Content Marketing Is the New Public Relations

Online reputation management is an important part of the marketing strategy of any business, including but not limited to law firms. You have a lot of control over what you say online as a representative of your law firm, but you have much less control over what others say about you. Paying people to act as cheerleaders for your law firm on social media is a rookie mistake, as is posting mean-spirited, ad hominem responses to negative reviews of your law firm on review sites or, even worse, paying people to write fake positive reviews. Being mean will not win you any friends, but neither will attempting to buy people’s esteem in your law firm; it will just make you look desperate. The coolest people make being cool look effortless; they are simply being themselves, and the same goes for law firms. Instead of spending lots of money on public relations, a less expensive and more effective investment of your budget is to let your talents speak for themselves in the legal blog content on your law firm’s website.

Let the Journalists Come to You

According to Hillel Fuld of the Inc. blog, the difference between content marketing and public relations is not what is written but who writes it. When you write something about your law firm and post it on your site, it is content marketing. When a journalist writes something about you, it is public relations. You might be puzzling over how much of your marketing budget to devote to content marketing and how much to devote to public relations, but consider this: the more original content you include on your own law firm’s site, the easier it will be for journalists to write about you in ways that enhance your reputation.

If a journalist is writing about something related to your practice area in your city, she will probably start by doing online research about the topic. The more often you update your blog, the higher your SEO rankings will be. The more content on your site, the more the journalist will be convinced that you are a credible source, especially if you make it easy for readers to verify the information they read on your blog. The more detailed your “About Us” page, the more the journalist will know about you before she even emails you. All of these factors increase the likelihood that journalists will want to cite you.

Remember that a law firm is not a burger chain and you are not trying to sell a billion lawsuits. Having a good reputation is about being credible, not about making everyone buy your product.

Professionally Written Content Wins You Points With Google, Journalists, and Prospective Clients

The more content on your site, the better, but you do not necessarily have to write all of it yourself. Choose the legal content writers at Law Blog Writers to write law firm blog content that shows the public your professionalism without resorting to shameless self-promotion.