comparison would be with Twitter, whose official data suggests around 120 million active users. While the number of actual Twitter accounts might be many times more than that figure, the fact of the matter is that only so many people actually use those Twitter accounts.

Which brings us to the original problem with Google+. Sure, millions of people might have the service for one reason or another, but do they actually use them? And if so, to what end? We can’t be too clear about the answers as of now because Google hasn’t been forthcoming with much of their data.

So what can you possibly to with Google+ to optimize your online professional network? From my own experience, I can only attest to one great strength that Google+ has over all similar networking tools.

The professional email supplement

In my experience, Google+ has proven to be more than a little helpful for organizing, categorizing, and discovering professional contacts via Gmail. The service is supposed to do much more than that, but in practice I’ve found it to be most useful insofar as it helps me sort out and expand my network of useful email addresses.

You might think that it’s not enough that Google+ merely streamlines your email activity. Emailing is an underrated service nowadays, in the age where a tweet or a private message often takes its place. But emailing is still very much alive and critical to the business world, and Google has you covered on that score. Their service is much more business focused than people realize.

Google+ has a distinct maturity about it that I find missing in services like Twitter and Facebook, which cater to social and frivolous conversations far more than it does to conversations relating to business. The contacts I have Google+ are real people with verified names and professional ties. If you connect with someone over Google+, you can at least rest assured that they’re really a person. There are no cutesy usernames or cryptic profile descriptions. A person’s professional info on Google+ is out in the open for all to see, and that’s nothing to laugh at. If you didn’t know already, Google+ vets every user to ensure that they’re not a spambot or an imposter posing under a pseudonym.

An uncertain future

Beyond the advantageous email services, Google+ will struggle when compared to its competitors. The service is still in its infancy, but Google really needs to reevaluate what they want out of Google+ if they want it to succeed on anything close to the scale of Facebook or even LinkedIn, a service that caters to a similar target audience.

What do you think about Google+? If you’re signed up with the service, do you find yourself using it often? Let me know.

Speech coach Joey Asher of Atlanta writes on the Speechworks blog about the bane of public speakers -- how do you deal with people in the audience pecking away at their keyboards and tapping on their smart phones?

“I don’t think you should ask people to turn off their smartphones. I think it’s patronizing and rude. Your job is to be so engaging that no one will consider looking at their phones,” he says.

Your job is to be more intriguing than a smartphone. The first key to beating back the Blackberries is to focus solely on solutions to your listeners’ most vital challenges.

Let’s say that you’re not certain of your audience’s most vital business needs. Then call some audience members in advance and say, “I want to make sure that you find my presentation more interesting than anything you have on your iPhone. So could you tell me what you would like me to talk about?”

Next, make your presentation a conversation, not a speech.  If people are asking you questions, they’re not looking at their iPads.

Here’s a great way to get people to put away their mobile devices at the beginning of a presentation.  Start the presentation by asking a question of the audience. “I’d like everyone to team up with the person next to them and write down three things that make winning business difficult.”  Such questions immediately engage the audience.

Finally, speak with more passion than a Siri app.  I was working this week with a salesman for a large food company. His passion made me want to pay attention.

So if you find a lot of people are tapping out emails during your presentations, take the hint.  Find a way to be more engaging.

Joey Asher is President of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He has worked with thousands of business people helping them learn how to communicate in a way that connects with clients. His new book 15 Minutes Including Q&A: a Plan to Save the World from Lousy Presentations” is available now.  He is also the author three previous books including “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals That Will Distinguish You from the Competition”, “Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers” and “Even A Geek Can Speak.” He can be reached at 404-266-0888 or joey@speechworks.net.

Join us for a FREE LexisNexis webinar Top 10 Law Firm Blogging Tips for Lead Generation on Tuesday, July 31, 2012, from 12:30 to 1:30 PM Eastern time.

If you're a small law firm or solo practitioner interested in law firm blogging, or have a blog that's yielding limited results, then this webinar is for you. We'll give you the keys to blogging success.

The special guest presenter is Dr. Michael M. Wilson, M.D., J.D., a successful medical malpractice attorney in Washington, DC.  He will share his experiences with generating new business through his firm's blog www.wilsonlaw.com/blog. Other presenters include:

• Jason Weingarten, Product Manager for LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Solutions.
• David Wodnicki, Law Firm Marketing Specialist for LexisNexis and successful blogger on law firm marketing best practices.

Including a blog in your online marketing plan can establish a positive online personality.  In fact, more than 60 percent of small law firms (1-9 attorneys) who maintain blogs reported that they obtained new clients as a direct results of the blog, according to the ABA's 2011 Legal Technology Survey.

Register today for the free webinar Top 10 Law Firm Blogging Tips for Lead Generation.

A smart technique for lawyer-bloggers is to write about topics that consumer clients are already interested in -- and I've got a Top Ten list of best-read topics for you. Many lawyers make the mistake of writing about something first and trying to develop reader interest second. The easier and more effective approach is to blog about what your readers are already talking about.

Tracking reader interest is a a rigorous and regular exercise for us as the editors and writers of the Lawyers.com blog. By closely reading our web analytics, we've managed to multiply our unique visitors by factor of 8 since January 2012. Lawyers who write blogs can do the same. Simply read the traffic reports from your web logs and conduct searches of social media sites to see which of your blog posts attracted the most readers. You too can multiply your readership by simply giving your readers more of what they want.

Smart blogging is an excellent business development technique. According to the American Bar Association’s 2011 Legal Technology Survey Report, 60 percent of small law firms reported landing new clients as a result of their blog.

Top Ten Legal Topics that Consumers Read About

If you start writing about these topics in your blog, and relate them to your law practice, traffic to your blog will increase quickly -- guaranteed. Click here to read the Top 10 Best-Read Topics to Write about in Your Blog.

Standing in front of the famous "bean" in my sweet home Chicago, Doug Stern, marketer and writer, gives us Attorney Bios West Web Practices.

He offers five tips:

• Provide assurance. Display case histories.
• Be brief. 250 words of anything on a law firm web site is plenty.
•  Avoid jargon and business speak. 
• Humanize yourself with a little description of your personal side. "People buy from people," Doug reminds us.
• Write web-friendly text.  Use bullets, subheads and short sentences to make your bio easy to read.

These tips will improve any bio on any firm website. For example check out Doug Stern's LinkedIn bio, where he has 500+ connections, 10 recommendations, his Twitter handle @DouglasLStern and links to his blog and company website.

You'll see that at age 13 he started as a golf caddy. "Anyway, I caddied for years, even into college. The money was OK, I liked the game, and the caddy shack was where I learned to drink, gamble, smoke and swear–-skills I had trouble pursuing at home."  Gotta love him.

This just in from ALM: In spite of all the buzz, an increase in use of AFAs proving much more gradual than forecast in aftermath of 2008-2010 recession. [See the chart below for the reasons behind the slow adoption of AFAs.]

According to results from a new survey conducted by ALM Legal Intelligence, alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) for legal services -- billing methods based on metrics other than an hourly rate – are becoming more pervasive, but still failing to gain the traction that was predicted by industry experts in recent years.

The survey report, “Speaking Different Languages: Alternative Fee Arrangements for Law Firms and Legal Departments,” indicates that only 6 percent of law firm respondents used an AFA in 2011 for more than half of their legal work last year, with the majority (67 percent) using AFAs for less than one quarter of their billing. Similarly, only 12 percent of legal department respondents said they used AFAs for more than half of the legal work they assigned to outside counsel in 2011.

Perhaps even more telling about the lackluster adoption of AFAs is that 6 percent of legal departments and 17 percent of law firms did not even know what percentage of their legal work was billed using a method other than the billable hour or discounting.

These results are among the thought-provoking findings of the survey, which was conducted last month by ALM Legal Intelligence and sponsored by LexisNexis^® CounselLink^®. To download a free copy of the report, please go to http://almlegalintel.com/Surveys/AFAreport.

“To get an all-around and fresh take on the adoption of AFAs, we connected with more than 200 law departments and more than 200 large law firms in the U.S.,” said Kevin Iredell, vice president of research and continuing education products at ALM. “The results of this survey suggest that the billable hour remains entrenched, despite widespread reports that clients are dissatisfied with the practice. However, we also found that the vast majority of both corporate legal executives and law firm partners expect the adoption of AFAs to continue to rise in the next five years.”

According to Iredell, other highlights of the survey findings included the following:

• Law firms’ and companies’ opinions differ as to who they think is responsible for the lag in AFA adoption.  According to law firms, the top obstacle to increased use of AFA billing focuses on either side feeling more comfortable with hourly billing in general.  Legal departments agree, but they go on to find lack of experience in defining and managing work and billing matters on a basis other than hourly as big a stumbling block for both parties.
• Despite the slow adoption rate, the use of AFAs is clearly growing. About 62 percent of law firms saw an increase in the use of AFAs in 2011, with only 2 percent citing a decrease and the remainder seeing no change. Half of legal departments saw an increase, with 49 percent saying that the number remained the same and only 1 percent that experienced a decrease.
• The top three choices for types of alternative fee arrangements used by both firms and departments were: flat fee (89 percent of departments, 93 percent of firms); blended rate (47 percent of departments, 89 percent of firms); and capped fee (57 percent of departments, 83 percent of firms)
• About 70 percent of legal department responses predicted an increase of AFA use from 2012 to 2016, with 26 percent thinking the amount will stay the same and just 4 percent expecting a decrease. Almost three-quarters of law firms (74 percent) expect an increase in AFA work over the same time period, while 14 percent think that things will be the same and, again, just 2 percent expect a decrease.

“Both corporate counsel and law firms continue to struggle to find ways to make alternative fee arrangements work for them,” said Kris Satkunas, director of Analytic Consulting for LexisNexis CounselLink. “LexisNexis has developed advanced solutions to help both law firms and corporate legal departments identify the types of matters that best lend themselves to AFAs, to model different fee arrangements and pricing scenarios to achieve better cost predictability, and to track performance throughout the lifecycle of the engagement.”

This just in from Bob Ambrogi's Lawsites blog:

A three-judge panel in Virginia has issued a decision that is important for lawyer-bloggers everywhere. The panel ruled that a lawyer has a First Amendment right to blog about his own cases, at least with regard to information that is already available on the public record. (Needless to say, you should never blog about privileged client information.)

The ruling came in the case of Richmond criminal defense lawyer Horace F. Hunter, who was hit with disciplinary charges by the Virginia State Bar over his criminal law blog where he wrote about cases he had handled and other criminal-law issues. Last October, the bar gave Hunter a public admonition over his blogging and ordered him to add a disclaimer stating that his blog is advertising. Hunter appealed the bar’s determination, asserting that it violates his First Amendment rights.

In a decision last week, the Portsmouth Circuit Court sided with Hunter, overturning the finding of misconduct under Rule 1.6, which governs confidentiality of client information. The court concluded that the finding violated the First Amendment.

Read Court Says 1st Amendment Protects Lawyer’s Blogging

and Lawyer Disciplined for Blogging About Client Cases Without Permission

WEBINAR PRESENTED BY: The Ackert Advisory and the Professional Business Development Institute (PBDI)
SPEAKERS: David Ackert and special guest Larry Bodine, Esq. 
DATE: Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - one hour
♦ 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern
LOCATION: on the web, on your computer
WEBSITE: http://bit.ly/Q6PeCj

Join David Ackert and me this Tuesday in this live program about how to lure, attract and capture the best clients of competing law firms and turn them into paying members of your own clientele.

Click here to sign up for this event.

Click here to register instantly with a credit card. Registration fee: $300. You can display the program in a conference room, put the telephone on speaker mode, and invite as many attendees at your firm as you wish. One connection per registration.

Join us to learn the techniques that law firms employ to lure away the clients of their competitors. 

Be aware that the strategy of most law firm marketing directors is to take away the clients of competing law firms. This is a highly profitable strategy in the current law firm recession. If you want the business of another law firm's best clients, we'll show you how to win it away from them.

This is a time of volatility in the profession, with as many as half of all clients switching law firms in a year. If you know what to look for, you can channel this new business to your firm. We'll describe the telltale signs that another law firm has unhappy clients. Once you've targeted another firm, we'll reveal how you can learn who are their top clients.

You'll discover that many business clients have remained with a particular law firm because of inertia. They'll keep using their old law firm -- until they hear a better offer. David Ackert and special guest Larry Bodine have interviewed many law firm clients and will inform attendees of this webinar exactly what clients want to hear that will make them switch law firms.

This just in from the Marketing Charts blog: 1 in 2 company marketers say they are using QR codes to encourage their customers to interact with their brand, according to a new survey by Econsultancy in partnership with Responsys. QR code usage by these respondents surpasses other mobile channels, including creation of applications (35%), mobile commerce (29%) and mobile optimized emails (29%). Roughly one-quarter are using SMS (text message) marketing, while less than 1 in 5 are employing location-based marketing.

According to a Multichannel Merchant survey also released in June, merchants are integrating QR codes into their marketing strategies at a far greater rate this year than last. 47% of respondents this year said they are using QR codes, a dramatic increase from just 8% a year ago.

Click to see how law firms are using QR codes.

In a recent survey, the percentage of respondents from small law firms who say they measure social media success by the amount of new business it drives is nearly twice that of respondents from large law firms participating in the same survey.

That is according to “Use of Social Media in Legal Marketing,” a recent survey of U.S. attorneys and law firm marketing decision-makers, performed by Vizibility® and LexisNexis®. Survey respondents represent firms of all sizes, from solo practitioners up to 500-plus attorney firm members listed on The American Lawyer’s Am Law 100.

From determining how respondents measure the impact of social media on their business, to which channels they use more frequently than others, the survey provides interesting insights into social media trends within the legal profession.

LinkedIn, blogging lead social media pack for small law firms

As LinkedIn® is the leading social media channel for business professionals—161 million business owners, managers, executives and others, including lawyers, have profiles—it is no surprise that more respondents favored this channel. According to the Vizibility®/LexisNexis® survey, over 90 percent of law firms with five or fewer attorneys plan to use a professional social network such as LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, it makes sense that blogging came in a close second, as a firm’s blog can serve as the central hub for social media activity—various tools can easily and automatically publish blog content to social media profiles once the content is posted. Moreover, a blog can be a successful platform to demonstrate knowledge and facilitate networking while also enriching the overall content of the firm’s website.

Click to get the free download, Use of Social Media in Legal Marketing.

Attorney at Work has published a spectacular white paper Attorney At Work: A Field Guide For Mobile Lawyers. Among other things it includes travel tips from mega-milers like Simon Chester, Sally Schmidt, Mark Tamminga, Dan Pinnington, Patrick Mckenna, Timothy Corcoran, Wendy Werner, Sharon Nelson, John Simek, John Tredennick, Reid Trautz, Tom Mighell, Patrick Murray, Ida Abbott and yours truly.

I've flown 770,000 miles and my travel advice is set out below. That's me hiking the Phoneline Trail in Sabino Canyon in Tucson, Arizona.

Kudos to Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, Joan Feldman and Mark Feldman for publishing 54 pages packed with useful material for the lawyer on the move.

What is the biggest challenge that travel presents for you? Staying current with the home office. I rigorously follow my Outlook appointment calendar and set alarms on my iPhone to notify me of appointments and calls.

What is the best thing about all this travel? A change of scenery and a chance to see colleagues and longtime friends.

What must you absolutely have when working away from the office? Medical marijuana, prescriptions and a bag of cookies—kidding!

Best tips for successful travel for work?  

• Check flights on Expedia and filter the results by “flight duration.” I always choose the shortest flight.  
• The day I travel, I get up at my wake-up time in my destination time zone.  
• Drink Emergencee and take vitamins and lysine the morning of a travel day.  
• I pack quickly, because my shaving kit includes duplicates of everything at home. I keep my traveling clothes together under a plastic dry cleaner bag, and my briefcase is a rolling Office Depot/Walgreens/Radio Shack.  
• Stick to familiar places: I always use the same airlines, book the same hotels and eat at my favorite restaurants in the cities where I’ve been before. The less unfamiliarity I can build into my trip, the better.  
• Get an aisle seat near the lavatory for long flights.  
• Bring earplugs and a sleep mask. This helps with noisy seatmates on a plane, unexpected construction outside the hotel and bright lights seeping into the hotel room (think Las Vegas).
• Avoid babies (noise), old people (clogged aisles), and sick people.

iPhone apps: GoHowAirport (which tells you stores near the gate), FourSquare, NPR Station Finder, Weather Channel, plus Yelp.com and TripAdvisor.com.

Traveling can be enervating. How do you keep your energy level up? Get lots of sleep, go to bed early, skip the late-night drinking forays. As Clint Eastwood said, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”

Over your career, have you identified specific travel booby-traps that you’d warn others against? US Airways, Miami airport, and bad weather airports like Chicago and Denver.

Travel motto? “Get up early and allow plenty of time to get there.”

✪ Computer: Dell Latitude laptop.

✪ Smartphone: iPhone.

✪ Tablet: Don’t have one. Too much to carry.

✪ Business bag: Swiss Army Victorinox rolling briefcase.