{"id":654,"date":"2011-11-05T17:06:30","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T21:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/amy\/?p=654"},"modified":"2011-11-08T11:49:38","modified_gmt":"2011-11-08T16:49:38","slug":"lmane2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/2011\/11\/05\/lmane2011\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Tips and Take-aways from LMANE2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps the overwhelming message coming out of the LMA New England Regional Conference, Lawyers v. Technology<\/a>, which took place this week in Boston, is that social media are not going away despite many a lawyer’s reluctance to embrace them. Luckily, legal marketers seem to be willing to continue to push the adoption of social media as part of an integrated marketing strategy and as a way to create and sustain personal branding and “thought leaders.”<\/p>\n

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\n(Cartoon commentary by Michael Cucurullo<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The cultural shift has begun in a few firms and in select pockets within firms. Over lunch with Kevin O’Keefe<\/a> of LexBlog, and between sessions with other legal marketers, I heard and shared success stories of individual attorneys and firms alike using social media (including blogs, videos, Twitter, Linkedin and the like) and attributing them to creating and strengthening relationships and winning new business. Certainly, legal marketers’ interest in social media and their technological literacy has increased dramatically in the past few years.<\/p>\n

Below, I share the scribbles on my conference notepad (that still made sense the day after). In no particular order, these are “my” take-aways.<\/p>\n

1. Google Analytics is not necessarily the best analytics program.<\/strong> Sure it’s free, but Google does not let you have as much control and access to server data as other paid programs, including PDF downloads. Some other analytics programs to check out include GetClicky.com<\/a> and OpenTracker.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Web traffic rule of thumb.\u00a0<\/strong>For the first time I heard the answer to a question I am often asked by law firm clients. The question: How much traffic should we be getting? The closest thing to an answer I’ve heard yet: 3 visits per attorney per day. Further explanation: The number was given by\u00a0Igor\u00a0Ilyinsky<\/a>,\u00a0of FirmWise, which conducted a study of 1,000 law firm websites, sizes ranging from between 5 and 250 attorneys. While the number should not be interpreted as the amount of traffic a site “should” get, it is the outcome of this specific study and does give us a benchmark to consider. (Using this benchmark, I am happy to report that law firm sites I manage for clients are getting 2 to 6 times this amount of traffic when looking at absolute unique visitors per month.)<\/p>\n

3. Use Linkedin’s Advanced Search<\/strong> feature to automate keyword searches that get e-mailed to you weekly. What an easy and great way to “listen” to your industry segments.<\/p>\n

4. Remember the basics.<\/strong> Technology aside, Deborah McMurray<\/a>\u00a0of Content Pilot reminded us of this important starting point for your web site strategy.<\/p>\n

People are coming to your website looking for three things:<\/p>\n