-
- Home
- About
- Our Team
- Greg Wildman
- Tim Wildman
- Yuryi Kliashtorny
- Napoleon Griffin
- Matt Brady
- Brian Wildman
- Kyle Erhardt
- Luke Pietrzak
- Jess Beardsley
- Nicholas Rodriguez
- Todd Baehler
- Kevin Wallen
- Alex O'Malley
- Elizabeth Shemesh
- Matt Marron
- Chad Castilla
- Henry Nguyen
- Katie Pancotto
- Sam Bostwick
- Kathryn Simpson
- Steve Foreman
- Adam Zlotorzycki
- Services
- Portfolio
- Scholarships
- Blog
- Media
- Contact
Let's Work Together 630-635-8000
Recent Blog Posts
Class-Action Lawsuit Questions LinkedIn’s Validity Under the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act
A small force of four has waged war against LinkedIn, perhaps the largest web-based professional network to inhabit the Internet. The social network currently has nearly 300 million registered users. The recent class-action lawsuit, filed mid-October in California, alleges the professional social media network dedicated to employment networking violated consumer protection laws as mandated under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The basis of the suit targets LinkedIn’s reference search option that provides premium level account holders with instant access to a report listing of possible “off the record” references of fellow LinkedIn members with only one swift click of a mouse.
Social Media Marketing Obstacles Solo Practicing Attorneys Face
Solo practicing attorneys often enjoy educational and technological tools an American Bar Association (ABA) membership provides them and their larger firm colleagues. However, they may lack a highly skilled in-house marketing team, leaving them flying solo when it comes to hurdling the obstacles of social media marketing.
If you fall under this classification, identifying obstacles in social media marketing can help you overcome them.
Time Management
If you are a solo or small firm attorney, no doubt you understand the limitations of time. Non-billable services, such as constructing and maintaining a comprehensive marketing campaign, can feel like time wasted. However, establishing a marketing plan early on can save you time in the end and, ultimately, result in improving your reputation.
Local Search and Google Places for Lawyers
When Google, the global leader of online marketing introduced Google Places in 2010, it was estimated that one out of every five Google searches were based on geographical preferences. To answer the call, Google rolled out the program to assist businesses and to "localize" Google.
Fast forward, almost five years later, the growing dependence on smartphones, via Google Android and iPhone, has skyrocketed, making it even more evident that you should be utilizing Google Places to anticipate a prospective client’s electronic request when seeking a centrally located attorney.
Statistically, all electronic search activity is heavily reliable on Google content as a means to locate professional services. As Google continues to develop effective methods of local search optimization via the rollout of Hotpot, a collaborative incorporation of Hotpot and Google Places, to establish search engine rankings as a viable indicator for prospective clients surfing the local marketplace.
Attorney Branding: Understanding Your Niche
The concept of branding can seem abstract to the most educated professional. As an attorney, branding might also be the last thing on your mind. However, it is imperative you consider your personal brand in order to obtain clients that fit your skill set and help you meet your professional goals.
The following tips from the American Bar Association may help you consider the possibilities branding might have for your practice.
Positioning
Where do you rank in comparison to your competition? What type of geographic area does your law firm represent, and does this align with your goals? Reviewing your current law firm website can help you answer these questions and more as you determine what kind of branding your law firm requires. Setting up a branding strategy narrows down your focus to your most key practice areas so you may decide which ones you want to be most known for not only among your peers, but among clients as well.
Creating a Productive Social Media Marketing Campaign
According to U.S. News & World Report Money, it is still advantageous to choose the legal profession as a viable career option. The legal industry ranked as number 51 on the publication’s The 100 Best Jobs report.
With a projected growth rate of 10 percent, The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 74,800 legal positions will need filled by 2022. As a seasoned attorney, how should you manage a social media marketing campaign to ensure a high rate of productivity amongst the influx of tech savvy new attorneys?
For novice attorneys, the practice of engaging prospective clients via Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter remains high on the social media marketing checklist, but understanding the analytics behind the programs may require a consultation with an experienced social media marketing firm dedicated to the legal industry.
Tips to Avoiding Google’s Duplicate Content Penalty
Keeping abreast of your digital marketing campaign can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to maintaining originality and avoiding an infraction of Google’s duplicate content penalty guidelines. By establishing specific content guidelines, Google’s message is clear: keep your website content original. Not only will you stay one step ahead of your competitors in the legal profession, but you will fly clear of Google’s internal radar.
As defined by Google, duplicate content generally refers to a series of content blocks that either mirror other content areas or contain similar attributes of content published to other legal sites. Although not malicious in nature, Google cites the following examples as possible offenses:
How to Address a Negative Online Review While Managing Your Reputation
As a practicing attorney, protecting your professional reputation online amongst your peers and, most importantly, with clients should remain at the top of your daily priority list.
For the more than 30,000 Illinois attorneys who have voluntarily joined the Illinois State Bar Association, pride in profession and maintaining a solid online reputation remains at the forefront of any successful practice. But what if by putting yourself out there, a disgruntled client or, worse yet, a competitor initiates an online rift for all the world to see?
Take a deep breath and do not throw in the towel yet. If you have retained the services of an experienced online marketing firm, give the team a call. If you have been managing your online reputation successfully up to this point, try not to take the online “slam” personally. Any business is bound to take a hit now and again, especially in today’s electronic marketplace.
Global Marketing Leader Google Pulls the Plug on Authorship
Google Authorship once provided blog authors the ability to connect their published posts to their Google+ profile page. This connection was designed to provide a measurement of a blogger’s level of influence, ultimately increasing one’s search engine ranking. This social media experiment has now ended as Google has removed authorship markup as a tool websites and bloggers could utilize. If you are still skeptical, Google’s Webmaster Tools has officially posted the final verdict.
So how does this recent turn of events haunt social media marketing, especially for the legal community? When active, Google Authorship could easily monitor an attorney’s level of influence from content posted with Google markup by displaying search results weighted with strong influential content for the search originator. Another feature was that both the author’s influence, as well as the searcher’s inner social circle, could easily guide users to a specific profile page. As a result, Google would display search results and content from trusted sources, providing a high level of online visibility.
Website Analytics for Attorneys: Becoming Familiar with Website Data
Nielsen Holdings, N.V., the American global information and measurement leader, recently posted the results of a survey conducted with over 25,000 global internet consumers and found that although 90 percent of consumers trust a personal recommendation for consumer services, 70 percent also trusted consumer endorsements posted online.
As a practicing attorney, this information should provide credence to the time and effort you put forth in designing, building and maintaining your professional website, but are you relying solely on past accolades and missing an important key factor governing website effectiveness?
If you hesitated before answering this question, you may not be fully familiar with the benefits of website analytics or the collection and analysis of site data as an effective marketing tool. It is important to use website analytics to determine how hard your website is actually working to increase your online presence.
Online Marketing for Lawyers: Exposure Meets Ethics
It is absolutely critical in today’s competitive digital age to have a properly maintained website for your law firm. Many make the mistake of trying to establish a proper digital footprint without the help of marketing professionals, which can have many negative consequences.
A website alone is no longer sufficient to get the exposure you need; the increased inter-connectivity the Internet provides has significantly complicated the realm of digital marketing. This higher level of complexity has lead to a completely new set of ethical issues. It is critical to understand them when posting any web content.
Consider the following possible ethical issues when posting any web content for your law office:
