Since we couldn’t all be there yesterday at the Legal Marketing Technology Conference/West, we asked David King Keller and Jane Shahi to be our eyes and ears. For this week’s Friday Five, they report on their favorite marketing tips and takeaways from the conference.
The Legal Marketing Association rocked San Francisco this week with the Legal Marketing Technology Conference/West. The full-day program, put together by Adam Stock, Jennifer Seuferer and their hardworking team, featured the superstars of legal marketing technology and offered something for everyone — from beginners to veterans. The two of us had a difficult time reducing the many strategies presented to merely five.
1. LinkedIn Tricks. Keynote speaker Adrian Dayton gave us “Five LinkedIn Tips that Lawyers Don’t Know,” including: “Monitor who is reading your profile.” LinkedIn offers a reasonably priced premium service that allows you to see the names of people who have viewed your profile. It can lead to meetings with high-value contacts you didn’t even know were interested in you. “It is well worth the investment,” noted Dayton. Your online identity has become just as important as your law firm’s official bio in establishing your credibility with potential clients. Find Dayton’s other LinkedIn tips here.
2. Blogging for Dollars. Both Larry Bodine and Royal Simpkins, Communications Manager for Sedgwick LLP, pointed out the very low cost and high return on investing in a blog. Royal acknowledged it can require a lot of selling using a lot of statistics and cajoling to get lawyers involved in blogs and other social media. Jasmine Trillos-Decarie, Director of Marketing & Business Development at Foley Hoag LLP, recommended that everyone take a look at Google+, but also trumpeted the importance of blogging to secure new business.
3. Recycle Quality Content. “It’s all about leverage today. Leverage your content—repurpose it,” said Deborah McMurray of ContentPilot. She also discussed the real power of social media tools, pointing to how activists now use them to influence M&A decisions and force CEOs to resign. “Social media allows organizing on multiple fronts within days, not months,” said McMurray. Tools that powerful can be used effectively for marketing as well.
4. Be Mobile Wise. “Few trends have emerged as rapidly as mobile usage of law firm web assets,” said Jill Nelson, Product Manager and Senior Consultant with LexisNexis-Redwood. In the past 24 months, traffic to law firm websites from mobile devices has increased threefold. “Today it is essential for firms to provide an optimized experience for mobile site visitors,” she said.
5. Expose Yourself. If you’ve got, it flaunt it. Brandish your accomplishments. “We live in a time when content is king,” reminded Paul Ryplewski of JDSupra. In today’s market, to stake a claim online for your brand name and appear on Google’s first page, you need a website, a blog and a company profile on at least two social media sites.
