Legal Marketing & PR

Blogs Bring Lawyers Calls from the Media

By Larry Bodine, Esq.

Steve Matthews makes a great point on his Stem Blog: lawyers who write blogs will get called and quoted by news reporters.  

According to a new study by eMarketer, 57.7% of reporters use blogs to measure public sentiment; 38% of reporters use blogs to drive new story ideas; and 29.5% use blogs to find industry experts, Steve writes.

Here's how it works.  A reporter gets an assignment from an editor.  In the process of researching the story the reporter calls experts for guidance.  Later, the reporter will call experts again for quick, colorful quotes to brighten the story.  How do the reporters find these experts?

They use Google Blog Search using terms that describe their story and look for bloggers.  As a rule, if you write a blog on a legal topic, you are ipso facto the expert, and reporters will call you.  I know.  It happens to me every week.

This chart from eMarketer shows just how much journalists rely on blogs. If there was ever a compelling business development reason to start a blog, this is it.

Back to Steve:

"Those are good numbers for blogging lawyers; and fit well with the frequent observation that bloggers have a substantially increased profile with the media. "Here’s are some reasons I think blogs deliver such a web-punch!

• Reporters need to authoritative sources for quotes.
• Blogs Push Content via Syndication Technologies (ie. RSS).
• Blogs Drive the Freshest Google Content.
• Bloggers Get Better Google Rankings - and make it easier for people to find you - both potential clients and reporters.
• Blog Content is Filterable - Savvy reporters that regularly cover a topic, will set up targeted searches for certain keywords.
• The Spin-off Effect - Profile drives profile. Having a blog is still the centerpiece of a lawyer’s online marketing strategy.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on July 22, 2008 (boomark / email).