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Remember 2004 and 2005? Remember when you first heard about blogging, that new ability to post articles online to “get your name out there”? It started out as an online journal for random musings, then steamrolled into the hottest search engine optimization tactic out there.
Lawyers, slow on the uptake, began to get hooked on this new medium for showing off their knowledge. It was a slow burn that would have done Jack Benny proud – a gradual realization that this was an awesome way to give out information to an adoring crowd.
And for awhile, it worked. Put up a blog post, watch it get indexed by Google, shoot to the top of the search engines and claim the #1 spot for … well, for whatever you happened to be talking about.
Over the past few months I’ve been seeing more bankruptcy lawyers start to blog. They join the more entrenched players in the space, jockeying to overtake those of us in pole position.
The newbies are trying to win a race, and the old timers think they’re so far ahead that nobody can catch them.
Both are wrong. And I know I’m going to anger some of my regular readers by saying so.
Why?
Because blogging – though a good part of online marketing – is not nearly enough anymore. The proliferation of blogs has made the space far more crowded, which means it’s tougher than ever to get to the top of the search engines. But more to the point is the fact that there are so many OTHER platforms that are ranking highly on their own accord.
Take, for example, video. Industry estimates show that YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, garnering more than 100 million unique visitors per month in the U.S. Still, Google receives only about 40.9% of the online video traffic online.
Think about this -some 77.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience watches online video, according to ComScore.
Wow.
So we’ve got video hot on the trail of blogging. But wait (as they say on the infomercials), there’s more.
Social media is out there, too. For any given search, chances are pretty good that Twitter, LinkedIn, Avvo, Facebook, JDSupra, Ezinearticles or another site shows up. In fact, Ezinearticles – the biggest article directory – is sporting about 13 million visitors a month. Twitter’s getting about 23 million visitors a month.
Look at it as a big bucket and you’ll easily find that blogging is not enough to make a full impact.
So what do you do to make an impact in the online space? You need to differentiate yourself, to make a statement, and to be in as many places as humanly possible. Own your name. Get on YouTube. Create an active Facebook profile. Take the time to learn about Twitter, and how to leverage it without driving yourself crazy.
Sure, you should blog. And have a static website. But it isn’t enough – at least, not anymore.
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Jay – You are exactly right. However, if I might point out one key problem with blogging. As you say, new bloggers are putting up new blogs each week. And that is good. The problem is that most of them don’t follow through with the blog and actually post to it on a regular and consistent basis.
Too many legal bloggers think all they have to do is throw up this thing called a blog and it will be the magic pill. They don’t post to it and they then blame blogging for it not working. These same solos or firms start talking negative about blogging because they feel it, blogging, is not working. When in fact, they failed to work blogging.
Blogging works and should be a major part of a marketing plan. Blogging however takes work from the blogger to make it work. If you are not willing to give it a commitment to make it work, don’t do a blog.
I agree that putting up a blog does not immediately make it successful. The key is to make a commitment to your marketing plan and to remain consistent with that commitment for long-term gain. Excellent point as always, Grant.
Jay,
My G2WebMedia blog was published in August 2008. I didn’t have a blogging routine until this month. After reading your post here and Grant’s Comment, I returned to my blog to see the frequency of publishing post and pages. For me, joining Twitter and reading your tweets and other and carefully following Blog For Profit’s emails, I really look forward to publishing a post or page on my blog, then using a shorter URL application to copy to Twitter and Facebook. Some post and pages are better than others, however, I am getting involved. I agree with you and Grant. Thanks for the post. Brian
Jay, you could not be more correct. I’m an Arizona bankruptcy lawyer, and I’ve watched as blogs and blogging have become epidemic in Phoenix.
And while I believe that blogging is still very useful, because your clients can learn a lot about the bankruptcy process by reading your bankruptcy blog, I’m watching lawyers with youtube.com spots rocket to the top of search engines, even if they’re NOT board certified, or av rated, or avvo 10 bankruptcy lawyers.
So I guess my next step is to do more work on linkedin.com, facebook.com, and, yes, dig out a camera and do a spot or nine for youtube.com!
And by the way, your advice is priceless, and I appreciate it; please keep up the good work!
Speaking of video, your article prompted and interesting idea from my wife/paralegal. i am thinking of ordering tapes of a couple of my recent 341 meetings, transcribing it into a script and making a video show a reenact a real 341 meeting. It would be part of an effort to show the clients what really goes on on order to prepare them for the meeting of creditors.
I already upload my TV appearances to YouTube and post them on my blog, but this gives me a whole new perspective on how to use video as a promotion too.
Great idea!
Excellent points from a blogger who always makes sense both inside and outside his niche. Blogging has its place – but traffic will increase in a linear fashion with frequency of posting, and decrease exponentially if you let your blog grow stagnant. Better to have no blog at all than one gathering cobwebs.
In my opinion, the “magic” of video isn’t even so much that it is video – it is that it is hosted on a site that gets so much traffic (YouTube) that Google assigns it a high authority ranking. So if a site with such a high authority ranking points back to your own – boom – halo effect. This can also be leveraged by publishing written articles to a high-ranked site like eZinearticles.com – the key is inbound links from sites with high authority.
While blogging is great, it’s still not inbound linking of the quality money just can’t buy. Unless, of course, you can manage to place a guest post on a high-ranked blog in your area.
Search engine optimization issues aside, video helps prospective clients feel like they’ve already “met” you – thereby taking away some of their trepidation about stepping forward.
Jay & Grant,
You guys obviously know what you’re talking about. That’s why I have worked and continue to work with both of you.
Yes, blogging like any other form of marketing, requires commitment, consistency and just a lot of old-fashioned hard work if it’s going to be successful. But the return on investment can be huge compared to most other marketing that I have done. I’m continually amazed at the very minimal expense associated with launching and maintaining a blog as compared to the costs of other marketing options.
But Jay is right in that we bloggers can’t be complacent and just maintain the status quo. That’s why I’m going to continue to strive to post good content on a regular basis, but also work on incorporating some pizazz such as graphics and self-produced video.
And even though I’m sold on blogging (thanks for introducing me Grant) and it will continue to be a huge piece of my marketing pie, I’m not going to get all comfortable and put all my eggs in the blogging basket so to speak. That wouldn’t be any wiser than the old lawyers who choose to rely on just a Yellow Pages ad. With the ever-increasing pace of change in marketing and technology, who knows what next year will bring?
I think we need to take the “Tim the Toolman Taylor” approach. Everytime something new came up, they’d scream “We’ve got a new tool!” and try it out.
We’ve got to try everything, especially if it is cheap.
Also, FYI, don’t just trust the backups of your web-site, back up all your text into a separate file, I’m still not recovered from my crash.
Jay-
Terrific article. You are right on the money – internet marketing involves much more than blogging (and I am a blog evangelist, but that is just the foundation; the table stakes). Online video, link building, and social media all have to play a roll in your internet marketing plan to be competitive.
I also agree, being on the internet is not just something you do now and then, it has to be a lifestyle. It has to be your primary form of communication with the public. You can’t delegate it to someone else, because chances are they do not know enough about either bankruptcy or about internet marketing. You need to be committed to getting out new blogposts, webpages, articles, and tweets on a daily basis. I find that I often do well only to have a couple of busy days when I fall behind and fail to come up with new material. I think I need to dedicate 30 minutes a day to jogging and 30 minutes a day to online marketing, both when I wake up in the morning before I go to court!