Perhaps you’ve been there. When a discussion is so weird that the only response one can provide is sarcasm. It’s a desperate move. Such was the case on a recent law firm marketing listserv discussion of law firm blogs. Law firm marketers, you see, are busy right now arranging holiday parties and sending institutionalized holiday cards. The important things. Many are so busy hacking away at the trees they don’t realize they are in the wrong forest.
Here was my response:
Top Ten Reasons Blogs are a Bad Idea for Law Firms
(10) They might fail. Goodness knows you don't want to try something that isn't 100% guaranteed to work.
(9) Those in marketing can't control it. It's those renegades over in the IP practice area. The one's who it is rumored keep Macintoshes in their homes. And I think some of them are just associates. So what do they know?
(8) Somebody might call you an early adopter. You know pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs. Turtles who stick their heads out of their shells, well, whack! Mom said, "Don't grow up to be an early adopter - be a lawyer."
(7) IT doesn't approve let alone know much about them.
(6) Somebody might take issue with something stated in the blog and, well, everyone knows that controversy is disastrous not to mention newsworthy, viral and eye-catching.
(5) There's no good source for pre-chewed & digested blog content like professional services firms purchase for their regionally protected newsletter which they pass off as their own knowledge.
(4) Marketing is sure that, after about 63 blogging days, the buck lands on their desk and they'll be ghost writing content.
(3) On some professional services marketer’s scale, it doesn't make the top 5 list, which I gather is the maximum number of marketing initiatives a firm can handle at any one time.
(2) Those who are rumored to be succeeding are selfishly posting content to their blog and not extolling the virtues of blogging to the professional services community.
(1) And the number one reason blogs are a bad idea is that, although a new blog is created every 2 seconds, that search engines are favoring blog content with algorithmically driven prominence, and blogs are really nothing more than a website with a simple content management system, there only seem to be two guys who understand them. For the rest of you, get those holiday cards out the door.
