It’s a Blog World After All
February 19th, 2004In an article from Law.com, Carolyn Elefant talks about lawyers, blogs, visibility, keeping current, and networking. From the article:
“Blogs can serve as a “quick and dirty” Web site, help solos keep abreast of new developments, gain visibility on the Internet and notoriety in their respective fields, and make new contacts — all of which can help generate referrals from other attorneys and attract new clients.”
“Keeping current in one’s practice area isn’t just part of being a good lawyer — it plays a significant role in marketing. For example, a change in the law provides a good catalyst for contacting clients and advising on changes they may need to make in previously prepared documents, which can generate extra business. And being on top of one’s practice area can impress colleagues at cocktail parties or other networking events, which may keep a lawyer in mind for a future referral. Yet with all of the rigors of practice, how many solos really take the time to keep abreast in our fields the way we should?”
“Blogs not only make it easier for solos to keep current, but also provide rewards for doing so. Any time there’s a new court decision or even an editorial on a subject of interest from the local newspaper, a lawyer can quickly post a link to the source at the blog and add some commentary or not. Once a case or article is “blogged,” the lawyer will then have that information at his or her fingertips for posterity. No more searching the files for that newspaper clipping you wanted to show a client but can’t find. With a blog, all those links are online and can be located with the blog’s indexing system. Also, once a blog starts attracting an audience — and it will — a blogger is then essentially shamed into keeping posts current at least for the sake of the blog’s little band of readers. Finally, as noted earlier, frequent updates increase the visibility of a blog on search engines and make the blog and its proprietor easier to locate.”
Sorry about the lengthy quotes, but I couldn’t help myself. This is exactly the type of article that needs to be printed in the library literature. Librarians (and libraries) need to market themselves more and more these days and using weblogs is one of the ways to do it. Not the only way, but one that’s easy and cheap. I like the concept of using weblogs to network, one that I haven’t really addressed on LS. Maybe after CIL (or during), I’ll blog more about it.