Randy Wilson’s upcoming legal marketing talk

I’ll be talking about business development and competitive intelligence strategies and examples next Tueday, Nov. 17 in San Francisco.

Here is the link

 

Social sharing content from email campaigns works

Has social networking made email campaigns redundant?  This survey suggests no.  It shows that 80% of marketers believe that adding social sharing functionality to email campaigns extends the reach of the email content rather than cannabilizes it. 

What kind of content works best for social sharing?  Emails that offer value to the reader not sales or promotional content.

Why bother with email campaign at all?  Some might argue that with a popular blog properly targeted, there is no need for email campaigns.   However, why not provide just snippets and teasers as blog posts and encourage readers to sign up for an email newsletter if the teaser intrigues and compels.

Top 10 attorney blogging mistakes

Here is a link to a good list of “not-to-dos” for lawyers who blogs from Cordell Parvin.

It wouldn’t be my top ten list but then we all have different priorities.  Here is mine (most comments apply to all business blogging).   I hope someone picks up on this and create their own list.

1. Failing to reading other legal blogs – successful and not so successful - before embarking on your own blog.

2. Not practicing blogging before launching a blog.  What if you spend time and money announcing your blog to the world and find out you don’t have the time to do it frequently or at all?  That’s embarrassing and damaging to your professional reputation.

3. Neglecting to think about how your blogging fits into your overall marketing efforts and determining what you want to achieve with your blog.

4.  Sounding like a legal treatise.  Give your blog a personal voice and approach.

5.  Letting your blog content stand as a silo.  Integrate your blogging content into your other social media outlets, your website and beyond.

6. Ignoring feedback and being unwilling to change your approach as you go.

7. Only blogging when inspiration hits you.  Make blogging a habit like brushing your teeth. 

8. Not engaging legitimate commentators who read and respond to your posts.

9.  Failing to own up to any factual mistakes when you are alerted to them.

10.  Posting on the hot story after its become old news with nothing new to say.

New federal bills expand consumer privacy rights

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved two new data security bills that greatly expand the consumer’s right to notice for any data breach involving he or her personal information.  The other bill will allow consumers to request that data brokers notify them about any personal information that is held for disclosure to third parties.

For more:

Facebook: no pregnant women in G-string photos!

If you are applying for an associate position at a law firm, the photo in the attached article should not be posted on your Facebook profile.  However, if you are a professional dancer, it’s a different story.  Why Facebook cancelled Cherry Currin’s account based on a photo of her pregnant self in a G-string is perplexing.

Article

Improving my blog posts (and maybe yours)

This article “7 Tips to Creat Better Blog Posts” practices what it preaches and made me more aware of my practices.  In my post on “e-circles” I tried to apply some of these tips to make it easy for visitors to scan the post.  Let me know how well I did!

Lessons from CA state bar “e-circles”

California State Bar setup a social networking site for attorneys called “e-circles.”  The interface looks very professional, it is easy to use, to  setup a profile, make announcements, join other groups, post job opportunities and guess what?   It gets very little use.

How do I know? 

There are no posts in the last months for any of my discussion groups.  The largest groups have membership in the scores.  The most popular profiles have links with a few other attorneys.  And the potential pool of participants is over 200,000 California attorneys.

What does can we learn from this?

* “If we build it they will come” is no way to build a social networking site. 

*Everyone needs to have a strategic approach to social networking. 

*Determine the benefits for yourself or your users to engaging in specific social networking activities. 

*For the California State Bar, make it a forum that makes the MCLE process easier for attorneys.  Trust me, that would generate traffic.

Email subject line: to paste or not to paste

Here is a great tip from Joshua Fruchter of LawyerCasting about not pasting text into the subject line when sending out an email blast.  Its possible that non-supported characters could get included so, for example, a readers sees, “Important change in ?employment? law.”

To play devil’s advocate, the reason I use copy and paste is to avoid the obvious typo my lousy typing frequently produces.  What about just saying make sure your email application will display your cut and pastes correctly and adequately testing your email communications before sending them off into cyberspace?

CA Bar requires email but what about a website?

California State Bar Association requires all attorneys to provide an email address  in their online state bar profile.  This makes sense for the state bar so they can more cheaply and efficiently bill and communicate with members.  Email use to be optional.  Why not include a field for attorneys to enter their website profile? 

Attorneys at big firms may not have a unique URL to provide but they can provide a link to the firm website and the user can do the rest.  This would allow other attorneys and the public one stop to review an attorney’s qualifications, their law firm affiliations and most importantly, the opportunity to view a photo!

Need Security clearance? Be careful on Twitter

Here is an article to give us something else to worry about if are utilizing social networking.

Federal Times.com