4 Ways to Make your Law Blog Stand Out from the Crowd

There’s nothing worse than cooking for an empty dinner table and similarly, blogging without followers can seem a little futile. There’s nothing worse than flogging a dead horse so banish the blogger blues, increase your follower list and make your publication stand out from the crowd in 5 simple steps.

Lights, Camera, ACTION

Just as you wouldn’t spend weeks rehearsing for a play withoutadvertising tickets to see the show, blogging without promotion is a fruitless pursuit. Even before publishing your first blog post, start building a twitter account and hone your unique voice ready for launch.

Twitter is the best social platform for lawyers as it allows you to engage with the law community, share tips and advice, retweet and gather inspiration from like-minded professionals.

Ensure that you have share buttons installed on your blog and that they are clearly visible. Also it’s worth bearing in mind that for every piece of content written, it’s advisable to spend just as much time promoting it whether it’s through social interaction, legal PR distribution or email marketing.

Groundhog Day

One thing which is certain to repel potential followers is the same old bland content written over and over. Readers will see straightthrough a blog written for the sole purpose of endorsing a product or service, so avoid this approach like the plague.

Do some research, identify your target market and create a content calendar based on what your audience are looking for. Look at what your competitors and don’t just copy them, find a gap in the market and strike while the iron is hot.

Not from Concentrate Copy

The first rule of quality content is quality copy. Without a talented wordsmith you’re probably going to end up on the dung heap, and in a saturated market concentrated copy just isn’t going to cut the mustard. If you don’t have a way with words yourself, invest in a copywriter who can drive the business forward through the power of language.

Keeping up Appearances

Is there anyone in this world who doesn’t make a quick first impression based on appearance? Sadly, even with the very best intentions, blogs need to look good to be engaging and gain attention. That doesn’t mean you need to take out a loan and hire the best graphic designer in town, just be smart about it.

Blogger and Wordpress platforms offer a large variety of free templates which you can install yourself and customise to suit your needs. Learn some basic HTML to layout your content and imagery correctly and a good looking blog can easily be yours.

Author Note: Byfield Consultancy is a team of reputable management consultants who know a thing or two about Legal PR. Based in London and proficient in all things PR, this established firm work behind the scenes to raise the profile of businesses using a variety of cutting-edge techniques. Take a look at their website to find out more or to make an enquiry call 0207 092 3999.

Image source: anniemole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam Wagner, David Allen Green and Andrew Sullivan on Legal Blogging

• Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish)

Non-law blogger Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) is the founder and editor of the blog The Dish (@dishfeed). He is venerated for his writing and thinking and regarded as the pre-eminent online journalist of the 21st Century. He explained what blogging is to him here, and that blogging has enormous depth:

"My own approach is I'm just a thinking out loud person. I'm a conservative who is attacking [George] Bush which is putting me in a strange position. The limitation of a blog is that it has to be instant; which means it can't be a terribly considered judgement. But it's also deep because you can have hyperlinks that link the reader to original sources and original texts. So readers, unlike TV, or even unlike newspapers, readers can look at my opinion and then they can go to the original source and make their own mind up. That is enormous depth."

Read Andrew Sullivan in full here.

• Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1)

Legal blogger, tweeter, human rights barrister, founding editor of the UK Human Rights Blog and "very definition of a modern full-service barrister" Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) explained the power of legal blogging during his representation to Lord Brian Leveson here:

"The primary reason UKHRB was set up was to act as a corrective to bad journalism about human rights, and in under two years it has become a trusted source of information for journalists, politicians, those government and members of the public. UKHRB operates alongside a number of other excellent legal blogs, run by lawyers, students and enthusiasts for free, which provide a similar service in respect of other areas of law. I would highlight, for example:
a. Nearly Legal housing law blog;
b. UK Supreme Court Blog;
c. Inforrm- media law;
d. The Small Places - social welfare law;
e. Head of Legal - general legal commentary
f. Human Rights in Ireland
g. Law Think
h. Jack of Kent
i. Charon QC
j. Pink Tape - family law commentary by barrister Lucy Reed
k. Eutopia Law
I. Panopticon Blog 

Human rights is an example of an area of law which is often misrepresented by the mainstream press. This can be the result of a lack of legal expertise amongst journalists, but also represents some newspapers’ editorial positions which are if not anti-human rights, then certainly anti-Human Rights Act. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that the Human Rights Act is also widely considered to have bolstered privacy rights and as such threatens the celebrity news-driven business model of most newspapers."

Adam Wagner in full here.

• David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent)

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) is a media lawyer, journalist and blogger, named by Nick Cohen as "one of the best bloggers in Britain." In his representations to Lord Brian Leveson, David Allen Green gave an elementary analysis of what blogging is. He said:

David Allen Green explains why and how he blogs and the power of blogging

David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) (@JackofKent) began blogging in 2007, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for blogging in 2010 and longlisted in 2010. He began blogging for The New Statesman on law and policy and most recently moved to the FT, which I marked and covered here. During his representations to the Leveson Inquiry here, David Allen Green addressed the matter of social media and blogging. He sees himself as a modern-day pamphleteer:

"The elements of speed and self-publication in blogging make it, in my view, akin to pamphleteering... blogging is akin to pamphleteering, then it is pamphleteering with electronic footnotes."

He then explained how he blogs. He said:

"Jack of Kent is hosted on a straightforward and easy to use blog host website called "Blogger". I have no idea where the servers of Blogger are located. Anyone with internet access is able to create such a biog. The other main site for blogs is provided by "WordPress". Most bloggers who have not built their own website or blog on a commercial or group site tend to use either Blogger or WordPress. 

In essence, all I do is type into a field to create a "post" (or "blogpost") and, when finished, I press publish. The post is then published to the world and can be accessed by any person able to reach the Blogger site. It used to be that some minor technical knowledge of HTML code was required to blog, but increasingly one can prepare posts on "What you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG) basis.

Scientists use social media and blogs, so should lawyers

Casey Bergman, senior Lecturer in computational biology at University of Manchester explains:

"Many journals and their staff now take part in the scientific process through social media. Scientists need to be aware that this enables journals to monitor our discussions and activity in ways that were not previously possible. Social media also presents new opportunities to shape the dialogue between scientists and journals."

Casey also explains the effect that social media is and will be having on scientific journals:

"Just as scientists are deciding the best ways to include social media into our own work, we should think about how journals can use social media to contribute to the scientific process. This is an open topic that I hope more scientists consider, since the influence of social media on scientific publishing is likely to increase with the rise of altmetrics, an alternative way of measuring the impact of scientific publications."

Casey then lays out some guidelines for scientists new to Twitter, see here. Legal blogger Kevin O'Keefe has previously explained how law blogs will replace and make legal journals and reviews obsolete, here and here. In the Atlantic Magazine here, Walter Olsen actively called for the end of law reviews in favour of easy web publishing. Even John Roberts of Scotus is sceptical about law reviews. The Chief Justice here told judges last year:

"Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something."

The Secular Lawyer: Seperation of Website and Blog

For me personally, I just knew this as of instinct: that your legal blog should be entirely seperate of your legal website. I felt it self evident. Though I was aware that many legal heads and law firms neither practiced this doctrine nor did they get it. I never wrote about it however; but I always felt it needed said.

That's where lawyerist.com comes in. Lawyerist founder Sam Glover digitally penned a piece in April 2013 called, 'Your Blog does Not Belong on Your Law Firm Website'. This built on a similar essay that dates back to November 2011 entitled, 'Get Your Law Blog Off Your Website.'