Legal Blogs - Why are they undervalued?

Charley With iBook
Originally uploaded by Hackintosh

Judith Middleton (partner at Latimer Hinks Solcitors), Anne Elliott (partner) and myself write blogs. All are very different.

Social Networking Guineapig follows the success of Judith's Divorce Blog and Anne's Tax Planning Blog as well as providing the opportunity to flag up events, press stories which Latimer Hinks publish.

We are a 9 partner firm and so far I have only managed to recruit 2 partners in this blogging experiment.

I recently came across an article from KMSpace - Why are legal blogs undervalued? It's well worth reading, there are also links to other articles of interest.

Here is my blog on Why Blog - the advantages

The reasons that Latimer Hinks have developed blogs as an added marketing initiative are given below in a quote from KMSpace (we seem to be on the same wavelength!)

Blogging, like any marketing or networking activity is about building your brand. With lawyers and other professionals that means showing your expertise, engaging in conversations about your expertise and publishing your expertise. Blogs allow all of these. And certainly do a better job than most firm's rather static websites.

Once you start a blog it's interesting (and addictive) to monitor how much traffic is directed to the firm's website. Traffic that would not have arrived there probably by any other means.

All you need to do is "give it a try". It's free and your marketing budget will stretch further!

Why Blog? - the Advantages

Because, as Nick Holmes of Internet Newsletter for Lawyers says

"

Blogging is the most successful and relevant Web 2.0 network and that's not going to change anytime soon

"

Surprisingly, many are unaware of the strength that a blog can provide for a website in support of business. Flexibility is one of it's main strengths and this is often overlooked.

Blogs are commonly referred to as being "just a diary" but blogs have now evloved into something much more - a platform to promote business, an opportunity to educate readers and the potential to reach a massive internet audience.

It's also free, apart from giving your time to blog of course.

Advantages of Blogging

• Blogs boost online branding, they create and awareness of your product/service
• Blogs have the potential to develop stronger relationships with it's Clients/customers. They provide an approachable "human face" for the business
• Blogs provide an excellent way of sharing information/knowledge. The reader/Client is better informed.
• Blog feeds can be distributed as RSS through services such as Feedburner for further optimisation
• Blogs allow you to interact with your customer base. Blogs offer you the option of enabling a "comments" field where readers can give you feedback, you will have at your disposal an effective and inexpensive way to get to know your Clients/customers better.
• Blogs build up the profile of the author. The firm/author will be showcased as having talent/expertise
• Blogs create an environment where not only the author, but all the participants can share ideas and opinions on a diverse range of subjects and learn from each other.
• Blogs are search-engine-friendly and since blogs are updated regularly, search engines will "crawl" them more often and add your new posts to their index
• Blogs provide a great tool for media and PR. The cost benefits of blogging are "peanuts" compared to tv or newspaper campaigns

As you can see the advantages are numerous. Blogs are a great way to communicate and used correctly will be of great benefit to a business.