Below is a compilation of select passages from a longer and more comprehensive white paper presented by Jaffe Associates on July 16, 2008. To read the full white paper, visit http://jaffeassociates.com/pages/articles/view.php?article_id=296.
Go ahead – right now – Google yourself, your firm or your practice area and see what shows up. Only the very first page of results represents your reputation in the robust world of Internet enterprise. If you're not there, you're nowhere! When the same search is done by a client, potential client, list researcher, recruit or a reporter – and you know that it will be – the results will determine whether or not you get the call.
Content is key
Good content, textual as well as oral, has always been of utmost importance in the field of public relations for lawyers and law firms. It is what sets you apart from your competitors as a thought leader in your selected area of practice. The value of content has not changed. What has changed dramatically, especially in the past five years, is the number of ways lawyers and law firms can effectively distribute their content, and the number of ways Internet users can find this content – in effect, the way new legal business will be developed.
Web 1.0 – the stuff you already know
Within the history of the Internet, Web 1.0 refers to the first generation of initiatives that took place between approximately 1994 and 2004. Lawyers and law firms launched Web sites and started, often reluctantly, to use e-mail to correspond with clients and to send electronic versions of their print content. Just 10 years ago, search engines appeared, sparking a revolution in the way people use the Internet and how clients find lawyers and law firms.
Within this environment, any referral source, potential client or media reporter will enter your name into a search engine before deciding whether or not to make a referral or give you a call. Lawyers and law firms that want to maximize their Internet profile must feed the environment with a steady diet of fresh content posted to the Internet.
Web 2.0 – the stuff you may not know yet
Web 2.0 evolved from the widespread use and acceptance of Web 1.0. While still in its infancy, this next Web generation is growing with hyper-speed leaps and bounds. Web 2.0 is interactive, open to user-generated content and very inexpensive when compared with traditional media. Its tools and technologies are often referred to under the heading of "social media." Simply put, a Web 2.0 site is launched and users are asked to contribute to (and often to rank) the site's content. Some well-known examples include:
- Wikipedia and other user-generated information services
- social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook
- audio-, video-, and image-sharing sites like Youtube and Flickr
- RSS feeds
- Blogs (or web logs)
Web 2.0 is all about sharing content – and lawyers and law firms generate a lot of useful content in the course of doing business. It is an ideal medium.
WIIFY – what's in it for you?
What does Web 2.0 mean for the PR and marketing functions for lawyers and law firms and those who work in the legal environment? PR and marketing continue to focus on the use of content to build reputation and the use of networks to find new business. But the opportunities for distributing that content and building those networks are now vastly expanded.
To promote good news, there are many more ways to get your message before the public. Lawyers and law firms should incorporate Web 2.0 tools into their own PR 2.0 and marketing strategies, and online materials.
In addition, lawyers and law firms can contribute informative content to the user-generated content and social networking sites of others. Just as you need to identify which print, radio or TV audiences to target, you need to target the Web 2.0 sites that will best meet your needs. A consultant can often help with this process.
General guidelines for PR 2.0 – and all of these might change tomorrow
You must give in order to get.
Lawyers and law firms are used to charging by the hour for everything that they do and keeping a close hold on their contacts. Web 2.0 is not built that way. Those who give (by generously sharing their content and their contacts) will get, in the form of an enhanced Internet profile and search engine results, leading to enhanced "brand" recognition and more and better business.
You can manage, but not control.
In the days of traditional media and the early days of the Web, a lawyer or law firm exercised complete control over most aspects of its content (unless it was dealing with a reporter). To take full advantage of the rich opportunities offered by Web and PR 2.0, lawyers and law firms will need to relax, to share and to use criticism not as an attack but as an opportunity for conversation.
Timing is everything.
PR 2.0 operates in real time. It is true that most bloggers post multiple stories every day and are eager to scoop the traditional media. If someone puts the news out there before you do, with their spin on it instead of yours, that is the version that will control the story, without a lot of management and mitigation work on your part. If a blogger emails you or calls you, it is wise to treat this person just like you would a traditional journalist; respond immediately.
PR 2.0 content – here comes the leverage
Social media allow lawyers and law firms to put existing content to work on the Internet, where it can be found and ranked by search engines. In the course of doing business, law firms generate a significant amount of written content, including print bios, practice area descriptions, case studies, proposals, brochures, legal documents and books.
In the world of PR 2.0, this content can appear not only in print and on the firm's Web site, but can also be posted for free on any number of content and social networking sites. It is not sent to a limited mailing list; it is posted to the Internet where it can be found by anyone, anywhere, anytime. The more content that is posted to the Internet, the more you dominate and control your Google results.
Most successful business Web sites have been enhanced to maximize their effectiveness in a social media environment. Most lawyer and law firm Web sites, however, have not. At the very least, these sites should focus on adding a steady stream of new keyword-rich content. They should be retrofitted to allow RSS feeds. Any Web site being created or revised today should be built on a social media platform, with the ability to support social media applications that encourage two-way interaction with clients, like blogs, visitor surveys, social networks, wikis, and more.
What is most important for you to know right now?
Maybe the most important thing for you to know and recognize is that we are all going through a period of major change in the way we communicate. And as soon as you learn everything discussed in this white paper, it will probably be obsolete.
Is there a lot to learn? Of course there is, and that is the hard part. But on the other side of the coin are opportunities for communication that we can only just now begin to imagine. We will be able to communicate with our chosen audiences better, faster and with feedback that we were never able to get before.
Web 2.0 and PR 2.0 is about all of us and must now become an integral part of our professional skill set. While some might equate the current change to moving from a quill to a ballpoint pen, we see this change as moving from crawling to rocket launching in the time frame of only a few years. And, don't blink now, for you are sure to miss something. Stay tuned for more.
Jay M. Jaffe is President and CEO of Jaffe Associates, the leading public relations firm serving the legal industry in North America and Europe. For more information, visit www.jaffeassociates.com or contact Jay directly at jaffej@jaffeassociates.com, or by phone at 970-328-4305.
Liz Bard Lindley is Director of WritersForLawyersTM, a website management company based in Edgewater, New Jersey and associated with JaffeAssociates. For more information, contact Liz at lindleyl@jaffeassociates.com, or by phone at 201-313-5661, or visit www.jaffeassociates.com.