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People talk about the need for great content on your legal blog, and I agree completely. But once you get over the hump of, “What the *&^&*&^ do I talk about?” you’ve still got a huge hurdle to overcome – your voice.
It’s one thing to have something to say. It’s a whole other ball of wax to be able to say it in a way that’s interesting and compelling for your readers and potential clients. Because if you’re not interesting, the content won’t get read no matter how good it is.
Take, for example, a consumer bankruptcy lawyer. He’s looking to reach out to people who are in financial trouble so that he can educate them about their rights. His client’s tend to be consumers (as opposed to businesses) and, though sophisticated, they aren’t lawyers or academics.
Convinced by the blogpunditry (I’m using my word again – has it caught on yet? No?) that he needs to hop on the blogging bandwagon, our friend the lawyer hits on an issue that surely will interest his potential clients. That issue is whether the bankruptcy trustee will interfere in the right to sue someone for personal injury damages.
So off our friend goes to write an article that he titles, “Choses Of Action In Bankruptcy Court – Assignments To The Estate.” And guess what? The article gets no major traction, his readers flee screaming, and even the lawyers in his community are left wondering what the heck he’s talking about.
Now let’s change the story just a bit. Our friend writes an article that is titled, “The Effect Of Filing For Bankruptcy On Your Right To Sue For Personal Injuries.” Eureka! People who are interested in the topic read it (because they can understand what our friend is talking about). If the rest of the article is valuable, maybe they save it or pass it along. People hire our bankruptcy lawyer buddy because he clearly understands what he’s talking about.
Why? Because in the second illustration, he’s got congruence.
Congruence is a simple concept. It pertains to a state of rapport, of consistency. In psychology congruence is perceived by others as sincerity, which yields increased trust. But in the context of blogging, that rapport is established by writing the same way your prospective clients talk in their heads.
I’m not talking about being grammatically correct. I’m not talking about using proper punctuation. Heck, I’m not even talking about using real worlds (notice my uncanny ability to insert the word, “blogpunditry” here?). Rather, it’s important to find a tone that engages the reader.
Rather than go into lawyer-mode when you write, take some time first to listen to the way your clients talk. Not the gist of what they’re saying, but the actual words and phrases. How they structure their sentences, their thoughts and their ideas. Once you’ve done this for a short time (it could be as little as a single day) you can start to write.
When writing a blog post, pretend that you’re writing a personal letter to one of your clients. You can even put “Dear John,” in the draft version if that helps your imagination. By writing to an individual client, one who you know already, you can more easily establish congruence and find a voice to which that client can relate.
Is it easy? Not at first. You’re so used to writing like a lawyer that it’s difficult to break free and regain your humanity. But I promise that once you’ve been at it for a little while it gets easier.
So what’s your tactic for getting people to read, stick around and come back to your law blog? Share in the comments section below!
Photo courtesy of yugenro.
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Researching for my PHD thesis. Nice blog on “legal blogging”. A good place to fine the “best lawyers” is at http://atlanta-lawyers.info