Coming up with content ideas is actually pretty difficult. If you do happen to have enough ideas, then finding the time in the middle of a busy practice to draft, review, finalise and post your content is even more difficult.
As a result, only those law firms who either hire a marketing agency, have significant human resources at their disposal, or are militantly diligent about executing their marketing plan tend to get stuff out the door.
Fortunately, there are a few tricks (if this was another website we'd call them “hacks”) to help you and your firm hit the publish button a bit more often. Starting with…
Eliminating Fake Fears
Somewhere along the way, somebody probably tried to tell you that “posting too much” was bad and you shouldn't do it. Buried deep inside your funny-bone is this tiny voice constantly whispering this creepy and largely fictitious line to you.
Truth time: I cannot think of a single law firm, ever, nor a single lawyer who even comes close to putting out too much content.
Not one.
So the chances that whatever you are doing at the moment is even coming anywhere near the line of “too much” are so low that we might as well just toss that concern straight out the window.
Tossed? Great – let's move on.
Front Load Topic Suggestion
Imagine if you didn't need to waste time with the “oh what should I post about today?” line of thought, and instead could just sit down and write something you had pre-planned?
Wouldn't that be nice?
It would also save us from one of the biggest time-wasters when it comes to our content campaigns – actually coming up with the ideas.
Now it's true – at some point you do need to dedicate a bit of time to coming up with ideas. However there is a proven, systematic way of doing exactly that.
And if you click this link here I'll send you a free email series that will give you dozens, if not hundreds, of ideas.
All ready to go. All targeted and on point.
Carry a Note Book
Now, I had a great idea yesterday when I was out for a coffee. I remember because I was listening to that audio book by that lady who did the thing… but what was it? It was a great idea! But nope… it's gone.
Carry a note book.
Write down ideas as they come to you.
If you really want you could get all fancy and use some kind of ubiquitous communications device that you might be lucky enough to carry… all of which come with a free electronic note-taking app.
But I personally like pen and paper.
Stop Second Guessing Yourself
The sheer abject terror that many of us feel before posting, sharing, writing or publishing something is pretty amazing.
I'm not sure exactly what we're concerned about. Probably it's criticism – someone will comment on our post, pointing out something they disagree with or our misuse of the oxford comma. We'll feel ashamed and embarassed and have to retire early as a result.
This almost never happens.
And when it does – it's actually not that big of a deal 99.99% of the time.
What DOES absolutely happen though is that we second guess ourselves so often, deciding that nothing we have to say is worth bothering with, that we end up producing very little actual content to publish.
This, true enough, avoids criticism. But the notoriety that we fear is replaced by the anonymity that our lack of action deserves.
Write the post. Hit publish.
Batch It
Last one before I hit the publish button – batch your efforts.
This works for some people but not others.
However if you are the kind of person who can “get into flow” when you sit down, and would be better off dedicated one hour each Monday morning to all of your social media content in the week – then do that.
As we practice our creativity and get in the groove of it, we can often get more done in less time.
Plus it gets that particular aspect of our marketing burden ticked off for the entire week – which is a nice feeling. There are plenty of third party apps out there now which allow you to queue up your social media posts if you want. Similarly most websites (if you're running your own) allow you to schedule your posts in advance.
That hard part? It involves having a block of time longer than some lawyers can create without interruption.
However, if you can have one or two “sessions” in a week, rather than a daily “oh I've got to get to that posting thingo” regime, then you might find it works significantly better for you.
Over To You
Lawyers are busy, but marketing is important.
Putting those things together can be challenging, so if I was you (which I kind of am…) I'd be taking any marketing hack I could get my hands on.
Go forth – hit publish!
