JD Scoop : JD Supra’s Blog : Content Publishing, Document Sharing, Expertise Marketing for Legal Professionals

Interesting blog post yesterday by Kevin O'Keefe at LexBlog on the practice of presence marketing. Kevin's post is in response to another on the topic by Technosailor's Aaron Brazell (titled Effective Presence Marketing in Social Media).

The idea (quoting Kevin quoting Aaron):

Presence Marketing is the recognition and exposure that a person or company gets simply by being there. Where is there? It is simply anywhere that people are.

... By being active on blogs, social networks or any other format that places a high dividend on visibility, companies and brands are engaging in Presence Marketing.

Straightforward enough. And as Kevin says: "Lawyers do online presence marketing through effective blogging and the making use of social media."

He cites as an example Francis Pileggi whose blog content (and its subsequent syndication in high profile places like the WSJ) has created for him "a brand name in the area of Delaware corporate litigation."

In other words: be there. Participate.

For members of the legal industry this means, among other things, participating on the targeted, destination websites that do a good job of aggregating useful legal information - lots of it - to a wide audience of consumers and colleagues. You participate by sharing your work; that's our model.

The destination websites also influence search results. If for a moment we only consider how people use the search engines  - how they find information, services, other people online - we see again why presence marketing is so crucial. To whit:


- If people don't know who you are (don't know your name, your firm's name) the dynamics of online search today are such that they'll more likely stumble upon your work before they ever find you.

Search engines like Yahoo! and Google are not directories (although Yahoo! once was). In general terms, they don't catalogue the web, site by site - they index it, page by page. And they match what's been indexed to some pretty darn specific queries. The search engines don't simply deliver website listings; they deliver the most relevant information they can find.

Of course this applies not just to searching the engines but also jumping to those destination sites. The more substantive pages of work you publish online, the more chances you have of being "relevant," of being noticed in the crowd. Someone finds your work; as a consequence they find you. A single website is no longer enough, as if it ever was.

(What if there wasn't any work? People probably wouldn't find you, your website.)


- If people do know who you are (know your name, your firm's name), you already have an online presence, whether you want one or not.

This is true even if the search results come up empty (which is, simply, the weakest kind of online presence of all). We've said this already in another context: in the age of Google, you will be Googled.

Do you happen to know what a referral or prospective client will find among the search results, when they inevitably Google you? Whatever the answer, that's your online presence.

Never before have you had so many opportunities to manage what is seen of you online. Publishing work on the Internet is not just presence marketing, it's presence management.

From high-visibility destinations (information portals) to search engine results, the question becomes: what are you doing to manage your online presence?

Two recent posts by Kevin O'Keefe at Lexblog caught our attention. (You should be reading Kevin daily if you're not already: real lawyers not only have blogs, they also read 'em.)

The first responds to the perceived difficulty of generating good (marketing) content. A  case for blogs, the post included the following points which especially resonate with our thinking here at JD Supra:

• Lawyers like the immediacy of seeing content on [the] net. They see something they want to share with clients, prospective clients, bloggers, and reporters and it's up in a day - or even immediately.
• [The] viral marketing bounce of blogs motivates lawyers. Content found on Google. Calls from reporters. Requests to speak at conferences. Content automatically syndicated to third party publications...

Kevin's other post is a response to the notion, paraphrased here, that the only reason for an online presence (blog, website, whatever) is to achieve high rankings in Google. Incorrect, says Kevin - and we agree with him.

The various networking and publishing tools available online today are indeed highly effective (for referrals, exposure, networking, marketing, promotion - you name it), but  they mean nothing if not backed up by quality work.  To whit:

Rise above the pack. Be the lawyer you want to be in the area of law for which you have a passion... Establish a reputation that's not fleeting. It can be done via online networking through effective blogging - not by just being at the top of Google.

Strong arguments not only for blogging but also for posting your daily work - briefs, articles, and the rest - online.  If a good blog post takes less than half an hour to write, consider how long it takes to upload a document already created during the course of your work, that shows in clear terms your expertise and quality level. Mere minutes.

One blog post won't establish your reputation; blogging for the sake of blogging won't establish your reputation, either. But over time, if you use the online tools available to you - use them for all they are worth (and that's a lot!) - you can effectively extend your brand, your reputation, online.

We're with Kevin. Start a blog. But also let your daily work speak for itself. When next you go looking for new marketing content, start with the documents already at your disposal. Build a professional profile and get them online.

In other words: Give Content. Get Noticed.