I’ve been working at my “media” career for more than 25-years now.  That’s a surprise to a lot of people.  It could be because they think I make doing what I do look “easy”.  But, it’s more likely because they’ve never heard of me…

I was talking to my aunt about what it takes to stick to a venture and keep making it run, particularly when surrounded by folk who don’t quite “get” the internet or how entrepreneurship is a good idea.

Thanks to the writing of many, many successful folk, my belief that fortitude, stubbornness and lots of kindness are what it takes to become successful at anything, is constantly being reinforced. As I’m watching newcomers enter into the realm of legal marketing social media, I’m watching a multitude of them make a common mistake:

They show up

Invest a few hours on the networking being really aggressive with people an then shortly –

Disappear — Most likely disgusted because “it didn’t work.

Becoming “Famous”  really isn’t any different.  Web or no web – it still takes ten years to become a success.  The frustrating part is that you’ll see your tactics fail right away. The good news is that over time, you’ll get the satisfaction of watching those tactics succeed.

A lot of old thinkers want to see overnight success, mostly so they’ll have someone they can tear down later.  For those of us who are using social media to build our business and are doing it the way it’s designed to be done, it’s important to remember to listen to our real customers and to our inner vision to make what we’re doing last the long haul…
It may just take that…

Seth Godin is one of the start-up & go-get-em authors I referred earlier and it was his elaboration on these points that inspired this post.  There’s much value in reading the original …

The secret of the web (hint: it’s a virtue)

Other articles you may be interested in:

Keeping Creativity Flowing On Your Legal Marketing Blog

Does Social Media End Cold Calling as a New Business Tactic For Legal Marketers?

Seven Sites That Will Keep Legal Marketers On Their Toes and Up to Speed With Social Media Marketing Rules

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

Legal marketers, what you don’t know is hurting you…

Florida: A mistrial was declared recently after a federal judge learned eight jurors had researched the drug case on the internet.

England: A juror was dismissed from a sexual assault case after asking how she should vote on her Facebook page.

Dallas: A state District Judge recently terminated someone from a pretrial drug diversion program after a probation officer discovered Internet postings showing that the man clearly planed to get drunk on his graduation day.

There has never been a time where the legal field’s ability to interact with the world technologically has been more important.  Garnering your legal organization’s sensitivity toward online communication, whether as  professional spokespeople, within their personal conversations, or emphasizing your client’s awareness of their behavior is imperative.

The Dallas News covered a story detailing these disturbing incidents that are unfortunately occurring more and more frequently.

Unfortunately, becoming social media savvy is not something you can do with a book or seminar, it takes frequent, ongoing interaction, research and monitoring.

There is no more expedient or cost effective way  for your organization to master the social media tools necessary to attract your desired audience and monitor  your online conversation, than with a skilled professional who customizes a program to your specific needs.

I work with small to mid-size legal marketing organizations  to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want. 

Call me at 917-856-5410 for a free initial consultation.

Other articles you may be interested in:

Why technology and social media need to be integrated into your branded legal marketing strategy

Social Media as PR in Legal Markerting is Underused and Under Funded

Social Media is Public Relations for Legal Marketing

You never know who you’re going to meet in Harlem…

I met Hugh MacLeodon New Year’s Eve and as you can probably imagine, he’s a very funny guy.

His exclusive Amazon guest review of Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, received top billing  and is definitely worth reading. (I haven’t read Seth’s book yet…)  However,  since Seth has been and continues to be on the cutting edge of social media and communication, I felt it was important to include his book here. What was more important to me personally though,  was bring Hugh to your attention if you don’t already know him.

Hugh is an artist, cartoonist, and Web 2.0 genius whose blog, gapingvoid.com, has two million unique monthly visitors. I truly got the sense that Hugh was a “good guy” when I met him. When we exchanged contact information, he told me he was a cartoonist, I must admit I thought that was pretty Kool. However, it wasn’t until the next day when I went to his site, that I got a sense of who I was actually hanging out with that night!

A best selling author in his own right, Hugh’s first book, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, was an Amazon Top Ten Business Book of the Year and a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

He publishes a cartoon on gapingvoid.com daily (usually around 2:00 or 3:00 am…)… The cartoons are available as framed works for purchase as well.   Those of us privileged to be connected always get our days started with a smile and/or food for thought.   I’ll be keeping a link to his work on my sidebar going forward, just to keep the humorous side of us legal marketers shining and remind us our own daily creativity.

Check in to sign up for his daily updates!

Other articles you may be interested in:

Keeping Creativity Flowing On Your Legal Marketing Blog

My Typical Morning Routine – Using Social Media Tools for New Business

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

You can reach her at 917-856-5410

You can automatically send the latest feeds from your page to your fans’ email in-boxes. A free Email Newsletter application allows your firm’s fans to keep track of new activity on your firm’s Facebook Fan Page.

The new NutshellMail Facebook application allows users to add an “Email Newsletter” tab to their fan page, letting fans opt-in to receiving emails that highlight recent content from your page.

I know you may be from  from Big Law, so this application may not be applicable.  However, if you’re working in a small to mid-size organization, where everyone is whereing 5-hats, the eas in functionality may be exactly what you’re looking for.

The NutshellMail online service enables you to send and receive your messages from the primary social networks, ie:  Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, in their email in-box.  You can easily create an automated email newsletter campaign.

The free Email Newsletter application enables your fans to keep track of new activity on your page.

Automatically send the latest feeds from your page to your fans’ email inboxes.

• Increase readership and fan engagement
• Encourage more shares and comments
• No work for you — use your existing feed

Other articles you may be interested in:

Are you a legal marketer looking for help on Facebook?  Here’s a free guide!

Why technology and social media need to be integrated into your legal marketing strategy

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

I’m regularly asked, “Where do you get your ideas for your blog?

Honestly, I have more ideas and topics I’m interested in than I could ever find time to write about.  Now, I have the initial structure for my first book rumbling in my head, so I’m starting to map that ou, simultaneously with coming up with daily post content.  I’ve even slacked off for a time and had to pick up where I left off.

How am I doing it??

I’m finding that I have to keep practicing at it.  “Practicing” as in “the act of”…
Muse In the making...

Three-weeks ago, I went to the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York with my friend Theresa and her daughter.  I’ve admired Burton’s wild work for many years.  He’s just a bottomless pit of out-of-the-box creation and macabre sociological commentary ranging from prose like Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys to the darkly beautiful Alice In Wonderland .

Needless-to-say, I had an absolute blast.  It was just a Saturday afternoon out with some friends, but wala — I have something I can talk about regarding keeping creativity flowing and my blog content interesting.

Inspiration comes from EVERYWHERE.

We just have to keep ourselves open for it.  I never stop look looking!  Chris Brogan suggests simply using your phone’s camera and snap some weird things that you see.

From Initial Thought to Brilliant Post

Our having a good idea is one thing.  Turning it into a blog post is another. I constantly keep in mind the categories on this blog, which keep me focused:   Legal Marketing Tips, Trends, Tools and Tactics. Ideas that spur me into writing are inevitably thep osts that get other people’s imaginations going, inevitably stimulating new ideas from them.

The Practice of Writing

I wrote this section at 3:00 in the morning.  I’ve had the photos sitting on my desktop, but there were several other hot issues happening that I wanted to write about.   So, this idea  sat, until I just couldn’t sleep until I got it down — literally.  Writing looks like this for me — a lot!

Simply stating, “I’ll write every morning”, doesn’t really work for me.  I truly have to find the time where I can.  That’s why I have a desktop and a laptop to work on.  I suggest that the practice of writing is something you try doing — all the time…

You’re probably wondering how in the world you can do this — You have a practice to run and tons of other responsibilities…
Think about pieces you want to write. Really.  Simply Jot down notes about those pieces. I never leave my office without a small notebook on hand, but little snips of audio or leave yourself voicemail or write on the back of receipts work just as well.  Literally, whatever you can do, think about what you’re going to write.

Grab paragraphs wherever you can. I’m finishing this in the middle of the afternoon now after having the initial idea 3-weeks ago on a sidewalk in  mid-town.

Read other folk’s stuff. I read CONSTANTLY.  Yes, this actually counts as writing practice, provided you read as a write keeping in mind that you want to better your own writing from it. Publish often! . A place that my preactice will slack off is I end up keeping a ton of drafts of thins around, that never get published.  Unfortunately, the truth is unless it gets out and onto this blog — it  doesn’t count!

The more I publish, the more people will come at me and not always positively and the more people will “steal my ideas”  – Oh well, if we don ‘t write, we don’t give ourselves the  opportunity for feedback.

Just Keep Practicing…
And in the act of practicing continue to share what you find and it will help others.  It never ceases to amaze me how true this actually is.  Hopefully, this post spurs you on and you’ll create something you’ll want to share with me.

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Change is happening faster than EVER…

Five years ago, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook,  JD Supra and the iPhone didn’t exist. Today Facebook has 350 million members; Twitter -  30 million; and Hulu having surpassed Time Warner Cable, is the second largest “channel” in America.

We all know technology has profoundly impacted consumer behavior.  Smartphones brand loyalty is a prime example. Smartphones empower us to comparison shop on the basis of price at the point of sale.  Not to mention a shopping experience at any Apple Store is just a “Tech & Customer Care Heaven”…

As legal marketers, we are already witnessing how technology can  alter how potential clients  purchase our services and  give  third-party influencers are having effect.  Paid media’s “management” of our target audience’s purchasing cycle is have a transformational shift on our brands.

Ironically, while consumers and retailers are embracing these innovations, legal marketers are significantly  lagging behind the rapid technological evolution of our marketplace.

Considering that ten years ago consumers spent about 30 minutes online per day. Today, it’s four hours, according to Media Metrix, (twice as much time as they watch TV — and that time spent does not include e-mailing!)

In this decade, broadband expanded from 3% to two-thirds of American homes. Yet legal marketers barely adjusted their approach.

Change is always difficult, but legal marketers need to be  more aware of the new marketplace or run the risk of consumers disengaging themselves completely and rendering their marketing programs irrelevant.

The legal marketing narrative needs to be rebooted and the architecture of legal-brand building re-engineered.

Several important points to note:

• Legal CMOs must recognize that the speed and scope of change are so overwhelming that they need to dramatically revamp their marketing ecosystem.

• Transparency is the new black, making public relations and social media essential elements in a successful marketing strategy.

• CMOs must demand that all of their agencies, and not just the digital shop, be technologically savvy.

• “Traditional” agencies, and other disciplines play supporting roles, but if you spend 90% of your budget with traditional agencies, it makes integration all the more difficult.

In an interview I did with BlackEnterprise.com, I talked about the necessity of companies hiring people who are inclined toward technology and accept change as a given. That does not necessarily mean that those people are IT experts, but rather that they are curious, adapt easily and are inclined toward collaboration and social media.

As the landscape changes, the digital agency, the PR firm and especially the media agency should play an equal role in brand creation.
This time of change may mean that outside sources,  fluent in effective legal social media PR,  are necessary to achieve the best ROI.

Article referenced:  Why Brands Should Embrace Technological Change, Avi Dan,  Advertising Age, 1/11/2010.

Other articles you may be interested in:

Developing a Social Media Hiring Strategy: How To Use Networking Sites To Find Employee

How Social Media Impacts Advertising and Marketing for the Legal Industry

A Legal Marketing Revolution Is At Hand

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

I am proud to announce that this blog has become part of Alltop!  You can find the  Karasma Media Legal Marketing Blog at http://law.alltop.com/

What is Alltop you may ask?

Alltop is a news aggregation site that provides “all the top” stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web.  The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed, and the stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.

They gather together the best suggestions from the most active social web users and compiles links into a simple, clean discovery space.

When Guy Kawasaki launched  Alltop last year, Chris Shipley, the chairman of the  Guidewire Group and executive producer of DEMO stated, “For many, Alltop will replace their RSS readers.”.

A good metaphor is that Alltop is an “online magazine rack” that displays the news from the top publications and blogs. Our goal is to satisfy the information needs of the 99% of Internet users who will never use an RSS feed reader or create a custom page. Think of it as “aggregation without the aggravation.

Guy Kawaski – Alltop Founder

One of Alltop’s most impressive attributes is that it curates and organizes.  So, I’m very proud to be listed beside some other wonderful law blogs.  Do take a few minutes to look-see.  You can create your own individual “Front-Page” stories for yourself!

Read more

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

Harvard Business School is using social media for a variety of endeavors including publicizing faculty work, reaching out to potential students, customer service and event promotion.

Brian Kenny, CMO of Harvard Business School

Brian Kenny, the Chief Marketing Officer for (HBS) was in New York City this week to discuss his professional journey into the world of social media. As social media is changing the platform on which our society communicates and conducts commerce, Kenny says HBS is a embracing the behavioral shift brought on by social media and that the school is going to great lengths to harness viral marketing opportunities.

However, he also emphasized that with any social media program, there is some risk involved.

Read the full interview with Mr. Kenny on PR Shoptalk

Maisha Walker of Inc.com wrote a brilliant blog post on the Top 13 Ways to Drive Blog Readership.

Since you probably have a blog or are at least thinking about having one, you already know that your biggest challenges are creating content and generating readers. Maisha points out that there’s no magic wand to be waved in order to solve these issues and outlines some of my best techniques here.

I know better than to “recreate the wheel” when it’s being turned by one of the best in her field. Thank you Ms. Walker.

Other articles you may be interested in:

13 Must Have Blog Techniques & Tools

My Typical Morning Routine — Using Social Media Tools For New Business

Using Twitter to Keep and Grow Your Law Firm’s Client Base

How to Be the King (or Queen) of Social Media At Your Firm

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

David A. Couillard of the Minnesota Law Review, explores the potential applicability of the Fourth Amendment to data stored in off-site servers: spreadsheets in Google Docs, accounting data hosted on FreshBooks, and pretty much everything synced through DropBox, just to name two…

So far the courts,  mostly absent on-point statutes, almost always reason by analogy when presented with novel situations, and have not yet come to a conclusion about how to treat such data.

Drawing on analogies and  combined guidance from statutes like ECPA, the courts have pretty much settled on their treatment of email:

The to/from addresses on e-mails have also been considered transactional data, akin to an addressed envelope. However, the contents of an e-mail have been properly classified as content data. A service provider, even if it has the capability of accessing the contents of an e-mail, is not a party to the information.

However, the status of data stored in the cloud, that is, on the servers of a third-party provider, is much less clear.

Read Defogging the Cloud: Applying Fourth Amendment Principles to Evolving Privacy Expectations in Cloud Computing, for full detail.

Articles you may also be interested in:

Applying the US Fourth Amendment to data in the cloud

Kara works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.