Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal editor, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, marketing consultant, legal consultant, business development

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.

When creating and updating your firm's website, do you consider what practices match the journalists who you are pitching your expertise and services?  If not, start now. 

TEKGROUP International recently released the 2013 Online Newsroom Survey Report.  It covers how editors, reporters, producers, correspondents and bloggers work with online newsrooms, digital audio and video, press release distribution services and PR professionals in general. 

This survey will help you determine in which areas your website and newsroom need improvement.  Here are some highlights:

•  97% of journalists find an online newsroom important.
• Two key areas saw dramatic increases in expectations of journalists - social and mobile.
• 90% of journalists like to receive targeted email alerts with relevant news for them.
• Does your online newsroom have a landing page for access to all your social media links? Over 50% or those surveyed found a landing page for social media important.
• 2013 shows a 33% increase in visits to corporate Facebook pages.
• Journalists agree that access to biographies for your company/firm's executives is very important.

Click here to download the survey results.

About TEKGROUP International

TEKGROUP International, Inc. is an award winning Internet software and services company that  develops social media online newsrooms and e-business software solutions. Our website can be found at http://www.tekgroup.com and you can also follow our Online Newsroom Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/onlinenewsroom.

This is an interesting post by Brian Farrell, one of LexisNexis' Law Marketing Specialists, that includes helpful information to get you ranked higher in your name's search results.

If you Google the name Brian Farrell, you'll find a lot of "us." There's Brian Farrell the Artist, Brian Farrell the Doctor, Brian Farrell the Lawyer, Brian Farrell the Harvard Professor and Brian Farrell the Irish Footballer. And then, there's me, and many, many others.

Among all of these other Brian Farrells, it's critical to me that my name appears at the top of search results. Not an easy task when competing against professional athletes and distinguished Ivy League professors! I've spend a lot of time working on this, and so should you. You want potential clients to find you, not the person with an identical name who lives halfway across the country. And while "Brian" and "Farrell" are both relatively common names, even attorneys with more unusual names may share those with others.

So how do you set yourself apart online from those with names exactly, or almost exactly, like yours? It will take some research and a small investment, but the results will help secure your online identity.

First, buy your name as a domain name, and then grab your Twitter handle. Next, customize your Facebook URL and your LinkedIn profile URL (replacing the random string of numbers with your own name). If you haven't done this already, you may find that the obvious ones have already been taken, particularly websites that end with the .com extension or @YourName on Twitter. If that's the case, try to snatch up domain names that end with .net, .name or .me as an alternative. You should consider taking www.YourNameSucks.com while you are at it, as a preventative measure. Many of these will be free, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, but you will have to pay for domain names. However, the fees are nominal, and once you "own" them, they are yours as long as you keep renewing them.

There are also free services, such as www.knowem.com, that will help you identify different extensions and domain name availability, as well as searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.

If you find that the obvious names have been taken, you will need to consider Plan B, or even Plan C. For example, seek out domain names that include your middle initial or your full name with your practice area or location (but don't use your city or state if you don't plan to practice there a long time), such as www.JohnDoeLawyer.com.

Throughout all of your social media activity, remember to abide by the rules of the state bars where you practice. And stay up to date on rulings and ethics opinions, since this is an area that is quickly changing.

Next, figure out which of these names you want to use to market yourself. You don't need to create a website for each of the URLs you secure — you just want to make sure no one else uses them. You can always redirect your chosen URL to your Lawyers.com^SM profile, too. Once you have settled on one URL, Twitter handle, personalized LinkedIn page and business Facebook profile, be sure to use those consistently to brand yourself.   

Read original post here.

Sean Stonehouse fills us in on ways to reach a broad audience when you have a niche practice.

For many attorneys, reaching new clients is a challenge. For those with hyperspecialized niche practices, the task becomes exponentially harder. Consider the difference between attorneys who handle divorces and attorneys who focus on handling assets in divorces. When you are a general divorce attorney, your practice is easy to explain and you can assume some of your clients will eventually know others who are getting divorced and can recommend you. But when your practice focuses specifically on handling assets in divorces, your potential circle of new clients contracts significantly.

With niche practices, attorneys often rely on referrals from their peers and have not had many opportunities to see worthwhile ROI on traditional advertising methods. So when seeking to expand their practices or increase revenue, these attorneys must wade through territory that is new to them.

A robust online presence that combines actively participating on social media sites, regularly blogging, and maintaining an informative, engaging website can allow you to set yourself apart from all the other attorneys in your area who are practicing a similar, but more general, type of law.

Start with social media. This is your first channel to connect through peers who can recommend you (typically through LinkedIn) and to the people who may hire you directly (Facebook is generally the first choice here). Through LinkedIn and Facebook, you can promote your blog, which you can use to set yourself apart as a thought leader. When people find your blog, either through your social media profile or by Internet searches, you can guide them to your website. Once they arrive at your (well-designed) website, potential clients can quickly learn how you can help them with their unique legal issues.

Read article at the source here.

Recently, Jay Butchko, Director of Retention and Acquisition Web Visibility Solutions,  co-hosted a webinar titled "Ethics Essentials for Successful Online Legal Marketing." 

Find out what's legal and what's not with real-life examples of online law firm marketing that violate ethics rules, and how to avoid repeating them.

There is no cost to download this webinar, focused on strategies to adhere to Rules of Professional Conduct. Learn to use these essential best practices — and apply them to your own marketing strategy.

Click here to access the recording.

As law firm marketers contemplate their advertising buys, we should be aware that the audience for newspapers and magazines has moved online. For example, before buying a $12,000 full-page ad in a print publication, it makes sense to see if there is a cheaper online option -- which will reach more people.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations recently conducted a survey of print publications—newspapers, magazines and b-to-b titles—to learn how their mobile initiatives are progressing. Publishers’ growing mobile know-how, increasing confidence in mobile strategies, maturing product offerings and anticipation for future revenue streams is evident in the results.

• Eighty-five percent of survey respondents said they currently have mobile content for smartphones, e-readers or tablet computers, up from 76 percent last year. Newspapers (88%) were most likely to have mobile initiatives in place, followed closely by consumer magazines (83%) and business publications (79%). Publishers cite development and maintenance costs as the primary reason they did not have a mobile presence.
• Publishers are gaining confidence in their mobile strategies. Fifty-nine percent of publishers now say their company has a strategy for capitalizing on mobile platforms.
• Many publishers believe that e-readers and tablets will be the biggest boon to their business. Seventy-three percent said readers are most likely to read  their content on e-readers or tablets compared to 60 percent who said the same thing about smartphones. In Canada, the gap was even wider. Fifty-seven percent said e-readers and tablets had the brightest future compared to just 34 percent for smartphones.
• Publishers in the U.S. and Canada are investing in optimized mobile websites. Eighty-one percent of U.S. publishers and 65 percent of Canadian publishers said this was an important part of their strategic plan. Respondents said mobile websites often account for up to 15 percent of their overall website impressions.

Marketing takeaway: when you have a case outcome, completed deal or hot legal news story, conduct at Google search to find the newspapers and magazines to offer the story to.

The infographic below from Mashable describes:

1. What's an e-reputation.
2. Why your online reputation matters.
3. What potential employers are looking for.
4. What you can do about it. While there are companies like Reputation Defender out there to help you manage your online reputation, there are still plenty of things you can do on your own. Feel free to check out my PowerPoint slide show "How to Monitor & Enhance Your Reputation on the Internet as a Lawyer."

Your online bio is the cornerstone of all your online marketing efforts. No matter whether you're active on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, how you describe yourself will determine whether your bio generate leads.

The trick to making your bio attract more leads is to turn your 30-second commercial into your bio. Describe (1) who you are (2) whom you work with and (3) what problem you solve.

From JusticeNewsFlash.com:

Facebook has clinched the top place for online advertising as the social media giant has captured 23 percent of all Internet display ads, resulting in 297 billion ad impressions, which is higher than the total of all display ads on Google, Microsoft, Fox and Yahoo sites combined.

The astounding numbers, wallet-friendly prices and Facebook’s ability to target specific audiences have catapulted Facebook to the number 1 position for display ads. Yahoo came in second with 140 billion display ad impressions, followed by Microsoft at 64 billion and Fox Interactive Media at 48 billion. Google came in last at 35 billion ad impressions, according to the ComScore third quarter report.

So what sets Facebook apart from the other Internet publishing sites? Three things: socializing, price and Facebook’s ability to target its audiences. People spend an average of 700 billion minutes a month on the social networking site, and with over 500 million active users, the potential consumer impressions can be tremendous.

“Facebook’s increasing share of the display ad market probably resulted from the company’s fast-growing audience size, an increase in the number of ads per page that Facebook delivers and an increase in the amount of time that users spend on its website. The more people in your social network that are online, the more value it creates to you as a user, the more you are likely to engage and contribute,” stated comScore’s Andrew Lipsman.

Facebook online display ads sell at a big discount when compared to sites like Yahoo and Microsoft. The CPM (cost per thousand impressions) for Facebook’s U.S. display ads runs at about $1, compared to a $3 CPM for display ads on U.S. Yahoo sites. The discounted pricing is appealing for people who are looking to make a big impression on a small budget.

Facebook also has a unique feature that allows the social network to target the exact demographic they are looking for. The age, sex and interests all factor into what ads will appear on user’s Facebook pages, which ensures your ad will be seen by the right audience.

Facebook is an ideal place for law firms who are looking to get more “bang for their advertising buck.” Not only can your law firm save a little bit of cash while still achieving a high dollar audience reach. But, remember, keep the ads engaging and “worth the look” for consumers; generation Y are heavy users of Facebook and your attorney’s potential clients.

Martindale Connected, an online social network for lawyers, has grown from 3,000 lawyers when it was launched one year ago to 30,000 members, including members from more than half of the Fortune 500, lawyers from 98 of the Am Law 100, and 10 Alliance Partners from prominent legal organizations and associations.

To date, almost 700 active groups have formed within the community, where members collaborate and share ideas on a number of legal issues, and 2,500 members have participated in community-hosted webinars.

From my own personal experience I can tell you it's a lively group of people led by energetic community leaders. LinkedIn may be 100 times bigger, but the discussions don't go anywhere.  In contrast, the discussions on the more intimate Connected are 100 times more active.

Among other things, Connected has led me to:

• Have a live video interview using Skype with community leader Mike Mintz, who was 5,000 miles away in Jerusalem.
• Get the opportunity to lead a live online discussion of virtual law firms on Twitter.
• Met the wonderful people in the Virtual Law Firms group, including Richard Granat, Stephanie L. Kimbro, Joseph Walsh, Alan Wernick, whom I knew "IRL" (in real life), Donna Seyle and many others.