Ed. Note: I’m bumping this from the archive because, well, it’s evergreen.

Because of an upcoming project, I’ve been working with our team on cleaning up old and irrelevant content from our database. It’s a big task! But I soon noticed something that piqued my interest – many of our older alerts were drawing search traffic in large numbers.

Not this kind of Evergreen.

Coincidentally, a case study on “evergreen” content was making the rounds on my social media channels, demonstrating the consistent search referral patterns of evergreen content. Could it be that our high search performers were evergreen too?

First, let’s define evergreen content. It’s not a brochure. It’s not a bio or service description. It’s informational or reference material that never goes out of date. Popular evergreen content types are “how tos” and definitions of key concepts.

Because our firm – like many others – uses reverse chronological order for our publications, much of our great evergreen stuff gets buried. And we are sitting on a goldmine!

For example, I found one alert over 5 years old that was still generating 4000 visits per year purely from search engine traffic. See it here:

Reviewing the M&A nondisclosure agreement 

Because it was getting so much traffic, the author reviewed and updated it and – perhaps not surprisingly – the subject matter had changed very little. Evergreen!

Let’s put those 4000 visits per year in context:

• This one alert gets more traffic than all but 3 of the lawyers on our site
• It also gets more traffic than all but 4 of the services on the site

And the traffic is all coming from search. In order to navigate to it, one would need to know where to look since it’s so buried (before the update, it was on page two of the author’s publication list).

That’s one page, 5 years old bringing 4000 visitors per year to our site – visitors who were looking for something specific and found our firm. That is fantastic for the alert’s author and for our brand.

I also found a more recent alert that has all the signs of becoming evergreen:

CFTC final rule adopts LSOC model for cleared swaps collateral 

How do I know?

1. Here is the traffic pattern of a typical alert: Large peak on launch, then a quick flattening (this is our Supreme Court ACA alert, by the way). Compare to the pattern in the LSOC alert: It had a much lower initial peak, but the peaks build over time as search kicks in.
2. Search sends all the traffic. So all those people finding the alert since February are coming from keyword searches that retrieve this alert (see sample below):

I would encourage the authors to revisit this alert soon to make sure the regulatory landscape has not changed – and to give it a more “evergreen” spin, since it’s so tied to a specific event. But so far, so good! Nearly 2000 visits from search alone this year.

Our challenge – beyond identifying our evergreen content – is to create new ways of displaying it on our site, so the casual visitor can see it. In the meanwhile, my team and I are going back through all our old content to identify the evergreen superstars – and get them updated if necessary.

To find evergreen content in your own site database, follow these steps:

1. In Google Analytics, browse to “Site Content”
2. Click “All Content”
3. Search on the the directory name that holds your publications (this will be “publications” if you’re a client of H1)
4. Then start looking at the results that correspond to publication detail pages (many of the top results will be listing pages)
5. Once you’ve found a page with consistently high peaks of traffic over time, you can search by secondary dimension “Keyword” – which can be found under “Traffic Sources.”

So what do you think? Is evergreen content something you will try? What kinds of evergreen content have you identified on your own site? Tell me about it in the comments!

written by Molly Porter

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Working via Telepresence. This is a great asset, but very popular in my firm and hard to book.

There’s definitely an art to working this way. Working virtually, with no face-to-face interaction requires a tremendous amount of focus and attention – and patience. Simple things take longer because approval rounds are extended by a working day – at least. “Why is this taking so long” becomes a common refrain, so management of stakeholder expectations is important.

This is how people work now. Whether you telecommute or work for a virtual team, people have less face-time with their colleagues, even when in the same country or even city.

I’ve learned a lot about working this way. f I had to write a primer for anyone joining a virtual team – which would be everyone pretty much, right? – I would include the following few essentials. It’s a long list, but I’ve kept it mercifully scannable. They don’t train you on this stuff.

• Learn the technology. You MUST be self-serve when it comes to setting up, moderating and participating in web meetings and teleconferences, no matter what your level. It has to be seamless for all involved.
• Use social media and connect. Best case scenario is that your company supports enterprise social media, but barring that LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook can warm-up team relationships.
• Use collaboration tools. Sure, eRooms are great, but have you tried Google documents? Amazing. My colleague and I can edit the same document at the same time. This is way more exciting than it sounds. Basecamp is pretty cool too.
• Use video as much as possible. It’s nice to see team members, but in my case, it can help keep me on task during teleconferences.
• Pick one for meetings: all in person or all virtual. This can be tough, but if you have a large group in a meeting room, face to face, and one or two dialing in, the virtual attendees can be at a real disadvantage. If this situation is unavoidable, leave plenty of space for them to contribute and have a follow up, one-on-one call to review room dynamics and body language.
• Keep your outlook calendar up to date. Don’t get precious about your overlap times. This can be particularly challenging for people on the West coast of the US who work with European teams. Start times of 7 am and earlier are not uncommon.
• Mind your date formats. Format dates like this: 2 FEB 2013 – the vast majority of the world puts the month after the date. Do that, but spell out the month so as not to confuse US audiences. And remember, Christmas is a summer holiday in some parts of the world.
• Mind your “z’s.” As a rule, try to keep your writing “agnostic” – avoiding words that are spelled differently in US versus British English. This can be a challenge when you’re project involves “localization,” “personalization,” and “optimization” but do your best and come to an agreement on these tough words (we opted for “z’s”)
• Use page numbers on everything. Makes it easier to compare notes in virtual meetings.
• Memorize the time differences or use “World Meeting Planner.” Nothing looks less cosmopolitan than futzing around with time zones.
• Get a headset. Everything sounds better on a headset. And I probably don’t need to tell you this, but don’t use your cell phone for meetings. If you must, mute.
• Get a map and hang it over your desk. Get familiar with where your colleagues are sitting. It’s also fun to use Google Maps and Google Earth to check out their cities and even blocks. Read wikipedia about their cities and countries. Read their local papers – or a non-US paper at the least. Have some context and something to talk about.

And finally – the most important tip that transcends all else: PAUSE and wait and listen. All communication technology is not created equal. And in spite of your best efforts to keep everyone on handsets and high quality connections, there will be quality gaps. So when you’re presenting, leave plenty of room for people to talk. You can either say “I’m going to present a bunch of stuff and save your questions for the end,” or if the conversation is more informal, state your content in chunks so that people can contribute. Pause between major thoughts and LISTEN for the small sounds that indicate someone wants to talk. Make it an uncomfortable pause. Push past the point where you would have ordinarily filled space. You’ll be surprised at what you draw out and the trust you’ll gain from your team members.

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My sweet mother-in-law’s personal checklist. Inspiring and aspirational. Also: keep your nails tidy.

My personal checklist has six items, each in the form of a question. These are the things I reflect on each evening – on the commute home from work and as I’m falling asleep. As I’m running down the list, I don’t dwell for too long on any one question. Just long enough to let my gut tell me “yes” or “no.” It’s rare that any one day will have six “yeses” but it’s something I’m working toward.

My daily checklist:

1) Was I productive? As a knowledge worker, my output isn’t always quantifiable in terms of deliverables. Sometimes it’s just inching the program forward, even if a lot of progress isn’t made – and staying positive about it.

2) Was I content? This item is all about attitude. Was I kind? Pleasant? Grateful? Did I moderate my emotions and focus on love? Did I see the best in others and practice grace and forgiveness? Did I abstain from anger?

3) Was I a good steward of my family’s money? As family of four in a high COL city like Chicago, we definitely have days when we’re “hemorrhaging money.” As long as I spent wisely, moderately and intentionally, I give myself a “yes” for this one. And a big all caps YES if I managed to spend zero.

4) Did I eat moderately?  Now that I’m done with babies, I can finally focus on what I need to do to manage my weight – set a goal for what I consume each day and track it carefully. Three of my favorite online tools are: BodyMedia Fit armband, Weight Watchers, and FitBit. I’ve used all three and love them – although BodyMedia Fit gets my vote for easiest to use.

5) Was I active? Did I get 10K steps or do something  fun like dance, climb stairs? I use a FitBit to track activity, but have used a BodyMedia Fit armband in the past. Gamification of activity is a great way to keep it fun and get results.

6) Did I brush my teeth? This is the gimme on the list. If all else falls apart and I’m unproductive, angry, spendy, piggy and slothful (sounds like a typical weekend), I can brush my teeth at the end of the day and feel like I did something right.

It’s interesting to note that my list goes from least- to most-quantifiable. Also interesting to note the tools that I use to stay on track. Productivity and attitude are the hardest to measure and gamify – wouldn’t that be great though?

So, that’s my checklist – do you have one? What’s on it? Tell me about it in the comments.

A note about my posting schedule: clearly, I have been remiss in posting. My big work project for 2013 is consuming a lot of my time and brain space outside of work hours. If you want to know what I’m reading and thinking about, join me in Content Strategy for Law Firms, my LinkedIn group. Learn more about the group here.

written by Molly Porter

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Content strategy can seem like something entirely different depending on which part of it you touch.

You too? Then why don’t you join my LinkedIn group!

Content Strategy for Law Firms is a networking group for the in-house law firm worker bees who conceive, plan, create, produce, govern, manage and analyze content across a variety of media.

The goal of the group is to learn about the mindset, tools and processes of content strategy so that we get better at our jobs – and maybe, eventually begin to build  cultures of content within our firms.

Why Content Strategy for Law Firms? Why now?

I have long wanted to start a networking group for law firm website folks, and had identified “content strategy” as the missing link among the in-house groups I’m active in.  And frankly, the missing link in many law firms.

In the meantime, my peers Kristin Vasilj and Tina Johns had also been discussing the lack of focused networking opportunities for legal industry people in roles like ours that cross communications, strategy, technology, marketing and business development. So we came together to form this group.

Website creation and content maintenance – done properly – breaks down silos within an organization. From this process springs the idea of  content strategy which plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content – and requires people with a diverse skillset across an organization. Content strategy requires both technical and editorial skills, along with a healthy dose of courage, influence, endurance, ambition and vision.

Content strategy isn’t a new idea. Rachel Lovinger wrote her influential piece on content strategy in 2007 – The Philosphy of Data. And Christina Halvorson – the Martha Stewart of the discipline – has written an excellent book on the topic.

Heck, even I held a content strategy role back in 2000, so the idea has been around for awhile. But look how much the web has changed since then. Many of us have gone from minding a single website of a few hundred pages, to overseeing multiple websites comprising thousands of pages. Add to that multiple social media channels including blogs, client intranets and extranets, the firm intranet and syndication channels, plus the complicating factor of globally distributed teams – and it’s no wonder we need content strategy now!

So let’s get together and talk about content. In the words of Christina Halvorson, it’s time to…

Stop pretending content is somebody else’s problem. Take up the torch for content strategy. Learn it. Practice it. Promote it. It’s time to make content matter.

written by Molly Porter

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My son, sitting at attention at his dojang.

Be ambitious!
Be the best of the best!

Since my son started taking martial arts classes, he has repeated these words hundreds of times as a part of his dojang’s 13 point creed.

Thankfully, the message is finally starting to sink in.

For me.

Workplace leadership involves being ambitious and being the best of the best. But sometimes this can be daunting.

Like boiling the ocean.

Or getting all the  balls in the air and keeping them there.

How can I possibly accomplish everything I want to accomplish – and do it well?

But, when you break it down, being the best of the best involves doing many small things well. Take my son’s martial arts classes – he learns a handful of basic moves that are then combined into forms of ever increasing complexity. Only a little at a time. With intention.

For knowledge workers, our basic moves are – leading a conference call. Or writing an email. Or writing a decent project brief. Or collaborating globally.

Do I get these things right? Not always. But I am ambitious and I want to be the best of the best! When the grand plan is just too daunting, I can focus on the thing right in front of me. That email I have to write. The meeting I have to plan.  And continue to focus on the habits, activities and characteristics that lead to excellence.

For my next series of posts, look for some pointers on being the best of the best when it comes to small things. Those simple moves that add up to more complex strategies, initiatives, projects. Want to start a web redesign project or enterprise wide content strategy? It all starts with a conference call.

I’m always learning, so hopefully you, my readers, will have something to add.

written by Molly Porter

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Great day @onenorth #1NLab12! @kredInfluence & outreach winners: @adobitz, @molly_porter, @smcguire13, @al_pgh, @rpetrocelli, @kzklop

— Candace Graham (@candygram16) November 8, 2012

The event was One North Interactive’s Experience Lab – a thought-provoking day of conversation about the future of digital marketing in law firms – sure to inform many of my future posts. The challenge was to use the event hashtag #1NLab12 to achieve the highest outreach and/or influence.

The One North team used a Kred Leaderboard to track the hashtag and tweeples throughout the day. Here is a grab of the leaderboard from the end of the day, showing me as the winner in “outreach.” That means I tweeted and retweeted the most

Click for full size

As the day progressed, Candace Graham @candygram16 posted updates on who was winning – here’s an example.

@molly_porter leading in outreach, @adobitz leads influence. #1NLab12 Keep it up folks!

— Candace Graham (@candygram16) November 8, 2012

It dovetailed very nicely with Candace’s talk entitled “Marketing Under the Influence” which dealt with the future of “influence” in legal marketing.

Google+ Profile Completion Meter

The Kred leaderboard is an example of gamification – “the use of game mechanics and game design techniques in non-game contexts.” Gamification increases engagement by giving rewards and tapping our natural competitive tendencies.  It certainly worked on me. As soon as I heard about the challenge, I wanted to win! The leaderboard and hashtag kept me engaged throughout the day as well, not only in the content of the program, but virtually and in real life, with the other attendees.  

Gamification is pervasive in social media, from Foursquare’s check in badges to LinkedIn’s profile completion meter.  In fact, Google+ just added a profile completion meter to inspire users to add more personal information.  Gamification is going mainstream too. Gartner predicts that  more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014. To learn about the four principle means of driving engagement via gamification, read the recent Gartner study.

Dutch law firm Houthoff Buruma has used gamification in an app targeted toward students and recruits that simulates what it’s like to work as a lawyer in their firm.  It caused quite a sensation in legal marketing circles on its release in 2011 – and the firm continues to update it by adding new challenges. From their app store page:

An irate client gives you an assignment. Will you succeed?

 The game in HB The App is mission-based and for each completed mission you can compare your scores with other students around the world…You will enter a 360 degree world in which you can navigate around and encounter real people. At the onset, you will be presented with a task which needs to be solved within a certain time frame. There are several business dilemmas attached to this task and the client is waiting in the boardroom for your solutions. Along the way you will have to solve problems and talk to people in order to unlock what you need to complete your mission. Only the quickest thinkers, keenest eyes and management savviest players will succeed and end up on the high score list!

Wonder if the game winners end up with a job at Houthoff Buruma? (H/T to Ichizu of Helios Design for the screen shot.)

For law firms, gamification holds the most promise for internal communications and team building.

For example, PeopleLinx - a social business integration product and consulting service – uses many gamification techniques to engage internal teams in the use of  Linkedin. Built in leaderboards are a great way to leverage lawyers’ inherent competitiveness for the use of LinkedIn – for individual and firm marketing benefits.

And Ben Wightwick of HighQ (enterprise collaboration and publishing software) published a fantastic post on the promise of gamification with the legal industry earlier this year, focused primarily on the use of gamification for internal teams:

[Gamification] can provide shared vision and objectives for leaderless groups or groups spread across the globe. It will influence Legal IT vendors to design their software more intuitively and emphasise collaboration and ultimately humanise and empower staff. Generally when people think of gamification they think of achieving inconsequential ‘badges’ when tasks are complete, but it doesn’t have to be like that at all. Why not build out the concept of a virtual currency, which can be earned against a pre-defined set of tasks collected by a team or department, which in turn could be used against a corporate shopping list, whether that is a team lunch or a drinks trolley on a Friday evening?

Doesn’t that sound like fun?  Wightwick cautions that gamification is not a silver bullet – to that I say gamification FTW! (That’s “For The Win.”)

So, if 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014 – will your firm have one? At the very least, you should consider using Kred at your next live event.

Update: I found this blog post on the Economist via Ben Wightwick’s Twitter. Takes a dim view of gamification, but I agree with Ben’s assessment that “#gamification ‘lite’ can improve usability, encourage sharing & productivity.” It encouraged sharing at the One North event, that’s for sure.

written by Molly Porter

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Euphoria room! Hopefully the panel will live up to this name.

The panelists included Trent Dykes and Asher Bearman of The Venture Alley, and Dennis Cariello and David Lewis of Education Industry Reporter.

I used the following materials to underpin my opening talk:

• Green Target “2012 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey” DOWNLOAD SURVEY
• Burson Marstellers “Global Social Media Checkup” VIEW SLIDESHARE
• Pew Internet “65% of online adults use social networking sites” (old but good) DOWNLOAD SLIDES
• ComScore “Top Ten Need to Knows about Social Media” (little old, still good) DOWNLOAD SLIDES

Not knowing what to expect, I spent a long time gathering data about about social media so that I could counter any preconceived notions the attendees might bring with them. The slides I prepared were for a skeptical and uninformed audience – but with a low turnout (due to competing breakout sessions), I quickly abandoned them in favor of a direct Q and A with the panelists, since attendees were itching to ask questions. File under: good problem to have ! Areas of inquiry included:

• What do you mean when you say “social media?”
• How much traffic do you get?
• Where do you enter your blog posts?
• How much time does it take?
• How often do you post?
• Do you get negative comments?
• What is Twitter for and will it send me emails?

I was deeply impressed by how seriously Trent, Asher, David and  Dennis take their blogs, and how strategically they approach developing content. They spoke with authority on using social media to develop an audience, generating content, monitoring blog growth and reach, and the role of the blog in developing a reputation as thought leaders. As much as I try to support them, this is knowledge they developed on their own – from experience.  It’s the only way to learn.

My favorite parts of the discussion dealt with:

The investment of time - Being billable, attendees were concerned about the time commitment involved in blogging. Trent and Asher spoke about the short term commitment in developing content of a few hours a week, and the long term commitment in developing a content backlog that draws traffic – in their case, two years. Trent also talked about the value of writing and posting a blog post as compared to attending real life networking events – and how much more effective blogging is. This has been my experience as well, and it was thrilling to see a lawyer embrace content marketing over hit or miss networking events. Perhaps a fellow introvert?

Developing a content strategy –  Trent spoke about three kinds of blog posts:

• Reference materials with long shelf life (“evergreen” content)
• Timely, news-based posts such as commentary on recent events
• Edgy posts meant to draw eyeballs

The editors of The Venture Alley made a calculated decision to focus on the “dry” stuff  from the first category. Why? Because it establishes them as subject matter experts and brings in great SEO traffic – a strategy born out by the long term success of similar content on my firm’s website.  They recommended repurposing materials prepared for clients such as memos, briefs or emails – the stuff that clients ask about over and over and over again. The content may be generic, but it draws eyeballs and has led to new business for The Venture Alley.

By the end of the session I felt pretty lucky to have been in attendance – it was a blogging master class, and I learned as much as anyone. Incidentally, this was the first time I’d ever met any of the panelists in person – after working with them virtually for several years – and what fun that was!

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Your website should transform based on your visitors’ location, interests, browsing history and device.

In light of the potential and with the 2013 planning season upon us, I put together this list of the top-of-mind strategies that legal industry digi-comms types should be thinking about. Many of these strategies represent multi-year commitments of time and resources, but are must-haves for law firms as our clients become more digitally savvy themselves.

If you’re not sure where to start, look at your firm’s Content Management System – a state of the art upgrade will provide many of the features and capabilities listed below.

Top 6 big digi-comms strategies for 2013 and beyond

Personalization – Implicit and explicit personalization allow your site to surface relevant content for your visitors, based on their browsing history or expressed preferences. This is a must-have for large sites and firms with multiple locations and service offerings. Personalization requires a best-of-breed CMS and, for explicit personalization, some means of logging in to the site. (I know that you know this requires cookies and as such will require a disclaimer on your site if you do business in the EU, so I won’t go into that here.)

To develop a personalization strategy, you should start by developing a set of personas. What are your site visitors looking for and what do they hope to accomplish during their visit?  Next, ask yourself –  What else do I want them to see while they’re here?  Personalization allows you do do more targeted cross-selling.

Good piece on Forbes.com about personalization and privacy

COPE – Create Once, Publish Everywhere - More and more, we are asked to deliver our content into external environments and websites – everything from firm-branded microsites to internal applications, client extranets and client-hosted intranets. Key to COPE is the deployment of a state-of-the-art CMS that can support content governance, workflow, production and promotion -  and easily integrate with other properties via web service or API.

Good piece on “divorcing content from form” on Content Marketing Institute

Mobile – Does your firm need a mobile site or a mobile app? Do you know the difference? I gotta confess – I’m still trying to master the distinction. One way to cover yourself – at least when it comes to people browsing via mobile devices – is to use responsive design on your main site. This will allow your site to look great across a variety of devices by dynamically reconfiguring the site layout based on the site visitor’s screen resolution. The downside is extensive up front design exploration and development of at least three versions of each major template on the site. The decision to build an application requires answering some questions: is internet required? What about device features such as camera and location? Got a lot of money? Willing to deal with having your app approved by the App Store?

For more information on making the mobile site versus app decision, see this recent infographic on Mashable.

Lead Generation – The number one question I get is whether or not the website and social channels have led to new business. Other than anecdotal evidence, I don’t have much to offer.  One easy way to get more concrete data would be to map site visitors against the new business development funnel by asking for email addresses at various points in the browsing and content consumption process. Easy peasy, right? Examples: request proposal button, click to chat, simple registration forms. For some reason, not many law firms are doing this, perhaps because of the investment that  processing and acting on this information requires. To get consensus, mine your traffic reports and social sharing stats for insights into how they affect new business development.

Check out this fun e-book 101 Examples of Effective Calls to Action for ideas on generating leads

Social media integration and management – I going to assume that you have share buttons on your content and that you’ve got your social media accounts prominently linked. I’m also going to assume you’ve got a social media calendar and you know how to run campaigns across your channels. What’s next? Enterprise wide social media management that will allow your lawyers and staff to tap into a library of content for their own accounts –  which can even be firm branded and centrally managed. For examples enterprise social media management, look at Socialware, Hearsay Social, Hootesuite Enterprise, Buddy Media (now part of SalesForce) and PeopleLinx.

A convenient list of social media policies and guidelines by Charlene Li of Altimeter Group, in case you’re still at that stage

Big beautiful brand – Dear law firms – it’s time to be more visually engaging! Again, look at what Foley and Larnder is doing with their site – unique long scrolling homepage with CSS3 features, responsive filtering in interior pages, big beautiful fonts for easy reading. For out of industry examples, I love GE.com, GoldmanSachs.com, Bain.com, and GM.com (although I loathe auto-play videos).

Top trend of 2012 – the “Visual Web”

So there are the 6 strategies to have on your radar. Some of you may have already implemented some or all of these. Let me hear about it in the comments!

written by Molly Porter

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Wake up! It’s time to make the content!

LinkedIn began answering this question last March with LinkedIn Today – a branded newspaper-like application that provides news tailored to your industry, interests and connections. Since then, LinkedIn has launched many additional significant enhancements, including:

• iPad app – April 26
• Targeted company updates – June 19
• Homepage redesign – July 16
• Profile page redesign – August 20
• Notifications – September 5
• Company page redesign – September 6
• Endorsements –  September 25

These enhancements address user experience, engagement, sharing, content consumption – even gamification (try to make just one endorsement – I dare you!) None of these enhancements, however, addressed publishing and content creation – until last week which saw LinkedIn launch a blogging platform built directly into the profile page.

Right now this feature is limited to about 150 thought leaders and influencers like Richard Branson and President Obama, but I fully expect it to be rolled out to all users eventually.

This is a real game changer for LinkedIn –  for law firm web publishing.

First, I predict that this feature will make LinkedIn as engaging as any other social site – or news platform site (like Forbes.com or HBR.com) for that matter. While LinkedIn users currently spend an average of 18 minutes a month on the site (accepting connections requests and nothing more, like the lawyers in my firm), LinkedIn has no trouble generating revenue via its recruiting solutions. Imagine how much more they can sell (and charge) when people are even more engaged and spending time discovering content and following thought leaders.

Second, this new feature should cause a real shift in the way we marketers think about the lawyer-authors in our firms. Suddenly, all our blessed and branded publishing channels – blogs, microsites, the firm website and email alerts, especially – are competing with a site that has 175 million users, and on which every one of our lawyers probably already had a presence.

If a lawyer wants to publish content – and getting it done via marketing isn’t lightening fast and easy peasy – which do you think he or she is going to choose? What’s better – seamlessly delivering your thoughts to an audience of 500 qualified readers that you know personally, or following established firm protocol and procedure which can be byzantine and bureaucratic? One of these options looks like an easy button to me.

It seems likely that a blogging feature on LinkedIn could be yet another nail in the coffin of  blogging as predicted by Adrian Lurssen. But could it also contribute to the end of the law firm website? After all, biographies are the center of the law firm web universe and LinkedIn has pretty much duplicated and improved every feature of the lawyer bio at this point. Maybe? Maybe not. But it’s an interesting question.

Regardless, if  we are the smart digital marketers that I know we are, we will include LinkedIn among the channels that we must COPE with – Create Once, Publish Everywhere – so that our lawyers and our brands both can benefit from the efforts involved in creating great thought leadership content.

written by Molly Porter

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Seeing as how it’s a presidential election year again, it’s no surprise that politics on Facebook is the flavor of the day amongst social media thought leaders in the legal industry.

You got that right!

I weighed in when Jayne Navarre originally asked the question on Facebook – and as is my tendency, my answer has amounted to a “do as I say, not as I do.” I can’t stay away from the subject 100% – but my style has changed a lot since 2008 when it was cathartic to vent amongst Facebook friends. Now, I mostly try to stay away from the topic in my public posts. It’s just not worth the heartache.

Avoiding heartache seems to be the gist of most of the articles on Facebook and politics I’ve read which usually include one of more of the following:

1. A call for civility
2. A desire for reasoned debate on Facebook and in other social media channels.
3. A warning about the danger of damaging your personal brand

As to 1 and 2, it is my opinion that – in the majority of cases – social media channels do not support calm, reasoned debate.  I’m not saying it’s impossible (and it has definitely gotten better in my opinion), but the medium is all at once too off-the-cuff, too permanent and in the case of Facebook – too mutable. Case in point: an impulsive comment you made in 2008 about Sarah Palin being a moron (for example, ahem)  that you thought was buried under 4 years of new posts is suddenly rendered visible by Facebook’s new Timeline layout. And even if you swore off that kind of discourse, it’s still there for  anyone who cares to click a button to see.

As for 3 sure, let’s not damage our personal brands. But short of not posting anything at all, how? There are so many pitfalls on Facebook, where “friendship” is complicated and it’s easy to make an ass of yourself – without even knowing it. This goes doubly for your friends who might not know how to behave themselves either. We’re all learning how to do social media as we go along. So for some of us, the damage is already done. Can it be fixed – at least in terms of how your social profile displays to strangers? Yes, it can!

I’m not here to tell you that you should or shouldn’t post about politics – or anything else for that matter.  You have to decide for yourself what is appropriate to your personal brand and the kind of relationships you want to have online. 

As Tim Baran said recently on FB: “For me, it’s a balance between trying to be my authentic self while being sensitive to the rainbow of connections in my network.” So for some people, the most authentic and appropriate way to handle Facebook is to say what you think and be open to feedback from friends on what you’ve posted. Others may feel more comfortable staying away from controversial matter entirely.

Regardless of your approach, here are 11 things to keep in mind – is it any wonder Facebook is less fun than it used to be?

1. Accept that you won’t ever get it 100% right. No matter how careful or circumspect you are, someone will take offense – either because they don’t know you at all and can’t read your intention, or because they know you ALL TOO WELL and recognize the barb in what seems like an innocuous post. Love it, live with it.
2. Learn your privacy controls. Yes, they are complicated. Yes, they change. But if you’re going to cultivate any kind of presence on Facebook, you need to understand – if not master –  the controls. And as it happens, bar rules are evolving to state that it’s a lawyer’s ethical duty to understand them as well.
3. Limit the audience for past posts. When Timeline was activated, quite a few of my past posts were suddenly rendered “public.” When you limit the audience for past posts, it’s a one time action that makes everything “friends only.” You may still need to do some pruning, but at least you’ll be covered until you can review all your old posts one by one.
4. View your page as “public.” This will allow you to see how the general public sees your page. Click through the years in the Timeline sidebar to make sure nothing is showing that you don’t want to show.
5. Moderate your own timeline. It’s not enough to censor yourself, you also need to censor your friends sometimes. Delete negative comments and give feedback. Block or unfriend if you must – but be prepared to be grilled about it.
6. Restrict who can tag you and post on  your timeline. Has someone ever tagged you in something embarrassing? Put a stop to that by going into your privacy settings and clicking “Timeline and Tagging” – use the options below.
   

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7. Moderate your newsfeed. If one of your friends posts something you just can’t stand – don’t snark, just hide the post. You can also  unsubscribe from annoying people all together. This is better than a few years back when your only options were to unfriend or block. Those actions tend to get noticed.
8. Know your friends’ privacy settings. Look for the privacy icon on your friends’ posts. If it’s a globe, the update is public. A person means “friends only” and a gear is a custom setting (mouse over to see the details). Think before you post on a public update. These appear in your friends’ newsfeeds.
9. Beware of fan pages. Not only can the pages you “like” say a lot about you, your comments on those pages can end up in your friends’ newsfeed. But wait, there’s more! Now your “likes” can be used in sponsored advertising. See below for example.
   

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10. Keep comments on fan pages positive, if not bland. If you comment on fan page posts, be aware that these can end up in your friends’ newsfeeds. Additional word of warning – The Daily Dot harvests comments from facebook fan pages for their articles. Even if you go back and edit or delete a post, it could end up on the Daily Dot with your name attached. Example here.
11. Protip: Make lists and limit the visibility of your content. You probaly already have an idea of where your friends’ loyalties lie. If youre not sure, get information from fan pages.  Check out Mitt Romney or Barack Obama and see which of your friends like them. Then add those friends to a list that you prevent from seeing your comments until the election is over. Unsubscribe from their updates. Or unfriend them if you must. But again, be prepared for the backlash.

As I go back and review this post before publishing it, I’m starting to understand why some people only ever lurk on Facebook. It’s a lot of work to keep up with all these changes and it’s one of the reason I have adopted an open approach to my profile and post pretty innocuous stuff. Sure, this flies in the face of those who say you should build relationships with social media. I guess if you really want to get to know me, you’ll have to call me, maybe?

written by Molly Porter

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