I don’t know how many times I’ve already mentioned it, but content is king on your blog and all other social media platforms. The snazziest website won’t matter if you have no content to back it up.
What I mostly think of when I am writing content for my website or blog is to answer questions clients have recently asked me. Indeed, we often go through my prior week’s calendar to review meetings and court appearances in order to develop new content.
The goal in this arena should always be to give value. I really cannot stress this enough. Many attorneys ask me about “giving away the milk for free” meaning potential clients won’t hire you if you give away your “secrets” online. To be clear, I am not telling you to go ahead and write a blog posting whatever you consider to be the secret sauce that makes you a great attorney. If I have drafted a trust agreement that I feel is far superior to everything else on the market, I’m not going to write a blog post giving away the form. Rather, I’m going to write this type of blog post:
Another prime way to generate unique content is to tell the stories of your experiences. Obviously, you have to do this in a manner that complies with the ethical requirements in your state. Storytelling is the fabric of your online presence, and using your blog to tell stories will allow you to cross-promote to all the other platforms where you have a presence.
If you find that you’re lacking any good narratives, look to current events for some inspiration. Early in 2016 the Mega Millions lottery jackpot ballooned to north of $700 million in prize money. A lot of people dreamed about winning, but I was much more realistic than that. I dreamed about being retained to do estate and tax planning for the winner. I’m a total nerd like that. Here’s the blog post I whipped up a day before the big event.
I cross-promoted on my own social networks and the post was really well-received, but the mistake I made was not using third-party publishers like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse to help spread the message. I was knee-deep in trial preparation at that time, but it is something I still regret. Marketers are always looking to go viral, and I feel like this was a prime chance that might have slipped through my fingers. Mark my words, next time the lottery jackpot gets close to a billion dollars, I will be refreshing this post across both of those platforms and my own social media.
Regardless of your practice area, there is no shortage of topics, only a shortage of time in which you can dedicate yourself to draft and share posts that provide actual value to your clients and prospective clients. If you can’t think of any topics for your practice area, email me anthony@themarronelawfirm.com and I will email you back 3-5 great topics for blog posts for your given area.