Last week on VirtualMarketingOfficer.com I wrote about How To Promote Your Law Blog and it turned out to be a pretty popular post, so I figured there are enough readers who are looking for ideas in this regard—thanks to all who re-tweeted the post; Twitter was driving a lot of the traffic according to my WordPress Stats. Over the weekend, I thought, hey, I wonder how many blogger/readers are using Alexa? (I have no business interest or other connection to Alexa, except being a registered user.) Then I thought, why not ask? Are you using Alexa to monitor the health of your blog, understand your audience, and build a more strategic approach?

If the purpose of your blog or website is to gain exposure and influence readers to pick up the phone and hire you, you should know about Alexa and add it to your blog or website tool kit. What is Alexa?

Alexa is “The Web Information Company.” It provides (free) information about all websites including data about; Top Sites, Internet Traffic Stats and Metrics, Related Links, Site Reviews, Site Ownership contact information, and a few other really valuable paid services. They’ve been pursuing their vision of intelligent Web navigation since 1996. Alexa is one of the largest Web crawls with an infrastructure that can process and serve massive amounts of data.

Okay, so what does this mean for you? Read on…

Web Intelligence

To promote your blog or law firm website (Going forward in this post I use these two types of sites interchangeably.) and to develop the right audience (the one most likely to engage your services), knowing how these sites are performing in search results across the web will be an important component of your strategy. With Alexa tools you can do that.  Further, you can see how you compare with your competitors’ websites. This type of competitive intelligence should allow you to make some informed choices that will make your site a better tool for revenue generation and not just a millstone around your neck.  

Install the Alexa Toolbar

There are two choices. You can install the toolbar up top in your browser menu or install it as a status bar at the bottom. Either works. I use the status bar.  Open your site (or any site) in a browser window and then right click the little icon in the status bar and you’ll get an expanded menu of options.

Select Traffic Stats. A window will open and give you all the traffic stats about the open site in your browser. Other choices include:  Search Analytics, Audience, Reviews, Related Links, Clickstream, or Wayback Machine to see earlier versions of the website or blog.

Traffic Statistics

Before I started using Alexa I relied solely on my WordPress Stats and Google Analytics (all good). I’d learn which posts were most popular, how many visitors a day, where they were coming from and what search queries they used, but with Alexa I can uncover a whole lot more to help me gain clearer focus.

The Traffic Rank shows me what percent of total visits to the site are referred by search engines. Approximately 12% of all visits to my blog site are referred by search engines.

Alexa tells me that: 32% of visits to my blog site are bounces (one page view only), but two thirds stay approximately seven minutes, spending 60 seconds on each page view.

In plain English, this data allows me to make some assumptions:  My search optimization is working but I’d like that 12% to become 20% as readers who reach my blog via search are likely brand new prospects. A third of my visitors hit the home page, read the current post and leave. But, at least two thirds read more than one post! Keeping an audience for seven minutes tells me that readers are getting a deeper picture of my knowledge base and expertise.

It also tells me that because visitors are spending a minute on each page view a lot of my content can be skimmed or read in a minute—this has always been one of my goals—making content easy to skim—I write to reach busy professionals. I want them to be able to quickly assess my value, how that might help their law firm, then pick up the phone and hire me to fill in any “specialty marketing” gaps.

Alexa tells me that 73% of visits come from the US where it has attained a traffic rank of 274,702 (not bad considering my niche focus but certainly can be improved) and my audience, based on Internet averages, is comprised more frequently of females who are in the age range 45-54, have no children and are graduate school educated. (Perfect! Leaders and decision makers!)

Search Analytics

The most recent top search queries sending visitors to my blog are “virtual marketing,” “proskauer rose” (I did a post about their iPad purchases), “jayne Navarre,” “alternative fee agreement,” “marketing officer,” “law firm business card,” “where do CMO’s get their ideas from,” “marketing partner forum,” and “social media secrets.”

Alexa also told me that this month the search query “corporate counsel social media” is driving traffic to the site at an increased rate of 1.30%, while “law firm business card” has declined by 1.22%.  With this information, a strategic choice would be to write a new blog post about “corporate counsel and social media,” “social media secrets” or “iPads in AmLaw firms.”

If you’re working a Search Engine Marketing campaign, Alexa will give you a run down on the most apparent opportunities for you based on Query Popularity scores and Query Competition Index (QCI). A topic for another day….

Reputation Score 

The Alexa Reputation Score is based on how many “incoming links” a site has. Links coming into a website are important because they indicate to search engines a measure of authority and popularity of site content.

Click on the Reputation Score for your site (or any site) you’ll get a list of the top sites that have added an inbound link to the content.

Then, make a few assumptions.  Based upon “who” is linking in to your site and “what” content on your site has been attracting inbound links you could create more content like that to attract more links.  Or, use the information to uncover the types of bloggers or sites interested in your content and then search for and reach out to similar bloggers (use the Alexa Top Site Category Search) or site owners by email with an excerpt of a relevant post and a link to it; just in case they are so inclined to one day use it for an outbound link. Though this takes more work than writing a check to a Link Building agency, the links will be authentic, valuable, meaningful, and ethical (and make you a richer blogger as you drive new revenue through the threshold of your blog).

Don’t neglect to link your blog or website from your profile on directory sites. While not of the same quality as being linked to from a top blog or news site, these do count as inbound links and grows your Reputation Score. ** see note below

As your reputation grows, it can open up doors that didn’t exist before. For example, I’ve been contacted by a publicist to review several very high profile business books, which I assume was in part based upon my ability to drive inbound links—it’s a web! (The more links you attract, the more authoritative you become.)  Although I primarily review books to alert my readers to great resources, as an added bonus the inbound links they create builds my web credibility!

If the purpose of your blog or website is to market your law practice, and your site doesn’t have any incoming links, there’s a problem. Either your content isn’t getting found or isn’t being read by other bloggers, news sites, or those who could link in to your content. In this case, you’ll need to work a little harder at creating some connections and build strategic content that will attract inbound links. Go to other similar sites such as yours that have high reputation scores and study their Alexa data to see what they are doing and what you might replicate.

Claim your site

Don’t forget to claim your site with Alexa. With a free registration, you can “Claim Your Site” and update site title, description and contact information which is all effective for making sure the search engines know what your blog or site is about.

Paid Services

For a small fee, via Alexa paid services, you can optimize your site, grow your traffic, and improve user experience without a long-term contract. The Alexa Site Audit performs a deep analysis of your site to reveal potential problems and provides recommendations to help you improve your site. You can get the one time audit or sign up for the monthly plan. Learn more…

Alexa Search

I’m going to leave this for another post because there is so much you can do with an Alexa Search,  but meanwhile, when you’re on the site, try it out, play around in there. You can learn a lot by looking at Top Sites in specific categories to see how you measure up and what you could do to improve.

Conclusion

If you or your law firm use Alexa, tell us about your experience in the comments; love it, like it, lukewarm? If you’re not using Alexa, check it out and remember to come back and tell us about your experience. Thanks!

**Note on Inbound Links from profiles on social networking sites like LinkedIn. Alexa only counts the first inbound link from any site. Therefore, if all the attorneys in your firm have the law firm website link in their LinkedIn profile, it only counts as one inbound link. No big deal, but just wanted to clarify that. Still, any lawyer in your firm with a blog site should definitely include that link in their profile to generate a separate inbound link to their blog site.

Now that your blog is “LIVE,” you need to do some basic things to help others find you. Or give your established blog a little shove and see if traffic doesn’t improve.

Submit to Giant Search Engines

Even though you’ve optimized the general metadata on your blog, as well as each post, you may still want to hand submit your blog to some key search engines.

1. Google. Google will eventually pick up your page but it doesn’t hurt to submit it via Google Webmaster Tools. You can also check there to see how it is performing. Make sure your metadata accurately describes what your blog is about. Submit to Google here.
2. Yahoo! Blog Directory
3. DMOZ.  This is a human-reviewed directory of the web. The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as Dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. Netscape owns it, but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors. When you submit to DMOZ, make sure to follow their instructions for categorizing your blog VERY CAREFULLY.
4. Bing.  Learn more here.
5. Aol.  In partnership with DMOZ.
6. ASK.com. Add your URL to Ask.com

Submit to legal content centric directories

Some legal blog directories have grown quite large and may not be of immediate help to your blog, but try submitting to the narrowest category possible and see if it doesn’t help.

1. Blawgsearch.com
2. Justia,com
3. Blogged.com
4. Blawg.com
5. USLaw.com
6. BlawgRepublic,com
7. ABAJournal.com Blawg Directory
8. AllTop.com/law

Submit to General Blog Directories and Aggregators

1. Alltop.com. Try submitting your (non-legal) industry focused blog to a more general category here.
2. BlogCatalog.  www.blogcatalog.com/
3. BlogPulse.  submit link here: http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
4. Best of the Web Blogs.  http://blogs.botw.org/
5. FeedAgg.  Aggregates your blog feed by category http://www.feedagg.com/
6. Technorati
7. Bloglines.  Now being run by Merchant’s Circle, this site reaches out to retail consumers rather than corporate types, but great for personal services practices.
8. Zemanta. Valuable blog tool that feeds bloggers link suggestions to use within their content—submit your blog as a content provider.  http://www.zemanta.com/
9. Newsgator.  More of an enterprise social networking tool, but you can build a Newsgator widget to distribute your content via mobile. (MS Sharepoint partner)
10. Techmeme.  The web’s technology news site of record, Techmeme spotlights the hottest tech stories from all around the web on a single page. Meeting very specific criteria will get your post featured on Techmeme. Not easy but check out this out. http://news.techmeme.com/
11. StumbleUpon. Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon can be effective if you have a specific target audience you are trying to reach. https://www.stumbleupon.com/pd/  OR, simply submit your site for free here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/help/how-to-submit-a-site/
12. FeedShark. Free online tool that easily promotes your blog or website – with the simple push of a button! http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/

 Social promotion

1. Twitter.  Use FeedBurner or FeedBlitz to auto post new content to your Twitter account. Then, for extra measure, write a Tweet that highlights content, asks a question or encourages discussion and send another link.
2. LinkedIn.  Include your blog website URL on your profile using the “custom” box and type in the name of the blog.  Using the (easy) widget on LI, set up the feed of your blog content to appear on your profile page and news stream. Add Twitter to your LinkedIN profile and your Tweets about your blog will show up in your status update.
3. Facebook.  Add your blog posts to your firm’s Facebook page and your individual page. You can link your FB account to automatically grab your new posts.
4. Reciprocal links.  In addition to links within your content to others’ blog content, which can create a pingback or a reciprocal mention, make sure to include a well thought-out, strategic Blog Roll to your blog.  Give your readers similar or complimentary content in your blog roll and ask those bloggers to include your blog in their roll. Build a valuable “blogger community” and incoming links as a result.
5. FeedBlitz.  http://www.feedblitz.com/  Alternative to Google’s Feedburner. Sends email notification to visitors who sign up to receive your latest posts.
6. Scoop.it.com.  Curate your favorite posts, news articles, web pages, as well as your own new posts or favorite evergreen posts, and send your scoop to social networks.
7. Paper.Li  (http://paper.li/) Similar to Scoop.it, publish and share your own-online newspaper on Twitter and other networks—include your most recent post.
8. Repurpose. Set up your blog on Martindale Connected, social networking site for the legal profession, or other industry focused social networking sites. Some will even let you set up a feed so you’re not doing double duty.
9. LinkedIn Groups. This can be fertile territory for specific posts, relevant to specific Groups. Excerpt some of your post to create a discussion and link to your full post. This may take a little more work, but I’ve heard from more than one attorney that this is a very effective tactic.

Miscellaneous

1. Guest blog
2. Add your blog address to your business card and email signature.
3. Include a post teaser and blog URL on the firm’s eNewsletter when content is relevant.
4. Include your blog URL in every media by-line when possible. (Rather than, or in addition to,  your law firm website!)
5. Send a personal email note with a link to a relevant post to a special client or others in your contact list.

Hope this is a helpful resource for you. This list isn’t comprehensive, nor do I personally endorse any of these sites or services and I am in no way connected to any. It is simply a random list of ideas that have worked for my clients and me in the past. If you have some favs to add, please drop us your suggestions in the comments! Would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Setting up a blog is easy. Whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you, it will probably be the last easy thing you do in your life as a lawyer who blogs. The rest of your life as a lawyer who blogs will revolve around an empty white box—a box longing to be filled with your nifty ideas and brilliant insights. Trouble is, nifty ideas and brilliant insights are not enough. As a practicing lawyer you also must write quality content to reflect the level of quality that represents you. For some (probably most) lawyers who blog, both new and experienced, it can be a real challenge to keep meaningful, nifty, brilliant, and high quality blog content flowing.

So, let’s look more closely at how to write a great blog post. First, if you’re going to blog effectively, you should keep these three basic goals in sight at all times.

Three Goals.

1. Write blog content that is attractive to readers.
2. Write blog content that others want to share and promote.
3. Write blog content that opens connections to new people.

Next step is to add variety.

Style.

Every blogger has his or her own writing style and voice. In most cases this remains consistent throughout the blog. A consistent voice helps readers get to “know” you better. In some cases it can be like hearing the lawyer think out loud. (This can influence business decisions!) But, you’ll probably want to mix up the format of the content you present to keep it interesting for both you and your readers. For example, you may have some posts that simply report pure information while others will go into a longer form of analysis or a how-to.

Fresh format ideas can be found from reading other blogs outside the legal industry and modifying them to meet the criteria of your law firm’s blog policy and your ethical responsibility to the legal profession. In addition, sites like PRO BLOGGER or Copy Blogger offer valuable tips and inspiration for your journey. Meanwhile, here are a few new ideas I compiled from my own journey. (And Here and here are a few old ones too!)

Format.

• Dissect a problem. Is there is a common mistake people make related to your area of practice? Define the problem and describe a few suggested ways to avoid it. Don’t give away the punch line, but give readers enough to take away a practical pointer or two.
• Tell a story. Do you have an instructive experience to tell? Put it in story form and share what you have learned with your readers.
• Teach. Imagine yourself a law professor. Create a “tutorial” series. Break down complex concepts into simple to understand steps. For example, you might explain how venture capital deals are created; the various structures used, the types of individuals involved, sample goals for the individual parties, etc.  The key for teaching posts is to keep them simple, use lots of subtitles, sections and even illustrations. (See more on Visuals below)
• Share a statistic. When you come across an interesting statistic, build a blog post around it. This could be as general as labor department data points, trending worldwide mergers by geography, or the number of insurance claims filed annually in the state of [fill in the blank]. While you could include an analysis or connect the dots to some pending legislation in the content copy, often the graphic itself can be the focus of the post, providing a fairly work free entry.
• Promote your clients (and even their customers.) This type of post, when handled appropriately, is sure to generate good will and add some new readers, not to mention the SEO juice you, your client and your client’s customer will get from the links you place within the post. Try an interview style that serves up a story of how one of your client’s customers benefited from their product or services. You could do a friendly review of a new product line, or invite them to do a guest post on a management issue or etc. (Make sure to disclose your relationship.)
• Re-purpose your press releases. Turn your press releases into a news story for your blog. Include links to publications where the story was originally covered and get bonus points.
• Go off topic. Blog readers often find your content via a general web search. That’s why its important to employ smart usage of keywords and tagging. Though your blog is focused on your area of expertise, sometimes throwing in an off topic post can generate new readers and give regular readers something extra. It could be a topic that is related to the legal industry but not necessarily “your” topic. For example, although your blog is about international law, you could write a post about general counsel who blog.
• Ask a non-legal question. Got a burning question? Ask your readers to help you solve it. Again,  it’s okay to go off topic from time to time to mix it up. For example, say you are trying to decide between a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad. You could create a post about your 10 key needs—things you are considering in your decision—and see if you don’t get some feedback.

Visuals.

• Graphs and diagrams. Graphs and diagrams are one of the quickest ways to communicate complex information and add visual interest. A visually simple graphic delivers value that readers will often share with others and even re-blog, helping you build new readers. Some of my favorite sites for ideas about the visualization of information are: InfoGraphics Blog,  Flowing Data, and Information is Beautiful.
• Photos and videos. Photos (and videos) are almost always featured in search results on major search engines, so, make sure to give the photo good keywords in the alt tag, caption and post title. Videos work well with teaching posts and can be easily re-purposed on your YouTube channel giving you added exposure. Feeling creative? Robert Thomas, Inversecondemnation.com, takes pictures of funny signs he sees around the court buildings he visits and adds them to his blog and Facebook page.
• Illustrations and cartoons. Bankruptcy Bill is the best example of blogger using this format successfully, though there are probably a few others. His character is used to illustrate relevant challenges businesses are confronted with in bankruptcy matters and also to make complex concepts simple. (You can purchase these cartoons!) You could probably find a local illustrator to hire or if you like snarky stuff check out Hugh McLeod at Gaping Void. (rights reserved)

Persona.

• Humor. While not everyone knows how to be both funny and professional, if you’re one of the lucky ones, injecting a humorous post into the mix can be a nice diversion for you and your readers. You may want to create a specific “category” for these posts like Friday Funnies or Coffee Break.
• Vision. Adding some visionary posts to your blog content mix can set you apart from the rank and file. Instead of just reporting on pending legislation or commenting on high profile cases in the news, with a little imagination you could craft an illustrative scenario that connects the impact such events may have upon a particular industry. While this may take some research and care in keeping your points general, writing this type of post can establish you as a thought leader. Thought leaders are highly valued by blog readers.
• Subtlety. If you typically go around spewing marketing messages, then doing so on your blog will be totally consistent with your persona. Go for it. If you don’t, well, be subtle. In my experience, the competent lawyer blogger does not ever need to “sell” their services. Their content does it for them. Content that is generous—meaning you share experience and expertise fairly freely and often—is more effective than any pitch you might make. Of course, a discrete link from relevant content back to an article on your law firm’s Web site is totally okay and qualifies as subtle in my mind. Other subtle promotional options for your blog would include having a personalized “About Me” page rather than a cut and paste biography from your formal web site. And, as you demonstrate knowledge, good will and authority people will be more receptive to more prominent promotion, so go ahead try including a short bio at the end of each post and test it’s impact on your marketing efforts.

Posts.

On a final note, whatever formats you chose for your posts it’s important to respect your readers’ time. The best posts are written for time-starved people who struggle with information overload. Keep posts concise, well-organized and focused. The inverted triangle style used by journalists can work well for lawyers who blog. The widest part at the top, your introductory paragraph, represents the most substantial, interesting, and important information you want to convey while the tapering lower portion includes material in order of diminishing importance. It is sometimes called a “summary news lead” style. The format is valued because readers can leave the story at any point and understand it, even if they don’t have all the details. Using bullets and bold headlines at the beginning of your paragraphs will also make it easy for readers to skim. Not exactly what you are hoping for after you’ve spent hours writing your post, but the fact is, the most valuable posts, those that meet the criteria in the three basic goals, are typically those that take 60 seconds to read.

Got any suggestions for unique posting formats?

Coming soon from Thomson Reuters,  social.lawyer | transforming business development,  my new book about business development fundamentals translated for the social Web.

It’s no trivial thing: the social web opens access to some amazing people that I would not otherwise had the opportunity to meet. It really works – on many levels.  It’s absolutely fascinating to me; geography, culture, time, and professional status are no longer an obstacle to growing my network. It gets more interesting every day.

I recently met attorney Robert H. Thomas, one of the preeminent land use lawyers in Hawaii (I live in FLORIDA!). He blogs at inversecondemnation.com and @invcondemnation on Twitter. I had an opportunity to take our online conversation off-line to chat with him on the phone the other week. Here’s his story…..

Inversecondemnation.com

Robert’s been in private practice for 30 years. Up until four years ago, he published articles, gave presentations, was active in the American Bar Association, and hit the local cocktail circuit as much as he could in order to build his practice. Marketing was slow going. Then, in 2006,  he published his blog, inversecondemnation.com, and everything changed.

Inquiries accelerated and the pace of his workload intensified. Today, he tracks almost ALL of his new business and ALL of his connections with journalists, including national and global media interests, back to his blog.

Blogging is like getting to hear your lawyer think out loud before your hire them.

No small task, he landed two Fortune 100 companies as clients; a direct result of his blogging. They didn’t contact him to submit a proposal; they contacted him to do the work. They found his blog on a Google search, and after reading his posts they knew he had what it would take to do the work they needed.

Contrary to his prior networking experiences at ABA events, people began approaching him as if they already knew him. They read his blog, they knew his voice, something about him, and it made him much more approachable. His networking effectiveness increased noticeably.

Journalists started calling him for background on related legal cases after his blog took off. He now knows everyone in the local media and many national and international journalists because he blogs, twitters, and cruises around LinkedIn (LI). At first he fed them background on cases that were not his, but he nurtured the relationships to become a trusted source. Now, when Fox News is looking around Hawaii for a story, they contact him and ask for HIS stories.

Not a solo journey.

To build readership for his blog, he ventured into social networking. He originally split up social networking duties with a partner; he took LI and the other guy took Facebook (FB). His partner reported that FB turned up too many “x-girlfriends” so he stayed clear , at least for a while. Then the ABA Eminent Domain section launched a FB page and he was sort of forced into it.

Still a bit skeptical of the FB value proposition, he’s found some rather original ways to participate. He stays away from political discussions and other conversations that have the potential to be heated. Instead, he takes pictures of signs in the courthouses he frequents and posts them to the group page and his profile. Funny signs like the one he found in a Hawaiian courthouse: “Court Room Attire | Regular Street Wear and Work Wear Acceptable Footwear Mandatory.”

Leveraging content.

Robert takes an open approach to sharing content because he knows the value keywords have in getting found by search engines.

Cross publishing his blog content to other networking sites or document sharing sites like JDSupra has a multiplier effect. For example, often the same article will return higher in results from a JDSupra posting than his own blog. This led him to start posting his legal briefs on document sharing sites, but not without first getting major resistance from some partners who were concerned about giving away work product.

He argued that this type of transparency is valuable to business development. Any work product he would share is already in the public domain. He reasoned that anyone can get it from the courts online, so why not have it out there where Joe Public can find it and associate it directly to him. If another lawyer wants to lift case cites from the brief, so what.

“We’re not selling documents, we’re selling brains. It’s not like they can download the brief, plug in new names and win a case.”

Only he can craft his case and argue it. The brief is only part of the package. Makes sense to me. (Good lawyering!)

The keyword play he gets from posting his briefs works really well in online search and makes it a smart integrated strategy.

If it all sounds easy, it’s not. It takes work, time, and commitment.

Quick to point out, Robert views his blogging and social networking activity as a critical, vital, and exciting part of his practice. He writes a half hour a day, every day, and posts three to six times a week, plus promotes his ideas and thoughts on Twitter and LinkedIn. Vacations? No sweat. He loads up his posts and times them to go out while he’s gone.

His blog is mostly pure information and little analysis so it takes less time to craft a post, however, it’s a skill set that not everyone can master and identifying topics to report on daily requires good organizational skills. An unexpected benefit of publishing his blog; his writing has improved and his subject matter knowledge stays fresh. He noted that this really pays dividends when writing client communications and other legal documents as well as expands his industry knowledge.

The results of his work have inspired his colleagues to successfully launch law blogs.

The story of inversecondemnation.com is not as uncommon today as it was when Robert first started blogging. Although he wasn’t a trailblazer, he was a member of the first wave of lawyer bloggers.

Now, two of his colleagues at Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, also blog.

Mark Murakami produces www.hawaiioceanlaw.com, which, as the title indicates, focuses on maritime and environmental issues, although it is not limited to Hawaii. Mark is a former Coast Guard lawyer and ship captain, so he brings some experience to his blogging. He is just over the two-year mark on his blog.

Tred Eyerly produces www.insurancelawhawaii.com, which focuses on coverage issues, again, not limited to Hawaii law. Tred is the chair of the ABA subcommittee on coverage issues and has developed a very expansive reputation as an expert in this area of law. He’s in his third year of blogging.

Robert’s final comment to me on the phone was:

“I’m shocked that not more lawyers are taking advantage of the reach and exposure social media provides.”

Me too. While writing isn’t for everyone, there is something for everyone on the social web. If you need help finding what that is, drop me a note. I welcome the conversation and another new contact in my network!

Got a story? I’d love to hear it. Feel free to email me or share with everyone in the comments. Thanks!

Using the social web for corporate communications and interactivity is UP, UP, UP according to a new study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. The study looked specifically at Fortune 500 Companies’ usage of blogs, Twitter, podcasting and video blogging.

The research, conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Eric Mattson CEO, Financial Insite,  (Fortune 500 and Social Media) revealed that three out of 5 of the top 5 Fortune 500 companies have public facing blogs.

Who’s blogging in 2010?

Wal-Mart (#2), Chevron (#3) and General Electric (#5). And consistent with the 2008 list, Exxon Mobil (#1) and Conoco Phillips (#4) do not have blogs.

An up tick in blogging across The Fortune 500 industries include:

• Computer Software, Peripherals, Office Equipment
• Specialty Retail (Home Depot, Toys R Us, etc.)
• Telecommunications
• Food Production, Services and Drug Stores
• Commercial Banks
• Insurance
• Semiconductors
• Information Technology
• Motor Vehicle

And it looks like these companies are playing by the rules of social interactivity as the research reveals that 90% percent of the Fortune 500 blogs take comments, have RSS feeds and take subscriptions.

Tracking similar trends in law firms, the report shows that smaller, more entreprenurial businesses, such as those listed on the Inc. 500, are blogging at a higher rate than the large Fortune 500 Companies; the main difference being possibly related to the size of the company, internal structure or corporate philosophy regarding open communication with its stakeholders.

Who’s All a Twitter?

Of the 108 blogs documented in the study, 93 (86%) are linked directly to a corporate Twitter account tripling the numbers from the 2008 list.

“One hundred and seventy-three (35%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009 Fortune 500 has a Twitter account with a post within the past thirty days. Of these companies, four of the top five corporations (Wal-Mart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric), consistently post on their Twitter accounts. The number one ranked company, Exxon Mobil, does not have a Twitter account at this time.

“Interactivity with readers was examined by the number of @replies or “retweets” and by checking the dateof the last post to determine how current it was. One hundred and twenty companies (69%) consistently responded with @replies or retweets within the past thirty days. These Twitter accounts are kept up-to-date with current news and information. There is consistent interaction with other users and on-going discussions that are easy to follow.”

What can law firms take away from this raw data?

A few things come to mind.

• While this raw data may not be terribly instructive in any practical way, it sure confirms a major transition in corporate communications.
• Law firms need to understand why this is important to their clients and how it’s impacting their culture and business.
• “We understand your business” tag line people need to experience the feeling of social transparency first hand in order to know their clients’ business.
• Law firms need to open lines of communication with the public – not just for “hey look at how great I am” messages but for contributing dialogue for the greater good.

What do you think?

Link to a PDF download of the study.

Now you can pick up your iPhone or Kindle and place that order…

The highly regarded  Consumer Advertising Law Blog created by Arnold & Porter’s multi-disciplinary Consumer Protection & Advertising Practice Group is now available as an application for your iPhone or a download for your Kindle.

When I spoke with Neil Rosenbaum, New Business Opportunities Manager at the law firm, about their entry into mobile apps for law firm communications he agreed to share with VMO readers some the process and thinking behind their multi-channel communications program that provides clients and interested readers many ways to access their reporting and analysis.

According to Neil there were three primary reasons why Arnold & Porter LLP developed its first iPhone application for the firm’s Consumer Advertising Law Blog:

(1) “We constantly think about how we can reach out to our clients and readers in ways that are convenient for them. It seemed important that our blog content be easily accessible on a platform being used extensively by our business clients and blog readers.

(2) ”As a law firm with a significant consumer protection and advertising practice, and the publisher of the popular blog, we felt that it was important to mirror what many of our clients are already doing –creating their own iPhone Apps.

(3) “With the growth of smart phones, Arnold & Porter took this modest step to begin understanding mobile phones as a platform to reach out to and interact with our clients or others.”

JN: Can you tell us a little bit more about your multi-platform publishing strategy?

→  Neil: We were looking for new ways to distribute our blog content to reach our client and readers where they read. We already distribute versions of our blog postings via RSS feed, Twitter, and Kindle (another recent development).

In addition, our firm publishes a Consumer Products Marketing e-Newsletter, a publication that pre-dates our blog. The newsletter has blog content and other features. It works well for those clients and readers who prefer something they can read off-line.

JN: How was the idea born and what was the response of decision makers? Was the consensus in favor of this delivery channel overwhelming, lukewarm, or even adverse?

→  Neil: As an iPod Touch user myself, I came across a number of applications which focused on presenting content to readers, as opposed to playing a game, or performing a social network function. It occurred to me that we could do the same with our blog. I presented that idea to the editors of the blog, Randy Shaheen, Amy Mudge, and Robert Pitofsky. They were very supportive to the idea of creating this new channel for accessing their blog content. While we did not yet  hear a strong demand for an iPhone App, we could see that this is a direction that many of the industries we serve are headed. We believe it is important to get the experience early on so that we can take what we learn and apply it to future efforts.

JN: Can you briefly describe the process?

→  Neil: The key aspect of creating the mobile application was that we knew we had quality content from our blog. That was the foundation of the application. There was no point in doing an application unless there was something useful in it for our clients.

In terms of producing the App, we worked with a software developer who was very responsive and good to work with. A key element in working with him was to have open communication and a specific plan about what we wanted to see in the final product. The Arnold & Porter in-house graphic design team created the graphic items for the App. They follow the look and feel of the blog and our corporate website.

JN: How are you promoting the App?

→  Neil: Once the App was tested and launched, we thought it was necessary to use different approaches to get the word out. We posted an announcement on the blog, on Twitter and on the home page of our law firm’s website. We reached out to the legal press and to other bloggers and sent e-mails to friends. We posted status updates on LinkedIn. We also did extensive internal promotion, a very important step, to encourage our attorneys to spread the news to those who might be interested in downloading it.

JN: How can our readers get the App and how much does it cost?

→  Neil: The Application is free. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the application by clicking here (opens iTunes link). Or  you can access the App store from your iPhone, search for  Consumer Advertising Law, and download it directly.

A Kindle version of the content is available for $.99 a month at Amazon.

JN: How successful has the App been so far?

→  Neil: While still early in our launch period, initial comments about the app have been favorable. As far as we know, Arnold & Porter is the only AmLaw 100 law firm to offer a Kindle or iPhone application for distributing their content. We’re excited about being on the forefront, and we’re looking forward to our next step now that we have this experience under our belts.

Thanks, Neil. I’m sure VMO readers will be watching for your next steps!

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more activity from law firms in the mobile space. Personally, I often access the ABA Journal, Wall Street Journal, and JDSupra apps on my iPhone. It’s so much easier than opening the web browser to read content.

What do you think? Will more law firm clients demand cross format access to your content this year? Are you asking your clients how they want to receive your content? What about Blackberry? Anyone planning a Blackberry App? Or Android users? Not there yet?

If you have any developer resources to recommend to our readers, feel free to do so – please, no advertisements.

I’ve mentioned Zemanta to my blog readers in an earlier post where I talked about online tools I can’t live without. Today I learned that in addition to making blog writing easier and richer, they’ve added integration into Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. If you haven’t yet looked into Zemanta, you might want to look now.

[Note: I do not have any professional or personal association with Zemanta, just spreading the good news. I'm all for simplifying my work while enhancing my content for readers.]

Briefly,  Zemanta [free] allows content enrichment in real-time while you type.

This is what Zemanta looks like in a WordPress post editor.

Zemanta suggest tags, links, photos, and related articles that you can add with a point and click. It works off a database of 5M+ pictures and 5M+ articles giving you 10M+ possibilities for media rich communications. It provides content from 20 sources such as Wikipedia, You Tube, IMDb, Amazon, Crunchbase, Flikr, Twitter. It works on all major blog platforms; such as WordPress, Blogger, Typepad.

You can even add it as a server side application with the [paid] professional version.

It has semantic features. And, it will recognize your friends from Twitter, Facebook and Mybloglog. With one click you can link to their profiles and find similar articles in your friends networks. This can inspire content or fill in blanks without having to troll the Internet.

They’ve added new preferences too. You can toggle on or off features such as reblog, balloons, source attribution and signature images. Zemanta also has an easy one click to reblog a paragraph from your post. A great way to make it easy to go viral.

Go to www.zemanta.com if you want to see how it works for yourself.

If you read this post and start using Zemanta, let us know how you like it.

Happy blogging! Happy emailing!

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How realistic is it for a law firm managing partner to publish a blog? Maybe a better question to ask is “How would a managing partner’s blog better serve the law firm’s clients, or not?” Too dangerous? Too time consuming? What for?

I recently sent out a Tweet and queried my networks seeking examples of law firm managing partners who blog and was disappointed by the response. Zero.  Maybe it’s my network or maybe there aren’t any. I know a number of small firm and solo lawyers rely heavily on blogging as a tool for broad exposure. Ironically, I often hear that fact used as a reason for larger firm leaders not to be blogging. “It’s fine for boutique and solo practices but it doesn’t fit in the corporate law firm model.”

Do you agree? Is it possible there is a place for a managing partner to blog? How would that tip the scales in a positive direction?

If you were (or are) a managing partner, how do you think blogging might fit in your role managing your law firm? What sort of blog would it be? Topical, special interest stuff?  Would you write for your management colleagues, clients, corporate counsel, prospects or whom? Would you be afraid of transparency? Why would you want to share your thoughts and insights? What would you fear most; the competition or your clients learning more about you and your firm?

Here’s a list from the NewPRWiki.com of corporate leaders in the U.S. that are blogging. There are many more on the list from around the world, but by far the U.S. takes the lead. I haven’t had time to check each one. But of those I browsed, it made me think…there is a place for law firm leaders in the public blogsphere, outside of walled-garden peer-to-peer networking blogs. Do you? What are your ideas? Should a managing partner stick out their neck and buck the status quo?

United States of America

• Joe Agliozzo, CEO, BetterPPC – blogging since May 10, 2004
• Paul Allen, Founding Partner, Infobase Ventures – blogging since May 2004
• Robert Amberg, Cushman/Amberg Communications, Vice President – blogging since April 17, 2006
• Scott Anderson, Director of shared content, Tribune Publishing and Interactive – blogging since April 28, 2004
• David Armano, Creative VP, Digitas
• Marc Babej, President, Reason Inc. – blogging since July 28, 2005
• John Bailey, President, John Bailey & Associates, Inc.
• Jeff Barson, CEO, Surface Medical Spas – http://www.medicalspasonline.com/
• Randy Baseler, VP of Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes – blogging since January 17, 2005
• Tiger Beaudoin, Vice President, Coalition Marketing, The Business Improvement Company – blogging since [[May 15, 2005]]
• Tom Berquist, CFO, Ingres
• Brock J. Blake, CEO, FundingUniverse.com
• Philip Blumberg, founder and CEO, American Ventures
• Matt Blumberg, CEO, Return Path – blogging since May 10, 2004
• Carole Brown, Chair, Chicago Transit Board – blogging since [[April 15, 2005]]
• Buzz Bruggeman, Founder, ActiveWords – blogging since January 10, 2002
• Harold Burson, Founding Chairman, Burson-Marsteller – blogging since February 15, 2006
• Jason McCabe Calacanis, Co-Founder & Chairman, Weblogs, Inc.
• Mark Carlson, CEO, SimpleFeed – blogging since September 24, 2004
• Brian Carroll, CEO, InTouch – blogging since Oct 31, 2003
• Jonathan Carson, CEO, BuzzMetrics – blogging since May 13, 2005
• Beth N. Carvin, Founder and CEO of Nobscot, blogging since August 23, 2002
• Karen Christensen, CEO, Berkshire Publishing Group – blogging since December 15, 2004
• David Churbuck, VP, Global Web Marketing, Lenovo – blogging since October 12, 2004
• Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner, SoftTech VC – blogging since July 22, 2004
• George F. Colony, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Forrester Research
• Henry Copeland, Founder, BlogAds – blogging since September 05, 2001
• Bob Cramer, President & CEO, LiveVault – blogging since June 3, 2005
• Colin Crawford, VP/Online, International Data Group – blogging since March 1, 2005
• Mike Critelli, Executive Chairman, Pitney Bowes, Inc. – blogging since June 12, 2007
• Michael M. Crow, Arizona State University President: The President’s Post – blogging since December 1, 2005
• Steve Cody, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Peppercom – blogging since July 11, 2005
• Marc Cuban, HDNET & Dallas Mavericks – blogging since March 12, 2004
• Dave Dargo, CTO, SVP, Ingres Corporation – blogging since March 31, 2006
• Ross Dawson, CEO, Advanced Human Technologies – blogging since October 5, 2002
• Brian Dear, Founder & CEO, EVDB, Inc. – blogging since February 1, 2002
• Joseph DePalma, CEO, Vertora, Inc. – blogging since February 17, 2005
• Chad Dickerson, CTO, InfoWorld – blogging since January 25, 2003
• Ed Dodds, Founder & CEO, <e-dodds.communications/> – blogging { in a manner of speaking } since December 23, 1996
• Scott Dow, founder, The Empower Network, blogging since September 14, 2004
• John Dragoon, Chief Marketing Officer, Novell
• Michael Dunn, VP, Hearst Interactive Media – blogging since January 19, 2002
• Tim Dyson, CEO, Next Fifteen, blogging since November 11, 2004
• Richard Edelman, President & CEO, Edelman – blogging since September 29, 2004
• Demian Entrekin, CEO, Project Arena – blogging since july 20, 2005
• John Estafanous, President, Estco Medical – blogging since December 16, 2004
• Brad Feld, Mobius Venture Capital – blogging since May 4, 2004
• Bill Flitter, CEO of Pheedo – blogging since February 29, 2004
• John S Flowers, Founder, nCircle Network Security & kozoru, Inc. – blogging since Feb 1, 2003
• Gil Friend, CEO, Natural Logic – blogging since June 11, 2002
• Leslie Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist, Weber Shandwick
  • reputationXchange – blogging since May 20, 2006
  • reputation*watch (November 18, 2005–May 20, 2006)
• Scott Gatz, Senior Director of Personalization Products, Yahoo! – blogging since October 1, 2005
• Bahar Gidwani, CEO, Index Stock Imagery – blogging since June 24, 2004
• Frank Gilbane, President and CEO, Bluebill Advisors, Inc. – blogging since January 8, 2005
• Kathleen Gilroy, CEO, The Otter Group – blogging since February 20, 2004
• David Geller, CEO, WhatCounts, blogging since February 15, 2005
• Frank Gens, Senior Vice President – Research, IDC
• Terry Gold, CEO, Gold Systems – blogging since November 12, 2004
• Steve Goldstein, CEO, Alacra – blogging since March 23, 2004
• Dave Gray, Founder & CEO, XPLANE – blogging since August 21, 2005
• Diane Greene, President, VMware, Inc. – blogging since April 2, 2006
• Rex Hammock, President of Hammock Publishing, Inc. – blogging since August 28, 2000
• Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs – MarketingProfs Daily Fix
• Christopher Hannegan, SVP, U.S. Director of Employee Engagement, Edelman – blogging since May 18, 2005
• Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO, Sxip Networks – blogging since May 1, 2004
• Peter Himler, President, Publicity Club of New York, Principal, Flatiron Communications, LLC – blogging since June 2004
• Gene Hoffman, Co-founder and CEO, Vindicia – blogging since September 5, 2001
• Bradley Horowitz, Director, Technology Development Group of Yahoo! Search & Marketplace – blogging, since February 16, 2006
• JB Holston, CEO of NewsGator – blogging since June 4, 2003
• John Honovich, CEO/President, MaxPPS (maximum level physical protection systems) – blogging since April 7, 2005
• Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson Publishers
  • Working Smart – blogging since April 28, 2004
  • From Where I Sit – since March 29, 2005
• Kingsley Idehen, Founder and CEO, OpenLink Software – blogging since May 5, 2003
• Salim Ismail, Chairman and Co-founder, PubSub – blogging since December 13, 2005
• F. Nicholas Jacobs, President & CEO, Windber Research Institute and Windber Medical Center – http://windberblog.typepad.com/
• Jeff Jaffe, CTO, Novell – blogging since April 3, 2006
• Jeff Jarvis, President & Creative Director of Advance.nett – blogging since September 23, 2001
• Leslie Jump, CEO, Jump Walker International Group – http://www.marketerblog.net/
• Adam Kalsey, VP, thinkSMALL Advertising Network – blogging since March 11, 2000
• Sab Kanaujia, VP, NBC Digital Media group – blogging since December 2, 2006
• Dave Kellogg, President and CEO, Mark Logic Corporation – blogging since August 22, 2005
• Michael Kempner, President/CEO, MWW Group
• Denise Klarquist, VP of Operations, Cheskin – blogging since March 4, 2003
• Eric Kintz, Vice President, Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence, Hewlett-Packard Company – blogging since April 5, 2006
• Joe Kraus, co-founder and CEO, JotSpot, blogging since September 14, 2004
• Pran Kurup, President & CEO, Vitalect Technologies, blogging since July 8, 2004
• Jim Lejeal, CEO, Oxlo Systems – blogging since Sept 1, 2004
• Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman, America Online, blogging since January 4, 2006
• [1]Paul Levy, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Boston, MA
• Jamie Lewis, CEO and Research Chair, Burton Group
• Phil Libin, CEO, Corestreet – blogging since February 2, 2004
• Bob Liodice, President and CEO, Association of National Advertisers – blogging since March 18, 2004
• Randy Littleson, VP, Marketing, Kinaxis – blogging since august 2005
• Steven Lubetkin, Managing Partner, Lubetkin & Co. Communications LLC, blogging since February 24, 2005.
• Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General Motors Corporation – blogging since January 5, 2005
• Kevin Lynch, Chief Software Architect, Macromedia – blogging since February 2, 2003
• Don MacAskill, CEO and Founder, smugmug – blogging since November, 1994 (entry lost to bitrot )
• Kenneth D. Makovsky, President, Makovsky + Company – blogging since January 9, 2006
• John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market – http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jm/
• David Manaster, CEO, ERE Media, Inc – blogging since June 8, 2005
• Pat Matthews, CEO and Co-founder, Excedent Technologies & Webmail.us – blogging since October 7, 2004
• Tom Markiewicz, President & CEO, EvolvePoint, Inc. – http://www.tmarkiewicz.com/
• J. Willard Marriott Jr., CEO, Marriott International – http://www.blogs.marriott.com/
• Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext – blogging since October 14, 2002
• Alan Meckler, CEO, Jupiter Media – blogging since December 6, 2003
• Robert Mendez, CEO, NetHawk Interactive – blogging since April 5, 2004
• Christopher Mengel, Razorwest: http://razorwest.typepad.com/marketing/
• Chris Mercer, CEO, Mercer Capital – blogging since April 2, 2005
• Lisa Meyers Brown, VP for Marketing, American Cancer Society’s Eastern Division, blogging since March 9, 2005
• Greg Milliken, CEO, Alibre, Inc.
• Ryan Money, CEO & Founder, HireVue, blogging since February 11, 2006
• Marty Morrow, CEO and founder, Quovix.com – blogging since 2002
• Vassil Mladjov, founder and CEO, Blogtronix – blogging since May 11, 2004
• Craig Newmark, customer service rep and founder, craigslist.org – blogging since September 11, 2003
• Ray Ozzie, former Founder, Chairman & CEO, Groove Networks – blogging since August 1, 2002; currently Chief Technical Officer of Microsoft, blogging at http://spaces.msn.com/members/rayozzie/Blog/
• Justin Rattner, CTO, Intel
• Tom O’Neill, CEO, Exodus Capital Advisors – blogging since April 25, 2005
• Kirsten Osolind, CEO, re:invention, inc. – blogging since July 11, 2003
• Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO, KDPaine& Partners, LLC – blogging since March 8, 2005
• Greg Papadopoulos, CTO, Sun Microsystems, blogging since February 7, 2005
• Bob Parsons, President, godaddy.com – blogging since December 16, 2004
• John R. Patrick, former Vice president of Internet Technology at IBM, on the boards of many organizations, including Opera Software, Jupiter Media and the Global Internet Project – blogging since August 17, 1997
• Michael Powell, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – blogging since July 7, 2004
  • … but is it a blog? Om Malik says it’s not. What do YOU think?
• Bob Pritchett, President, Logos Bible Software – blogging since August 14, 2003
• Jeff Pulver, CEO, Pulver.com – blogging since July 6, 2003
• Paul Purdue, President, iFulfill.com – blogging since May 2, 2005
• Kate Purmal, CEO, U3 – blogging since July 7, 2006
• Michael Pusateri, VP of Engineering, Disney ABC Cable Networks Group, blogging since January 21, 2000
• Peter Quintas, CTO, Silkware – blogging since April 21, 2004
• Darrel Rhea, Principal and CEO of Cheskin, blogging since April 9, 2003
• Glen Reid, CEO, Five Across – blogging since July 3, 2004
• Ed Roberto, CEO, Newmerix – blogging since Sept 30, 2004
• Will Ruch, Versant CEO and Managing Partner, blogging since March 1, 2005
• Eric Rudder, SVP Servers and Tools, Microsoft Corporation (the most senior Microsoft blogger?) – blogging since May 20, 2003
• Scott Ryan, CEO, architel – http://pd.architel.com/
• Andy Sack, CEO, Judy’s Book – blogging since Sept 17, 2004
• John Scherer, CEO & Founder, Video Professor, blogging since February 25, 2005
• Jonathan Schwartz, COO, Sun Microsystems – blogging since June 28, 2004
• Mark E. Seremet, CEO, Spreadshirt US – http://www.spreadshirtmedia.com/weblog/
• Steve Shu, COO, 21Publish – blogging since February 23, 2005
• Mark Sieczkarek, CEO, Conceptus Inc. – http://blog.conceptus.com/subtext/
• David Sifry, Founder and CEO of Technorati – blogging since January 8, 2002
• Steven Silvers, Principal and Director, GBSM – blogging since June 14, 2005
• Michael Smith, CEO, EntertainCom – blogging since March 10. 2005
• Anne Stanton, President and CEO, The Norwich Group – blogging since May 3, 2004
• Roger T. Staubach, chairman of the board and CEO, The Staubach Company – http://roger.staubach.com/
• Joshua Steimle, CEO, MWI – blogging since June 5, 2003
• Steven Streight, President, Streight Site Systems – blogging since May 31, 2004
• David Teten, CEO, Nitron Advisors – blogging since February 27, 2004
• Michael Tiemann, CTO, Red Hat
• Mena Trott, Co-founder and President, Six Apart – blogging since April 3, 2001
• Greg Verdino, VP/Emerging Channels, DIGITAS LLC
• Jeff Weiner, Senior VP of Search and Marketplace, Yahoo! – blogging since March 27, 2005
• Will Weider, CIO, Affinity Health Systems – blogging since June 7, 2003
• Alan L. Weinkrantz, President, Alan Weinkrantz And Company – blogging since December 1, 2004
• Joe Wikert, Vice President and Publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Professional/Trade division, blogging since February 19, 2005
• Steve Wilson, Senior Director of Global Web Communications, McDonald’s – blogging since September 18, 2005
• Charlie Wood, VP of Enterprise Solutions, NewsGator Technologies
• Bob Wyman, CTO and co-founder, PubSub, blogging since September 2, 2003
• Lester Wunderman, Chairman Emeritus and Founder, Wunderman – blogging since September 20, 2006
• Hu Yoshida, VP and CTO, Hitachi Data Systems – blogging since October 20, 2005
• Scott Young, President and CEO, UserLand Software – blogging since November 17, 2003

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There’s a healthy discussion over on Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch following Bob Ambrogi’s post “The Demise of the Legal Blogsphere.” The centerpiece of the discussion is a blog post by Mike Cernovich at the blog Crime & Federalism who believes the legal blogsphere has gone to pot.

Cover your ears and guard your hearts, my marketing friends, because Cernovich sums it up by blaming YOU!

He says:

“The modern legal blogosphere sucks because it’s been overrun by legal marketers, and because people who might be able to engage in actually-interesting conversations are too busy sucking up to their e-friends and e-colleagues.”

Mike Cernovich seems to think that the legal blogsphere has gone to pot. No, he’s not suggesting that legal bloggers want to legalize marijuana to solve the California deficit, rather, blogging is being “overrun by shallow marketing and exclusive cliques.”

Curiously, Ambrogi thinks he makes some good points, so you might want to link over there and ponder his thoughts and contribute to the conversation.

Cernovich’s post feeds off of the perspective of   11D, which offers an unflattering assessment of legal bloggers who, “have undermined the blogosphere and that both bloggers and readers are burned out.”

I admit that a recent browse through of Alltop’s Legal Category did turn up some pretty marginal, watered-down, self-serving and even lame stuff, yet, I’m not ready to concede the value of the blogsphere, both legal and otherwise.

It’s easy to dismiss the blogs that are blatantly pitching to the marketplace, so that’s a non-issue in my opinion.

The beauty that bloggers provide to my life is that I get to pick, specifically, what I want to feed my brain every day. Yes, there’s a multitude of choices, but I’m working through it and better for it. In fact, I’m publishing my own daily newspaper via Feedly. Using the Feedly tool, a magazine like dashboard/start page, I no longer need to subscribe to a ton of newspapers, thus reducing my carbon footprint. Actually, I quit my subscriptions not to save the environment, but to exercise my freedom of choice. I no longer have to depend on the Chief Editor of the New York Times, Miami Herald, or Wall Street Journal to decide what I should be reading, and what journalists I should trust  every morning while enjoying my café con leche.

Using Feedly, I’ve created a newspaper like experience that feeds the content of my favorite citizen journalists along side of mainstream media reporting. I aggregate business, personal interest, politics, health, technology, finance, entertainment, shopping, and social news drawing from blogs, newspapers and social network status updates (that usually include great links to articles that my friends and colleagues are reading). I like that I receive content from relevant and reliable sources. I read material from thought leaders in my industry, content from contrarians, artists and humorists. Feedly also suggests related content based on the RSS feeds I subscribe to. This is exactly what the Huffington Post publishes, only mine is better.

Bottom line, I look forward to finding new bloggers or old bloggers with new blogs to follow. I benefit from having real time chatter via my Twitter, Facebook, JD Supra and Linkedin networks served up each morning in my personal newspaper, along with a good morning Twitter world from @nancymyrland and, of course, my café con leche.

Blogging is evolving perfectly for me, thanks to advances in aggregation tools. I say, long live blogging. What do you say? Are the blogs you’re developing for your attorneys and law firms too heavy on marketing or are they contributing to the information stew? How are they making a difference?

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I just got back from a little trip around the legal blogsphere and I was pretty surprised to find that A LOT of blogs written by lawyers and law professors don’t use Categories. What’s up with that?

Categories help readers navigate your blog.

As a blog reader, a blog without Categories is like a restaurant without a menu. Why lawyer bloggers aren’t including Category menus in their sidebar is a puzzle to me.

Categories are a navigational convention. Readers browsing a well-designed category structure will benefit from the organization and will likely stay on your site longer, read more content, and be more likely to subscribe to a feed.

I’m a big fan of Categories. They help me to efficiently cover a lot of real estate in the least amount of time. ProBlogger recently suggested that blog owners  watch a first time visitor read your blog. It is an interesting exercise that should help you understand what’s important to your readers and why and how they navigate your blog. If you were to watch me visit your blog for the first time this is what you’d see….

After I skim the post I linked to, I will rely on your Categories to learn more about you and your focus. Your Categories will help me to determine if I want to subscribe to your feed. If there are no Categories on your site, you’ll probably lose me as a reader because I will likely scan your blogroll and find something interesting there, and leave your site.

Archives? –Too much trouble. Search? -If I know what I’m looking for, A-OK. Calendars? –Like a box of chocolates, you never know what’s inside. Categories? –essential.

Don’t make me think too hard either.

I don’t want a zillion Categories – why bother. Here’s an example where it looks like  the blogger created a separate category for each blog post.  The Trademark Blog In all fairness, this blog is 7 years old. (WOW!) There is a lot of great content that covers a lot of ground.  However, it’s not a bad thing to retool categories every year.

I want the Category names to be clear, and I want them to be consistent –in tone and style. This eliminates guesswork, enhances my reading experience, and brands the blog in my mind.

I want the Category menu to tell me how many posts are in each category -that helps me to know which Category the blogger is more fluent in or passionate about. For a good example of a category list see Adam Smith, ESQ

Like newspapers have conventions making them easier to read, the best blogs will also follow some well-established conventions. One of those is Categories in a drop down menu on the right sidebar. Takes up less space than a list and is just as easy to use. I like an original and attractive blog face, but not a tricky interface -Category menu is in the right sidebar.

This blog, Crime and Consequences, changed the name Categories to Issues. No big deal, but it tripped me up the first time I visited.

Don’t give me a category that I can’t understand; e.g. Expressions of Cleverness.   Surprises are good when it comes to the prize in a box of cracker jacks, but not when I’m browsing your content and have limited time to do so.

Multi-author blogs sometimes use the Categories feature to separate out each author. Here’s an example: The University of Chicago Law School Faculty blog

A name tells me nothing about what I’m going to find within that Category.  It will probably lead me somewhere that I don’t have time to go so I leave.  I understand the practicality of the organization in the mind of the blog owner, but I personally think this is an ineffective use of Categories.

I don’t mind if you make your Categories into Pages. The Categories then become your primary navigation. It’s becoming more conventional, especially for blogs with very focused content. Using Categories as navigational architecture moves your blog into more of a traditional Web site. It replaces those non-descript  About Us, Practice Areas, Attorneys pages, and so on.

Two good examples of blogs that use Categories as Pages in the top nav bar are  Biker Law blog and Scotusblog.com

Categories, are probably more important to me than to most. (Maybe I’ll add it as a Category!)  The non-use of Categories takes me back to the days when law firm Web sites were new. Their interface just didn’t make it easy for the visitor to find real content.

I know this blog has readers, so what think you? How do you use Categories? Do you think Categories are as important as I do?

For those readers who fall into the small-town-upbringing category….Happy May DAY!