enhance and protect your online reputation

How to Monitor & Enhance Your Reputation on the Internet as a Lawyer

Larry BodineMaterial in this seminar is for reference purposes only. This seminar is sold with the understanding that neither any of the authors nor the publisher are engaged in rendering legal, accounting, investment, medical or any other professional service directly through this seminar. Neither the publisher nor the authors assume any liability for any errors or omissions, or for how this seminar or its contents are used or interpreted, or for any consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this seminar. For legal, financial, medical, strategic or any other type of advice, please personally consult the appropriate professional.

Material in this seminar is for reference purposes only. This seminar is sold with the understanding that neither any of the authors nor the publisher are engaged in rendering legal, accounting, investment, medical or any other professional service directly through this seminar. Neither the publisher nor the authors assume any liability for any errors or omissions, or for how this seminar or its contents are used or interpreted, or for any consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this seminar. For legal, financial, medical, strategic or any other type of advice, please personally consult the appropriate professional.

About Larry Bodine, Esq.• Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com• 2.5 million visitors per month• Top online destination for

consumers seeking a lawyer or an answer to legal question

• Business development Advisor for 20 years

• Former Marketing Director at Sidley Austin

• Practiced law as a litigator

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/larrybodine

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How to Monitor & Enhance Your Reputation on the Internet as a LawyerLarry Bodine

www.ExecSense.com © ExecSense, Inc.

OverviewYou already have an online reputation• Track your online reputation• Get more clients, generate more income• Fighting bad information with good information• Blogs• Websites and SEO• Profiles on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, online

directories• Twitter• YouTube

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New Business with Reputation ManagementEstablish a solid online presence – a great way to generate leads and new files•There are 194 million US Internet users

• 2/3 of the US population• 85% of executives consider law firm websites important sources of information in their search for lawyers - Greenfield/Belser

• 82% of the consumers who use local Web search sites follow up with in-person action - comScore

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Why should lawyers engage in social media?

Source: HubSpot Online Marketing Opportunity Report: Social Media, Blog, and Search Engine Activity by Industry

Overall Online Activity

Social Media Activity

• Search engines are top priority• Blogs 30%, social media 30%

Analysis of online activity of 33 top keywords related to law

Online Dangers to Reputation70% of employers do a Web search on job applicants as part of their hiring proceduresOnline reputation as important as credit score•Trolls and stalkers – it happened to me…twice!•Competitors and online bullies•Losing litigants writing on Wikipedia•Facebook and Twitter imposters•YouTube attack videos•Employees - NLRB rules employees can call you a**hole and scumbag online so long as they are discussing a term or condition of the workplace

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Monitoring Your Online RepSearch and inspect the Web

• Google yourself

• Start a Google alert on your name and firm

• Search Facebook & Twitter with www.bing.com/social

• Set up RSS feeds -- visit FeedBurner.com and click the Register link at the top of the page.

• Download TweetDeck or use search.twitter.com to monitor conversations about your company in real-time.

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http://www.bing.com/social

Careful Counter-insurgencyIf you see a problem, deal with it quickly.• Don’t respond to the bully directly -- “You can’t win a

pissing contest with a skunk”

• Google and ISPs very responsive to © violations

• Impersonation is a crime

• Defamation claim ineffective • Throwaway email address • IP address - useless

• Reputation.com, Optimum7, Reputation Hawk – paid services• Unfortunately, they are no help with YouTube

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Overwhelm the “bad” with good • Pay for SEO services to rank as high in Google as

possible

• Get 1,000 inbound links to your website at www.therainmakerinstitute.com

• Buy additional domains – make each one a micro site for each area of law

• Register your own name as a domain

• Also register “www.yournameSUCKS.com”

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http://www.therainmakerinstitute.com/

Blogs Most Effective• Google indexes blogs quickly and ranks them highly

• Best platform: Wordpress.com

• An analysis of 33 keywords for the word "lawyer“ found that 30% of all online activity is in blogs – Hubspot.com

• Publish, publish, publish – blitz the Web with new content

• Hire someone to write dozens of blog posts

• LexisNexis writes 70,000 pages of blog content for thousands of lawyers each year

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Start with a Google profile• https://profiles.google.com – obviously ranks high and

it’s free

• Anchor of Google search and your Gmail, calendar, Docs & YouTube accounts

• Create Google Reader page - www.google.com/reader

• Constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content

• Google+ is new social network - www.google.com/+

• Built-in search feature

• Republish all your blog content

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https://profiles.google.com/

http://www.google.com/reader

http://www.google.com/

Facebook• More time is spent on Facebook than any other website• More than 800 million active users, and +50% log on

daily• Average user has 130 friends

• Rampant attacks by employees, and workers fighting with each other

• Open multiple accounts – it’s free• Republish your blog content

• Ask people to “like” your page• Get fans talking by asking questions – interaction

ranks you higher

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LinkedIn• It’s free• Profile may rank higher than your law firm profile• 1.5 million lawyers• 120,000,000 users in 200 countries

• Accept and invite connections – increases visibility• Make and request recommendations• Subject to ethics rules

• Link to your blog, Facebook Page, etc.• Join groups and become a known quantity• Can flag inappropriate comments

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Twitter• One billion tweets are posted on Twitter each week --

Kissmetrics

• A time-waster unless you have 10,000 followers…but tweets and retweets improve your Google search rankings

• Open multiple accounts – it’s free• Hire a marketing agency to tweet your blog posts• Rainmaker Institute can get you 5,000 followers for a

fee• Send me your verdicts and settlements in consumer

cases• Lawyers.com gets 2.5 million visitors per month• Blast out new content on @Lawyerscom to 15,400

followers every day

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YouTube• The future of law firm marketing• Know, trust and like

• Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day• It’s the wild west• Attackers set up fake accounts and YouTube does

nothing about defamation• Copyright violation is another thing• Hire a videographer or build your own studio• Post one video a day• Call Gerry Oginski - http://lawyersvideostudio.com

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Online Directories• Yes people and companies still use them• They turn up in Google searches

• Lawyers.com, Martindale.com, Avvo, Findlaw, Best Lawyers, online Yellow Pages, Superlawyers

• Lack of a profile raises doubt to 50% of legal service buyers

• For your info:• Martindale.com gets 900,000 visitors/month• Lawyers.com gets 2,500,000 visitors/month

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Action Plan

• SEO• Blog• Google profile• Facebook• LinkedIn• Twitter• YouTube• Online Directories

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Questions for Larry• Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com• 2.5 million visitors per month• Top online destination for

consumers seeking a lawyer or an answer to legal question

• Business development Advisor for 20 years

• Former Marketing Director at Sidley Austin

• Practiced law as a litigator

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/larrybodine

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enhance and protect your online reputation

Education

reputation management

reputation hawk

lawyer larry bodine

online rep search

online bullies

online destination

online dangers

analysis of online activity