SoloSmallTech

When it comes to marketing, what Web 2.0 tools are part of your plan? Jon Gordon asked me how I would describe Twitter’s usefulness to a group of communications lawyers, and I told him I would recommend it as a way to help create an “ecosystem” around a law practice (or, sans buzzwords, to help build one’s online relationships and reputation).

Twitter is a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the blog and the social network. But the end result is not absurd, it is potentially very useful to the attorney-marketer.

Twitter is the essense of personal blogging: it provides a simple space to answer the question “what are you doing now?” and see what others are doing (or thinking, or saying), as well. While blogging and online social networking take a lot of time, Twitter does not. And since many lawyers are tempted to wax poetic, Twitter posts are nicely limited to 140 characters.

In other words, Twitter is one way to build one’s reputation 140 characters and a few seconds at a time. And keep up with colleagues, as well.

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(Cross-posted to solosmall, mypractice, and SoloSmallTech.)

At the Practice Management and Marketing Section meeting yesterday, Roy Ginsburg asked me about the difference between solosmall and mypractice, a listserv and an online social networking site.

The quick distinction that came to me is that a listserv is like a conference, while an online social network is more like a cocktail party.

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Every Friday for the last few weeks I have posted interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Today’s (belatedly posted) interview with Tom Tuft is the last interview.

My last interviewee is Tom Tuft, of Tuft & Arnold Law Office, PLLC. We actually collaborated on a CLE for the Ramsey County Bar Association this winter, which was well-attended and well-reviewed. Like me, Tuft is interested in technology, although he is a gadget man (he carried a Fujitsu ScanSnap in his briefcase), while I prefer one gadget—my laptop.

The Tuft & Arnold website is a good example of a clean, nice-looking, and effective website. It has a lot of information about the firm, its practice areas, and some “handouts” for prospective clients.

Like my own practice, Tuft’s clients tend to hire him only once. This kind of practice requires a fundamentally different marketing approach from a practice with clients who have ongoing legal needs. Instead of cultivating current contacts, one must constantly try to reach new people and new markets.

Keep reading for the full interview.

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here is a lot of talk about optimizing web sites for search engines, but what about optimizing your web site for potential clients?

Search-engine optimization (SEO) is about making it easy for a search engine to index your page. The easier it is for Google to figure out that you are a family lawyer in Minnesota, the better your page will register. This is why content is so important; the more “Minnesota” and “family law” appear in your content, the more clear it is that someone searching for “Minnesota family law” is looking for a page like yours.

But what about PCO (potential-client optimization)?

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

Kristi Weikel is on top of things. I am impressed. She has a small, general practice law firm, and sounds like she is running it like a business, partly due to the help she has gotten from Kelli Hoskins, a business coach.

I think a lot of solo lawyers and small firms forget that they are also a business, and the head of any business must keep it pointed in a direction–hopefully the right one. Every business needs an entrepreneur as well as someone to do the work of the business. It sounds like Weikel handles both very well.

Weikel keeps thinking about ways to improve her marketing effort, her practice, and her services.

Read on for the full interview.

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

Karen Lundquist has built a small, international law practice focused on employment and business matters. Her firm, Lundquist & Lange, has offices in Minneapolis, Italy, Argentina, and Chile. Lundquist maintains a WordPress blog on topics of interest to her as well as the firm’s practice areas.

Lundquist & Lange has been up and running since November 2006, and in that time her firm has tried a number of different marketing strategies, from a radio show to local church bulletins to direct marketing. According to Lundquist, offline networking “is the real way to market. Personal marketing. Who do you know, what does your name mean and how are you perceived?”

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

The first attorney who responded was Jennifer R. Lewis Kannegieter, who started her own practice last November. She has a blog loosely focused on family law, estate planning, probate, and similar topics, and you can find her on Facebook and mypractice.

Since Kannegieter’s practice is relatively new, she is still feeling her way when it comes to marketing, trying a few different approaches and waiting to see how they work out. She views her website and blog as one of the most important parts of her early marketing plan, and focuses on raising her profile through online and offline networking through personal relationships.

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Hosting provider? Check. Website? Check. Advertising plan? Check. Now it is time to talk more advanced online marketing: blogs and social networking.

Starting a blog or participating in an online social network is more advanced in the sense that both require more time and a bit more comfort with online interaction. But blogging and social networking also offer new, more direct ways to reach potential clients.

A static website is just a fancy billboard or calling card. But a blog or a social network profile allow you to meet your clients before they pick up the phone to call or walk into your office. You can establish your ethos with people you have not yet met, so that when they have a legal problem, they are not calling a stranger, but someone they already know.

Many lawyers, however, seem afraid to say anything online (or in public) for fear that it will come back to haunt them. To this I have two pieces of advice: (1) stop saying things that might come back to haunt you; and (2) get over it. If you cannot get over it, then blogs and social networking are not for you.

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WordPress.org 2.5 was released a few days ago, and it contains a number of changes. Some good, some bad. For example, the new Dashboard is nice, but the new image insertion is terrible, and the new Write Post page has become an experience on scrolling on and on to find even frequently-used options like categories and tags.

If you use WordPress.org for blogging or your homepage, you will doubtless notice the changes, as well.

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Okay, so you are comfortable with online privacy issues, you have spent some time on Wikipedia and Google learning about the “geek stuff,” and now you want to get going and market your law firm online. Obviously, you want to start with square one: a website. And a website is the logical next step in online marketing, so let’s get to it.

When I say “static website,” I mean a normal website: a set of web pages with content that rarely changes, and could be described accurately as a sort of dynamic business card and resume rolled into one. Many people will throw in a brochure-y article or two, but the bottom line is that a static website rarely changes. (A “dynamic website,” by contrast, could be a blog, wiki, or other frequently-updated website.)

A static website is online marketing 101. Every firm should have one, almost without exception. Most Americans have internet access in one form or another. Many will get referrals to more than one lawyer, who they will try to find online. The ones they find will get phone calls. The others probably will not.

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