Optimizing Bylined Articles for Business Development: Steps for Using Social Media to Generate Inquires

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Writing articles and getting them published is a time-honored business development strategy for lawyers. A series of articles under your lawyers' bylines, published in respected periodicals and online media, can build name recognition and show they are authoritative, credible and reliable.

For small firms, writing articles may serve as the cornerstone of practice development, while large firms should integrate it into a broader strategic marketing plan. Using this strategy successfully requires strong writing and public relations expertise, but modest capital investment. It involves three steps:

1. Publication

Get a series of articles published under your lawyers' bylines.

2. Distribution

Send reprints directly to clients, prospects and referral sources, and give them an incentive to contact those lawyers (e.g., more information, a white paper, a free phone consultation).

3. Web Optimization

Post your lawyers' articles to the firm's Web site, and use search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO) to drive traffic to the articles, where readers will land inside your firm's Web domain.

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SMO is a relatively new marketing strategy--mainly because social media itself is still new. the narrow objective of SMO is to spread the word through various online communities that your attorney's article has been posted, tell how it will benefit people who read it and provide a hyperlink to …