Plugged In Lawyer

The following is an excerpt from a white paper recently written for a group of 3L’s at a prominent law school.  The principles are applicable to attorneys looking for jobs at any level.  You can find Part 3 here, Part 2 here and Part 1 here.

In Part 1 of this series, we covered reasons why digital reputation is becoming increasingly important for attorney job seekers and I advocated the AIM Model for growing a targeted online reputation.  In Part 2 of this series, we discussed “assessment” strategies under the model and in Part 3 we discussed “influencing” your reputation under AIM.  Today, we talk about monitoring and maintaining the online reputation that you’ve worked so hard to establish.

Don’t Forget To Monitor & Maintain

If you do nothing else but read this series of posts, please pay attention to this next piece of advice.  Even if you do everything described in the series, please likewise pay heed.

Set up Google Alerts for your name!

Setting up these alerts allows you to receive email notifications advising if your name is referenced on the web in the future.  Personally, I have these set up for myself, my husband and my young daughter, as well as my employer and everybody else whose web fortunes can impact my personal reputation.

If anybody so much as whispers about you on the web, you want to know about it.  If something nice is being said, go say “thank you.”  If something less flattering is being said, take appropriate curative steps.

Set these alerts up for all possible variations of your name, including maiden names.  Have the alerts sent to an email address that you check regularly.

Besides setting up the alerts to monitor your name, there are also maintenance steps to implement in building your rep.  Calendar a quarterly reminder to tour your online digital assets to assess whether they still accurately reflect your marketing message and target audience, and make changes accordingly.

Good Luck & Get Started

Following the steps outlined in this series of blog posts will get you off to a great start in affirmatively building your digital reputation, and put you miles ahead of many of your fellow new lawyers.  There are big changes afoot in the legal industry and digital marketing savvy has never been more important.  Jump in now with both feet!

“See” you on the web!

To see Part 3 of this series, click this link

To see Part 2 of this series, click this link

To see Part 1 of this series, click this link

The following is an excerpt from a white paper recently written for a group of 3L’s at a prominent law school.  The principles are applicable to attorneys looking for jobs at any level.  You can find Part 2 here and Part 1 here.

In Part 1 of this series, we covered reasons why digital reputation is becoming increasingly important for attorney job seekers and I advocated the AIM Model for growing a targeted online reputation.  In Part 2 of this series, we discussed “assessment” strategies under the model and today we discuss “influencing” your reputation under AIM.

Influencing Your Digital Reputation

You will never own your own digital reputation!  You can only influence it.

Read those last two sentences three more times.  They are that important.

What do I mean by “own” a reputation?  Just as with offline life, outsiders can come along and hurt (or help) your digital reputation.  A spiteful ex-girlfriend or any other random person can digitally post negative information about you (or somebody with a name like you) and it can turn up under a search for your name in the search engines.

So how do we control what we can control (aka “influence”)?  By acquiring as much digital real estate as possible where we can put up our desired (focused) message.

Each little acre of digital real estate you acquire on a different platform gives you the ability to snag one spot in the list of results that come up when somebody searches your name in the search engines (“Search Engine Results Pages” or “SERPs”).

To see an example of this, google my name “Tracy Thrower Conyers” and you’ll see my name in connection with a slew of different little digital “houses” – some that I control and many that I don’t.

What digital real estate do I recommend for lawyers Read more…

The following is an excerpt from a white paper recently written for a group of 3L’s at a prominent law school.  The principles are applicable to attorneys looking for jobs at any level.  You can find Part 1 here.

In Part 1 of this series, we covered reasons why digital reputation is becoming increasingly important for attorney job seekers and I advocated the AIM Model for growing a targeted online reputation.  Today, we discuss “assessment” strategies under that model.

Assessing Your Digital Reputation

The first assessment step is defining your endgame.  Who is your audience and what do you want them to know?  In the case of junior attorneys looking for jobs, the audience is who you see yourself working for, whether that’s a small firm, large firm, in-house law department, non-profit entity, governmental agency or the like.

What do you want your audience to know?  You want them to know that you’re a new, ambitious, hardworking attorney with x, y and z special talents.  As you work to define your audience, what that audience is looking for (based on research, not wishful thinking), and what you offer that is attractive to your audience, you are developing your “marketing statement.”

The idea of “marketing” might be a foreign concept to junior lawyers, but trust me as a longtime attorney and legal recruiter when I tell you that Read more…

The following is an excerpt from a white paper recently written for a group of 3L’s at a prominent law school.  The principles are applicable to attorneys looking for jobs at any level.

There is no question that Web 2.0, with its inexpensive tools and exponential reach has changed much of the way business is conducted these days.  Recruiting is no exception.

Today’s graduating law students may not even remember Web 1.0, but in early web days, web information was a one-way flow of information that website owners published, and then sat back and hoped visitors would find.

The next iteration of the web – “Web 2.0” – was much more interactive, and invited conversation and development of community.  Early sites like MySpace (known as a gathering place for entertainment-minded people) and Facebook (known as a gathering place for friends and family to have digital conversations and share photos) contributed to the social revolution.

Flash forward to today and “social media” is ubiquitous.  Recruiting is a natural context for encouraging inexpensive social conversation – hiring entities can showcase their companies and advertise their jobs.  Employee candidates can shop opportunities in great detail.

Lawyers and law firms, with their heavy emphasis on historic precedent and conservative natures, have been slower to adopt social recruiting to the same extent as their corporate cousins, but they are increasingly making their way to the social media party.

What does this mean for attorney job seekers? Read more…