Marketing Tech: Four Keys to Crafting Content in an Era of Essential Engagement

My wife's maternal grandmother was a remarkable woman. It was not her extraordinary survival instinct (which kept her alive in Auschwitz) that made her so special, but the fact that when you saw her, she lit up the room with her smile. There was no trace of the hardships, the losses, or the nightmares.

She and my wife spoke often, but at the end of every conversation, she would ask in her mixed German/Yiddish/Brooklyn accent: “Kiss mein baby and give a kiss to Ari.” Then she would pause and say: “But don't be jealous [of the kiss].” That line always made her laugh hysterically before hanging up.

Don't Be Jealous

We tend to reevaluate our accomplishments, career milestones, and business development efforts in the Fall and toward the end of the year. Avoid wasting your time worrying about how others are doing, or by making unfair comparisons. Instead, study their success and adapt their techniques to your style.

Most importantly, note how they create and share content in the current era of essential engagement. Model your efforts on what works. Today, interaction with your network is critical to your professional growth because it generates momentum.

Start by analyzing the bios of your five biggest competitors or a few peers for whom you have tremendous respect. Identify where she has been published and where he has spoken. Determine how your competitor or colleague invites opportunity and adjust your behavior to do the same.

Maximize Media Mentions

When evaluating a profile, study your colleague's media interviews and the titles of her client alerts. Just as one's core audience is searching for interesting content in a very noisy marketplace, members of the media (including bloggers), both trade and mainstream, are always looking for the same. Those who can effectively relate what they do with that search will develop PR prowess.

In fact, savvy professionals routinely connect with local journalists directly. As such, consider becoming more familiar with the media landscape in your locality. Get to know the editors and producers of each publication. Keep the effort simple, but coordinate contacts and try reaching out to one individual per week.

LinkedIn and MondoTimes.com are two great resources for these opportunities. The latter provides listings of every media outlet in a given city (its claims to contain “33,100 media outlets in 213 countries”), and organizes them by medium (e.g., print, Web, radio, or TV) with links to each.

Maintain an archive of your public commentary and use each quote or interview as the foundation for your next article, blog post, or social media update.

Become an Umbrella Salesman

Despite its importance, lawyers often treat follow-up and marketing efforts like powering through the last box of marginally relevant due diligence or discovery materials, leaving articles, newsletters, client alerts, or social media contributions to the end of the day.

The problem is, you want to be more like an umbrella salesman, who seems to magically appear outside the subway or your office building the minute it starts raining. You do this by providing information that your recipients will find relevant and timely. Failing to do so can be a waste of valuable resources. It might be better to wait until the following week than to send a message before leaving for the weekend when no one is checking e-mail.

Target Your Audience with Technology

That talent for timing is a critical characteristic in a digital marketplace.

During a book signing in Chicago, I met a writer who had applied for a non-legal job with the company hosting the event. He advised me that after submitting his application, he began following the company and its executives on Twitter. When he saw the public online invitation noting my visit, he decided to attend, correctly believing that it would give him a chance to meet some of the company's decision-makers. He was the only applicant there.

All he did was identify the people he wanted to meet and seize the moment to do so. Those simple decisions are often the essence of modern interaction. It is a powerful technique, particularly for professionals interested in leveraging technology for career and business development. In a shrinking pool of opportunity, we must all be more proactive in creating our own.

A member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, and inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree, attorney Ari Kaplan is the author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011). Reach him at arikaplanadvisors.com for links to the audio version of his first book, The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development (Thomson-West, 2008), or his tip sheet on reinvention, completely free.

My wife's maternal grandmother was a remarkable woman. It was not her extraordinary survival instinct (which kept her alive in Auschwitz) that made her so special, but the fact that when you saw her, she lit up the room with her smile. There was no trace of the hardships, the losses, or the nightmares.

She and my wife spoke often, but at the end of every conversation, she would ask in her mixed German/Yiddish/Brooklyn accent: “Kiss mein baby and give a kiss to Ari.” Then she would pause and say: “But don't be jealous [of the kiss].” That line always made her laugh hysterically before hanging up.

Don't Be Jealous

We tend to reevaluate our accomplishments, career milestones, and business development efforts in the Fall and toward the end of the year. Avoid wasting your time worrying about how others are doing, or by making unfair comparisons. Instead, study their success and adapt their techniques to your style.

Most importantly, note how they create and share content in the current era of essential engagement. Model your efforts on what works. Today, interaction with your network is critical to your professional growth because it generates momentum.

Start by analyzing the bios of your five biggest competitors or a few peers for whom you have tremendous respect. Identify where she has been published and where he has spoken. Determine how your competitor or colleague invites opportunity and adjust your behavior to do the same.

Maximize Media Mentions

When evaluating a profile, study your colleague's media interviews and the titles of her client alerts. Just as one's core audience is searching for interesting content in a very noisy marketplace, members of the media (including bloggers), both trade and mainstream, are always looking for the same. Those who can effectively relate what they do with that search will develop PR prowess.

In fact, savvy professionals routinely connect with local journalists directly. As such, consider becoming more familiar with the media landscape in your locality. Get to know the editors and producers of each publication. Keep the effort simple, but coordinate contacts and try reaching out to one individual per week.

LinkedIn and MondoTimes.com are two great resources for these opportunities. The latter provides listings of every media outlet in a given city (its claims to contain “33,100 media outlets in 213 countries”), and organizes them by medium (e.g., print, Web, radio, or TV) with links to each.

Maintain an archive of your public commentary and use each quote or interview as the foundation for your next article, blog post, or social media update.

Become an Umbrella Salesman

Despite its importance, lawyers often treat follow-up and marketing efforts like powering through the last box of marginally relevant due diligence or discovery materials, leaving articles, newsletters, client alerts, or social media contributions to the end of the day.

The problem is, you want to be more like an umbrella salesman, who seems to magically appear outside the subway or your office building the minute it starts raining. You do this by providing information that your recipients will find relevant and timely. Failing to do so can be a waste of valuable resources. It might be better to wait until the following week than to send a message before leaving for the weekend when no one is checking e-mail.

Target Your Audience with Technology

That talent for timing is a critical characteristic in a digital marketplace.

During a book signing in Chicago, I met a writer who had applied for a non-legal job with the company hosting the event. He advised me that after submitting his application, he began following the company and its executives on Twitter. When he saw the public online invitation noting my visit, he decided to attend, correctly believing that it would give him a chance to meet some of the company's decision-makers. He was the only applicant there.

All he did was identify the people he wanted to meet and seize the moment to do so. Those simple decisions are often the essence of modern interaction. It is a powerful technique, particularly for professionals interested in leveraging technology for career and business development. In a shrinking pool of opportunity, we must all be more proactive in creating our own.

A member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, and inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree, attorney Ari Kaplan is the author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011). Reach him at arikaplanadvisors.com for links to the audio version of his first book, The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development (Thomson-West, 2008), or his tip sheet on reinvention, completely free.