First, let it be known that I love Carolyn Elefant. She’s smart, knows her stuff, and is a valuable resource for any solo or small firm lawyer. I have counted Carolyn as a friend for a long time, and I hope to continue to do so for years to come. Unfortunately, even friends disagree from time to time.
A little while ago Carolyn railed against Huffington Post for taking AOL‘s money without letting their writers share in the spoils. Her article Just Say No To Free Use of Your User-Generated Content bemoans the plight of the guest blogger who is uncompensated for his or her efforts.
She just doesn’t get it.
Creating content on someone else’s platform is richly compensated if done correctly. Just because money doesn’t change hands doesn’t mean compensation doesn’t flow freely.
In fact, I’m a huge fan of guest blogging as a way of promoting your online legal marketing efforts. In fact, I’m willing to provide content to just about any legal blog that will give me the opportunity to do so. I ask for no money – now or in the future. In fact, the ability to create content on another platform is, in many ways, compensation enough for me.
Why? Because it’s not the money that provides the compensation.
Content For Exposure. If I had the chance to create content for a highly-regarded online publication, I’d be doing so for the exposure I would receive to that publication’s readership. My words would reach eyes that would otherwise never hear of me, and my thoughts would be exposed to a new audience. If my writing was good, some of those people would check out my blog and stick around. That audience growth is a tremendous boon to anyone engaging in a content-marketing strategy.
Content For SEO. When I post on someone else’s blog I get a byline. That byline typically includes a link back to my site. Those inbound links are the most honored cornerstones to search engine optimization, that race to the top of the search engines we all crave. In our link economy we need to recognize the value of those links and how they play a part in our own online success.
The Platform Is The Value. Huffington Post built itself on quality writing, most of which was uncompensated. But as a news site, most of the content disappears from the public’s eye fairly quickly. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of the content older than 48 hours gets pretty much no traffic – once it’s gone from the front page, it’s history.
The value of HuffPo isn’t an individual article, it’s the sum of all of the content plus the platform itself. Surely the’re value provided to the writer who is presented with the opportunity to work in a maintenance-free environment, gain access to millions of readers, and in turn grow his or her own fan base off the back of an established platform.
Carolyn says that one of the reasons she doesn’t take guest bloggers that often is because she doesn’t pay them to contribute. Speaking as someone who did a guest post on MyShingle a bit of time ago, I can tell you it was an honor and a privilege to do so. Carolyn’s got an audience who had never heard of me, a well-established site with terrific credibility, and I got a link out of the deal.
Sounds like I got paid more than the value of my 500 words of content. My hope is that Carolyn will realize the true value provided by and to guest bloggers.
Oh, and by the way – if anyone feels like writing something awesome for this site then by all means, let me know.
A law firm blog is the cornerstone to an effective content market strategy. Yet for many lawyers, the prospect of putting so much information online creates the irrational fear that overnight, hordes of would-be clients will decide to go it alone. But that ignores a few basic facts of human nature.
On July 6, 2006 I, along with my good friend and colleague 
