“Content is still king, but content means so much more than it did twenty years ago…”
My latest Office Hours recap is brought to you courtesy of the generous insights and deep experience of Heather Morse, CBDO at McGlinchey Stafford and longtime client and friend to me and JD Supra.
Heather truly leads by example – gifted at big picture strategy and hands-on tactics – and so I was thrilled to talk with her recently about personal branding, content marketing, and social media, among other topics (as part of our series of ongoing client webinars).
While I hope JD Supra clients take the time to log in and watch the entire session at their convenience (details below) here, for your interest, are some of my favorite takeaways from our session. [My comments included in brackets]:
Heather on Content Marketing
Content is still king, but content means so much more than it did twenty years ago. It’s no longer just that newsletter to clients anymore. Content is everything we do: it is the swag we hand out, it is our presence on LinkedIn, it is the little videos we release, it is the podcast, it’s our Instagram account, it is our internal promotions – all of that. We have more ability to communicate more broadly. Communication is content.
The way people consume content evolves; go with the changes. Attorneys don’t think about how the world’s communication evolves. That’s what we marketers do, and that’s why our attorneys see us as their value-based partners.
People are conducting sophisticated searches today. Understand this and frame your content accordingly. Capture the takeaway and make it clear.
Feed your prospective authors with content until “they get it.” Once they get it, the spigot is open. They’ll feed you an endless stream of content. Until then, work with the willing.
Enough with the one hour podcasts. Make it the length of a commute. People don’t have time to listen to eight podcasts a day that are an hour-long each. Break long content into a series and recognize that [my emphasis] your consumers are busy. Microdose your content.
Share the readership stats to reinforce the activities of successful authors and encourage others to jump in.
Sometimes we ghostwrite to get something started. This is a great way to get started, and then once hooked by the validation, they’ll write for themselves.
We do a lot of promotion internally and externally when a new piece of content comes out, across multiple channels (firm intranet, JD Supra, client alerts, etc).
JD Supra is the first thing we do. If the firm I join doesn’t have it yet, it is the first thing we do.
Heather on Team Leadership & Career Growth
I hire for the things I cannot teach.
[Which I translate as: Heather knows plenty that she can teach, as she does, but she hires beyond her own skillset, aka surrounds herself by the best and brightest.]
Recognize what talent is. I am there to get something out of the person I hire, and they too have goals, desires, and objectives. Pay attention to building a mutual relationship. So I ask: what do I need to do to keep you around? What do you need to learn? How do you plan to grow? What is your education plan? I want to grow and I want to feel valued, so I bring that to my team and my leadership style.
Give your people the internal credit for their work (which goes to great lengths to answer the question: “What exactly does the marketing team do, anyway?”).
[No translation required, but I’ll go anyway because this feels vital: support the growth of your people and they’ll return the favor.]
Embrace the power of “Yes.”
[AKA: as your own career grows, act on the opportunities that you create for yourself, or that others put in front of you. Follow opportunities wherever they take you.]
Attorneys are risk averse, so understand how they work. They won’t immediately jump to your (great) ideas, but be prepared and stay focused so that when they do, you are ready to go. Gather persuasive evidence.
[Heather did exactly this with blogging, leading by example with The Legal Watercooler and preparing for the day that her attorneys wanted to join the mix. She was ready when they finally came around.]
Heather on Personal Branding
In response to a riveting conversation years ago with Ross Fishman (in which he said to her, “I know you are good at what you do, but not what you do”), Heather asked and answered a crucial question for herself: what, exactly, do I want to be known for?
This answer colors all her writing and activity on her blog and social channels (primarily LinkedIn at this juncture).
Tell your story at the firm. If you can’t do that, how can you possibly tell the firm’s story?
[I’m putting these words into Heather’s mouth, but I suspect she’ll agree:] Be hungry. Jump in.
Heather on Using Reader Data
When looking at analytics, ask: who is interested in what? [Not just what is popular, but with whom it is popular – within an industry, for example, or a company, or an individual.]
Use, for example, LinkedIn to see who looked at your profile after you make a post. Signifies engagement and is an opportunity to circle back and start a conversation. “We haven’t spoken in a while, how are you…”
Every attorney on JD Supra has access to JD Supra, so they all see their own analytics.
We also use Intapp’s DealCloud for our own emails, so we access that data, too, and are building attorney dashboards.
[JD Supra clients: log into your account dashboard to watch a video recording of the complete conversation. Look for the Office Hours prompt in your account homepage and click for the archive of all previous conversations.]
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Paul Ryplewski is VP of Client Services at JD Supra. Connect with him on LinkedIn. Follow his latest writings on JD Supra.
