One of my concerns about printed materials related to online marketing is that by the time the book is published - the content is already out of date. However, "LinkedIn and Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age" is not only an excellent resource for legal online marketing, but also a great example of how to keep printed materials relevant in this ever increasing digital age.
Co-authored by legal marketing veterans Adrian Dayton and Amy Knapp, the book provides a structure that is easy to navigate and understand and is written in a manner that is useful to both the beginner as well as the more advanced online marketer.
Building on their individual strengths, the first half of the book, penned by Knapp focuses on LinkedIn. She draws in the reader with some interesting stats about how the business social network is growing in leaps and bounds and is already a global phenomenon in over 200 countries and regions. She highlights the fundamentals about LinkedIn, and how it offers an easy to use platform enabling attorneys to reach out to new business contacts and facilitate communication. The chapters walk through the best way to develop a presence on LinkedIn, through building a network of connections and understanding the best ways to use the various applications - whether they be used to share information about travel and event attendance or to promote an article or white paper. Knapp offers practical tips and tricks to ensure that you are being efficient and effective with LinkedIn. Even attorneys who have "no time" for online marketing will be pleased, as this book really does much of the legwork for you by providing best practices, action items, step by step instructions and useful case studies.
Dayton authored the second half of the book focused on blogs and starts out strong with excellent advice regarding blogs - highlighting that posts should be focused on the challenges of your potential customers. Each chapter opens with an personal anecdote, gives the reader an assignment and presents information in a easy to read bulleted style. Dayton gives the reader a great primer of what having a blog is really all about - the time commitment, the associated costs (often overlooked but important), what kind of blog to consider, but also the potential rewards when it is done well. The chapter on how to draft a blog post offers five easy steps to having your first post ready to go. He discusses analytics in detail in order understand the types of metrics offered by blog platforms used measure success as well as the outside providers and how to make sense of information available from sources such as Google Analytics.
The value in this book is really found through its personal style and real life examples. Even if you or your attorneys tout themselves as a social media guru, this book definitely deserves a place next to your computer, where it will be a great reference for techniques to leverage these digital tools. I anticipate that this book will be instrumental in increasing the number of attorneys at my firm using these tools and using them well.
By Deborah Leitner, Business Development Manager for Environmental, Climate, and Intellectual Property at McKenna Long & Adridge LLP for for the March/April 2012 Issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.