Marketing Communications

Do Blogs Offer Value? Or, R They Just Marketing Messages?
Blog Tips, Marketing Communications

Do Blogs Offer Value? Or, R They Just Marketing Messages?

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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 going to pot 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, according to Ambrogi, 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. Read more…

How to Structure a Social Media Plan
Best Practices, Social Computing, Strategy

How to Structure a Social Media Plan

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Although the slowdown is taking a different shape in different industries, much of our economy today is digital, including the way in which sophisticated consumers are researching purchases, reconnecting with distant friends, expanding business connections, and seeking value and opportunity. Makes perfect sense that marketers –would flock to where their clientele are hanging out online, participating in social media and shopping.

What do marketers need from the social Web?

Adding social media to the marketing mix is no longer the novelty it was a mere 18 months ago. With a relatively low barrier to entry and even lower price tag, suddenly online media is taking on the appearance of a feeding frenzy. Plus it’s noisy, so you need a plan.

Use the “five needs” that online media meets to help you shape your plan. Scale, Target, Measure, Adapt, and Cost

Facebook Friday – Law Firm Fan Pages
Marketing Communications, Social Networking, Web 2.0

Facebook Friday – Law Firm Fan Pages

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In the interest of transparency, I am enthusiastic about social Web tools and particularly Facebook. Continuing in my series of Facebook Fridays, today’s post will address: Should a law firm have a Fan Page and if so, what should it look like?

If you haven’t seen it action, you’ve probably at least heard about how Dell or Zappos, the poster children for companies using social media, are creating revenue and positively impacting their brand in Social Media. According to various reports, most other companies, retail or B2B, have barely gotten started; law firms are no exception.

An April 2009 article on Adweek.com confirms that law firms are not alone:

“Thousands of brands from large, medium and small companies… crossed that hurdle a few years ago of making a Web site. But they are not yet waking up to the fact that the Internet is not just about parking your information somewhere and hoping people stumble across it somehow. You have to be active for anyone to notice…. Companies obviously know Twitter and blogs and Facebook. They just don’t know how they fit in. ”

Most law firm marketers are slow to increase social media in their marketing mix. It’s looked upon as mostly experimental and they invest only as time and priorities permit.