Posts Tagged: "blogging"

Anyone can say: “I know what I’m doing,” and that is the problem. The lesson is simple: It is far better for a prospective client or customer to come to the understanding that you know what you are talking about for themselves than it is for you to tell them you know what you are talking about directly. When people come to the conclusion themselves that you know what you are talking about, that they have learned from your writing, they become loyal clients and customers who are eager to work with you. They also now become firmly convinced that you are the authority on the subject because you have written on the topic so often and so eloquently, so you begin to establish yourself as an expert; a real authority.

The first piece of business it to announce that we were notified earlier today that IPWatchdog.com was selected as the #1 IP by the Journal of the American Bar Association for 2013. That makes it 3 out of the last 4 years we were voted #1, and the 5th year in a row that the ABA Journal selected us to be in the Top 100 Blawgs. But as great a feeling as that is, perhaps the bigger news this year was that the ABA Journal selected IPWatchdog.com to be in the ABA Blawg Hall of Fame. This is an honor currently shared with only 19 other blog, including Dennis Crouch’s PatentlyO… In 2013 our traffic increased to an average of 118,095 unique monthly visitors, representing 43% growth in 2013 compared with 2012. We also averaged nearly 139,000 unique monthly visitors during Q4 of 2013.

On May 9, 2013, IPWatchdog’s very own Gene Quinn will be attending and presenting at the Business Development Institute’s Social Media Marketing Summit for Law Firms in NY. The summit was put together as a result of increased awareness of social media by law firms and how these platforms can be used to attract new clients and to expand business with existing clients. According to the Summit’s Event Summary, “Most lawyers use social media networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter and most firms have at least one blog. Many firms now recognize that blogging and social networking have helped produce new client leads.”

For some time I have known that we have been experiencing what seemed to be a rather large copyright infringement problem. For example, I know of very large entities that routinely would copy and paste our articles, remove links and any advertisement and then mass distribute just the text of our articles. This is obvious, blatant and willful copyright infringement. What was particularly disheartening was that this was going on within the intellectual property community. Disappointing because if those who are in the industry and working with content creators and inventors on a daily basis are all to willing to engage in that type of copyright infringement what hope do we have as content creators? Those whose livelihoods depend upon content creators and inventors should be the ones who most understand the damage that is caused by widespread copyright infringement.

By now you may have noticed that most successful businesses have a blog. This is no coincidence. Blogging can help you gain customers, drive traffic to your website and raise your rank in the search engine result pages. Here is a list of business blogging do’s to help you get started with your own blog.

With the growing trend of online marketing for business, it has become important to have a distinct Internet presence. A blog can give help you raise your search engine ranking, get more traffic and even win over more customers. Setting up your own business blog isn’t difficult if you know the steps to take. Here are the first three critical steps, or action items, to setting up your blog, or just going down the path of setting up a website.

First, the biggest mistake lawyers make is that they primarily write for other lawyers.  That is a huge mistake.  There are only so many lawyers in any legal niche, and only a subset of them are going to be willing to read news or information on the Internet.  A smaller subset of those who use the Internet to acquire information will be willing to read blogs.  So if you are primarily writing for lawyers that means your audience is going to be kept small. Additionally, lawyers don’t typically turn into clients. So if you write like a lawyer for an attorney audience you are almost certainly missing the mark.

One of the best things about social media is that you don’t need to have a big marketing budget to benefit from the different ways that social media can propel your business, but you do need to be committed and have a strategy. If you are not going to hire a consultant to assist you then you are going to need to invest the time to do things yourself, which is fine so long as you actually do it! Here is a list of “Social Media Resolutions” that you should consider implementing in your 2012 Marketing and Brand Building Social Media campaigns.

If you are going to go down the path of blogging for profit or for notoriety you need to have a well developed sense of what your market is interested in when you set out to write. Copying others isn’t likely a winning strategy, but identifying what you like, what you can provide and what you want to do are all essential. Then you need to think about the reader. You know the mantra — know your audience. It is certainly helpful to write what interests you because, in my view, that which you are interested in and passionate about makes for great reading, but it is also important to give readers what they want otherwise you won’t build an audience, or you will lose the audience you do have.

Friday afternoon I attended the second day of the AIPLA annual meeting. I got to the Marriott Wardman Park hotel at 9:00 am and was there until after 11:00 pm, for a full day of activities. I met so many interesting people while there, including the current Chief Judge Randall Rader for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,…

Earlier this week I was in Toledo, Ohio. I traveled to Toledo to speak to the Toledo Intellectual Property Law Association on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. I have a special connection with Toledo, having taught there at the University of Toledo College of Law during the 2001/2002 academic year as a Visiting Professor, and for a couple years prior as an Adjunct Professor. I would fly in on weekends to teach a variety of patent claim drafting and application drafting courses. Some of my dearest friends are in Toledo, so any excuse to get back to Toledo is a good one in my mind.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010, I will be giving a presentation to the Toledo Intellectual Property Law Association. My presentation will focus on the law, ethics and business of blogging as it specifically pertains to attorneys. This present article focuses on getting started from a conceptual or philosophical standpoint, and future articles in the blogging business series will address legal issues associated with blogging, as well as the mechanics of blogging. So, without further ado, here are the 7 critical questions for a blogging business plan.