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According to new research, there are three places online that are most likely to influence a consumer to make a purchase:

• "Retail" websites like Lawyers.com^SM
• "Brand" websites, like a law firm's site
• Blogs

Also topping the list were Facebook, and online forums and groups like Ask a Lawyer. The new findings in theTechnorati Media 2013 Digital Influence Report confirm that the best way for lawyers to attract new clients online is to market around the way that consumers behave.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. It surveyed 6,000 "influencers" (bloggers), 1,200 consumers and 150 top brand marketers. "Brand managers report an expected increase in budgets for digital marketing in the upcoming year," Technorati reported.

Retail websites

Consumers love to go to retail websites like Amazon.com or Zappos.com - online shopping centers where people can find many brands. In this sense, Lawyers.com, which gets more than 6 million page views per month, is a "retail" site - where consumers can find tens of thousands of lawyer profiles.

On Lawyers.com, consumers can easily find out many lawyers' expertise, website and contact information, and can compare attorneys by peer and client ranking. Online reviews can be a great source of new clients. Lawyers.com andmartindale.com® are the top online directories used by consumers who sought an attorney in the past year, according to the Attorney Selection Research Study by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG).

Brand websites

In contrast, a "brand" website displays information about one kind of product or service, like Microsoft or Google. A brand website is an online store, the digital equivalent of an Apple store at a shopping mall.

"Today's consumers are increasingly comfortable going online to find answers for all kinds of issues, including legal ones," says Samantha Miller, vice president of product, Web Visibility Solutions, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. "Law firm websites need to capture consumers' attention and engage them, while serving as part of a larger marketing campaign."

There's no doubt that attorney websites still matter. More than one in three potential consumers of legal services turn to law firm websites to find a lawyer, and 26 percent have checked out a firm's website in order to validate an attorney, according to the TRiG research.

Lawyer blogs

It's clear to see why blogs also influence people to make a purchase. Consumers begin their search for a lawyer by researching their legal issue. The ideal place for them to learn a particular aspect of the law is on an attorney blog. And once a consumer has read a good blog post, who better to call than the lawyer who wrote it?

To learn more about what we can do for you and get a free Website Evaluation and Consultation, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Today's post is a press release that reveals which social media outlets are the most popular, therefore most important to utilize.

LinkedIn, blogs by fellow lawyers and Wikipedia are among the tools most frequently used by in-house counsel in their professional lives, according to a new survey released today by communications firm Greentarget, consulting firm Zeughauser Group and InsideCounsel magazine.

In-house attorneys use social media more than ever, for everything from building professional networks to consuming substantive content to conducting business and industry research.

This survey, referenced with the hashtag #ICSurvey on Twitter and represented visually by an infographic, suggests that many legal marketers are not yet making full use of the channels and platforms that can effectively reach the primary buyers of legal services. But it also affirms the wisdom of law-firm marketers who take an integrated, content-centric approach to incorporating digital platforms into their communications strategies, treating them as an extension of their thought leadership efforts.

The In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey, conducted for the first time in 2010, measures the changing perceptions, attitudes and social media usage behaviors of in-house lawyers and their impact on business development efforts. Earlier iterations of the survey are now hosted athttp://insidecounselsurvey.com. 

“The survey results suggest, in no uncertain terms, that the convergence of digital and traditional media is fueling the continued use of social media among the in-house bar,” says John Corey, president and founding partner of Greentarget. “Our 2013 survey makes it crystal clear — as evidenced by the sustained prominence of LinkedIn and attorney-authored blogs, the growth in mobile consumption of news and a continuation of the ‘invisible user’ trend — that in-house lawyers are using social media as part of their daily routines.”

The Highlights:

• New media use is now mainstream. The percentage of respondents who say they do not use new media has plummeted from 43 percent in 2010 to just 27 percent today.
• LinkedIn is still the “serious” social network. Sixty-seven percent of in-house counsel used LinkedIn for professional reasons during the past week, and 40 percent used it during the past 24 hours. It remains the most frequently used platform for professional reasons.
• Attorney-authored blogs are popular and trusted. Respondents say they read blogs by attorneys as often as they read blogs by professional journalists, and more than half (53 percent) say well-executed blogs influence hiring decisions.
• The “invisible users” trend is accelerating. Although social networks are designed to promote online engagement, most respondents (74 percent) are using social media in a listen-only mode versus commenting on posts and participating in discussions—up from 68 percent who identified themselves as invisible users in 2012.
• Use of mobile is prevalent. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents read business news on their smartphones daily, while 39 and 23 percent, respectively, use tablets and mobile apps for news every day.
• Wikipedia is emerging for business-oriented research. Sixty-five percent of respondents say they use Wikipedia to conduct company and industry research, up from 51 percent in 2012. This is one of the more significant jumps in the year-over-year data.
• Online video is largely unexploited. Many respondents report that they are watching online video from law firms, but they are doing so infrequently.
• Peer-driven rankings lack influence. Despite the energy and resources that law firms continue to invest in peer-driven rankings, they have minimal impact on the opinions of outside lawyers or hiring decisions, the survey data suggests.

To download a summary of the research report, click here. For more information, contact John Corey at jcorey@greentarget.com or 312-252-4100.

It's no surprise that the top four social media tools used by marketers everywhere (not just the legal profession) are, in order: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs, with YouTube close behind.

The hidden gem in the study by the Social Media Examiner blog is that video marketing is on the rise.  A  significant 77% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2011. Businesses with 1,000 or more employees indicated YouTube is a key area of marketing activity.

 Respondents said:

• The #1 benefit of social media marketing is standing out in an increasingly noisy world.
• 2/3 of marketers said a benefit of social media marketing is a rise in search engine rankings.
• More than half of marketers found the social media generated qualified leads.
• 72% of marketers who have been using social media for more than three years said it helped them close business.
• Nearly all marketers report it generates increased exposure for their business.
• B2C marketers focus on Facebook.
• B2B marketers focus on LinkedIn and video.

Social Media Examiner's survey had 3,342 participants.