Lost in the Noise

There was recent discussion on Twitter and LinkedIn as to the ideal length of a law blog post.

Lost in all of the noise was what is real law blogging for business development. A conversation.

Listen first to what the people you want to engage/meet are saying/writing and what is being said/written about them. Then blog about what they are saying/writing or what is being said/written about them. They’ll engage you in return.

You may find the people and organizations you’ll want to engage like this will be the influencers of a lot of people that you want to reach – reporters, bloggers, respected social media users, conference coordinators, association leaders and corporate leaders.

My company has generated a lot of business from my blog (company was in fact built from my blog), but most of our customers did not find me from my blog posts nor had they ever read my blog.

My company and I built trust and a reputation through blogging, or perhaps better called, networking through the Internet.

Networking in person I have never measured the amount of words I used in talking with people as a measure of success and I’ll not do so online – though I have a problem going long in each case.

I understand there are other purposes for blogs, or for writing on blog software, that being reporting and long form analysis – that’s great and it works for many purposes – including, if done right, building a name and relationships resulting in business development.

If you’re chasing stats, clicks, likes, comments as the true measure of success and developing a strategy to get these, things can get confusing. Things also get noisy if you listen to all the marketing advice about the perfect way of doing this or that on the Internet.

Say what you need to say in engaging people, often not your clients and prospective clients, to engage people strategically, and move on.

It’s a fun and rewarding way to blog.