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Thursday and Friday of last week saw our 5th Client Conference at Coombe Abbey in Coventry. Good job there was an alternative bar in case of wet weather, but thankfully the rain didn't dampen our spirits. As promised, all speaker presentations can be...
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The 360 Legal Conference was a great success; market trends affecting the legal sector formed the crux of the talks throughout the day. Viv Williams kicked off the Conference. The treatment of clients and customers by Law Firms was a key issue; are...
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Yesterday saw the first of what is probably going to be a six-monthly event. It was a workshop around how are clients are getting the best out of the FREE version of SugarCRM, known as the Community Edition. Attendees ranged from a planning...
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We are pleased to say we made new websites live for the following clients last month :- Seth Lovis & Co. Solicitors - http://www.sethlovis.co.uk Codobo Law - http:/www.codobo.co.uk Alliotts - http:/www.alliotts.com ...
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Bearing in mind it is unlikely that David will ever win an Oscar (unless there’s something he hasn’t told us yet); we’re over the moon that he’s played rather a large part in winning the next...
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So, we finally got to see the new QualitySolicitors TV advert the other night. Did you watch Dancing on Ice to see the advert live or did you set your DVR to record it? I did the “modern thing” and watched it on YouTube, after all,...
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RANSOM NOTE Last Seen: Hosting a serious staff meeting at LawNet's offices . We have reason to believe that said meeting got out of hand upon suggestion of budget increase for dog biscuits. We knew it was only a matter of time before his...
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A quote from Zoe Cawthorne at LawNet:- The Orange Dog Charity Challenge continues… As many people who attended the conference last year will remember, The Conscious Solutions Stand brought along a little friend in the form of The Orange Dog, who not...
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The EU Cookie Directive concerning new rules about the use of cookies was introduced in the UK on 26 May 2011. Website owners have been given a year to comply with the new legislation which is being regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office....
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See, simples! If you are not a regular student/user then some of these might not appear as funny to you as they do to me, but feel free to get in contact and I'll explain! Also, If you are the original owner of this graphic please let me know...
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The latest in our series of tips booklets is now available to download . Titled 29 Mistakes Law Firms Unwittingly Make with their Brand , it's a distillation of a whole bunch of things we've learned by working on countless website design...
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A client asked me the other day did I know what other law firms had for their marketing budget as a percentage of revenue. I had to say that no, I did not know, but to give me 24 hours and I'd get some data. So, 24 hours later I'd asked 12...
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We had three new websites go live last month :- http://www.ukinjurylaw.com - a new website for Webster O'Brien relating to personal injury claims http://www.cnwls.co.uk - a new website for the Chester & North Wales Law Society ...
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An update on the success of our Christmas game. You might want to read the original post about our brandable Christmas flash game . I got the results last week. Here's the highlights :- - the game was played 969 times by 172 different...
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I was more than a little pleased with myself today. Before Christmas I just madly went and spent £450 on a brandable Flash Christmas game from Big Bang Creative. And boy, did it work, whoever said the legal sector are stuffy, take a look at...
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The following websites went live in December. http://www.capitalrem.co.uk - a real estate management website for Capital Law http://www.gregglatchams.com - a new website for this Bristol solicitors firm ...
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What did you do on your website for Christmas? Here are a couple of examples we've seen :- 1) our Christmas game - http://www.conscious.co.uk/site/christmas2011/ 2) fantastic spelling using candles from Barton Willmore - ...
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Look! Santa Clause is coming to see us. Someone clearly found the biscuit preference request form on our website and filled it in for a laugh! -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Biscuit Preference Request Form from website [Wed...
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Three new websites went live last month. For SGI Group , Barker Son & Isherwood and Setfords . Three quite different clients, SGI do a lot of work in China, BS&I are a Wiltshire/Hampshire firm and Setfords are one of the new breed of...
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Conscious attended the Tikit TFB National User Group (#nug11) in London last week. It was a great opportunity to meet up with clients and friends, and to hear some excellent talks on the future of the legal sector. Those changes are being brought about by...
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Our new tips booklet update ( 38 Common Mistakes Law Firms Still Make With Their Website ) has recently been released and well received. First published in 2007 – a huge amount has since changed in the legal market, not least the dawn of social media!...
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A conversation that no one will hear if you don't follow anyone and don't get people involved! A law firms time is constrained, so we all know – fee earners are busy fee earning but the task of getting clients through the door is still there...
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Your website can be a very powerful piece to have in your in your toolbox. A beautiful piece of art crafted so that clients will marvel at how easy it can be to instruct your firm - This is the heart of that power. The update to date content is the...
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OK, so you have your profile completed – you are starting to connect with colleagues, associates and clients – but with millions of groups available – as a fee earner, do you really have the time to pick and choose the best ones to...
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A law firm launches a brand new shiny website...but, like a car, the minute you take it off the forecourt does it lose value? We know a single design has a shelf life – so a law firm needs to maximise the opportunity of this like any other...
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I’m delighted to see that our pooch has been making progress! Here is a fabulous picture of Mark Hovell, Managing Partner at George Davis Solicitors LLP getting into the festive spirit with our little canine crusader. The...
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It would be quite easy to get wrapped up in what your competition is doing. A firm could be envious to look across the High St, see a number of clients in and out of their office, or in 2011 see that your competition has a 1,000 Twitter followers when your...
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I loved this cartoon when it was sent to me the other day so much so that I thought we should have a poll on which of the seven deadly sins law firms are most likely to adopt as part of their marketing. Vote below! Web Poll Web Survey ...
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Yes that's right, it’s November, we can mention Christmas. It may not be right round the corner but it is approaching. As you'd expect, we've got some cracking ideas (pardon the pun) to warm your designs this festive season. Some may be...
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There are many things that a law firm wants convey through the website - whether it would be excellent, value, trust, and the clarity of what they will bring to the client. All will be valid key components building the image that you want to convey to your...
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We got into the office this morning to be greeted by this: No, it's not a ghost pigeon; but a smudge on the window caused by a pigeon flying into it. Absolutely incredible! Obviously, some puns have been flying* around the office (* that is one of...
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We had two more law firm websites go live in October. Webster O'Brien http://www.websterobrien.com - A really nice site for this great small firm of Stockport solicitors based in the Reddish area of Manchester. Features a tiger in the design,...
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Opening the door was an invitation, an engagement, a path to your expertise. Your client knew your door would be open and a wealth of expert legal knowledge would be at hand. Fast forward to 2011, that door is still open but there are a lot more...
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There are two major pitfalls that prevent a law firm’s website from being successful. One is bad design and another is out of date content. Out of date content is, in my opinion, more damaging than not having a website at all. All it says is that a...
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Okay okay, you probably won't consider changing your carpets or painting the same room a different colour every couple of years in your house, but ask yourself this, how often do you see new promotions and design across the UK today? Sure, there is a...
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As you may know if you are a regular reader of this blog or our legal marketing newsletter, we are regular attendees at all kinds of events run by other businesses in and around the legal sector. Particularly in the Sep/Oct "events silly...
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Finally got hold of some photos to be able to prepare this Animoto video. Spot the orange dog! Photos courtesy of Paul Coleshill from http://www.rawphoto.co.uk Why not sign up your own Animoto account ....
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The need for faster, more instantaneous access to law firms and their fee earners has intensified since the dawn of social media. The need for legal sector to keep-to-date with technological advances is great. But the key question has always been what do...
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I spent the day at the Legal Futures conference yesterday. It's the first one I've been to and was definitely worth attending, even though it was on a Monday (I don't usually "travel" on a Monday) and meant getting a 6am train...
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Conscious Canine Charity Challenge If you have ever seen us out and about you may have seen our ‘Orange Dogs’ dotted around conference venues and making an impact at conference dinners up and down the country. Well, last week at LawNet’s...
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Did you see that article in Obiter (inside back page of The Law Gazette) where Gordon Turner of http://www.gtemploymentlawyers.co.uk set them a challenge to find typos on his website. £5 to charity for every one. Obiter found 11 so...
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Please vote in the poll and tell us what you think? Website Poll Website Survey ...
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This video was produced using Animoto, a great web based service for producing great looking "photo videos" although you can upload short video clips as well. ...
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This video was produced using Animoto, a great web based service for producing great looking "photo videos" although you can upload short video clips as well. The photos were taken by Steve Pope - http://fotowalespr.spitfirephoto.biz/ ...
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We had a great day at the LawNet annual conference on Friday. There were great presentations from Nick Jarrett-Kerr who also covered for the very sick (bed ridden in fact) George Bull of Baker Tilly. The day's interaction was definitely...
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Thomas Jefferson once said... "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." I don't know about you but this website, ...
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If you’ve considered advertising through social networks then you would know about LinkedIn, but what are the benefits of the LinkedIn Ads platform? For starters 120million customers at your mouse clicking finger tips. If you’ve needed to use...
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It's not often that I use our blog to air personal opinions, well personal opinions that don't really have a business angle, but today I'm going to make an exception. What did the expression " to be fair " come into such common...
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Mobile Sites – Short, Sweet and Smarten up! The dawn of the smart phone has led to the obvious (well it should be) question of should our firm have a mobile website? Shifts in consumer (sorry...client) behaviour has seen a move to gain the...
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When we go out and train our clients on how to get the best use out of the various social media platforms one thing we like to do is show them how all the various things connect. The image below ( larger PDF here ) shows how we feel each of the various...
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It's less than a month to go and this leading IT conference being held at The Belfry. Needless to say I will be taking my golf clubs just in case there's a chance of getting out on one of the three courses, but I suspect not. There's a...
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I'm reading "Good to Great" by Jim Collins at the moment (buy it on Amazon ). The premise of the book is that there must be some specific things that companies do, in order to make the transition from good to great. I won't...
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I know, i know, ABS' have been delayed and are not actually coming into effect on 6th October, but that doesn't stop you hanging out with 100+ other people from the legal sector at the 360 Legal Annual Conference. The agenda ( PDF version ) looks pretty...
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One of the principles we teach in our social media training (opens a PDF) is that of only connecting with people who have either spoken to or met. It's fine to connect "through" someone else using the "Get introduced through a...
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Did you see the advert for QualitySolicitors at the bottom of The Sunday Times front page yesterday? I wonder how much that cost out of their aggregated media budget? Also, when I posted it on Twitter @accidentcentre replied with :- " @ ...
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Just as we’re all getting used to the Google Panda/Farmer update (so good they named it twice), a new service from Google appears on the horizon in the shape of Google Boost. Boost has been rolled out in the USA and has been tested over there for...
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If you want your team to make more connections on LinkedIn , why not incentivise them with a small intra-team competition. We are doing that in our team throughout June. There are two bottles of champagne as the prizes for :- Greatest Absolute...
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I was preparing for a pitch meeting recently and sat down to do some blue sky thinking on what the website of a law firm might look like in the near future. The slide I prepared is below and the following is a brief explanation of each point. ...
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The screwed up piece of paper that creatively supplemented the sub title of ‘Change the Way You Work Forever’ and a quote from marketing guru Seth Godin almost demanding you read it, helped the book into my shopping basket. There are a lot of...
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My good friend Ryan was right, I did take my eye off the ball – my line was slightly off and instead of achieving a lofted 200 yard drive, I’m brought back down to earth with a bump. I knew what I had to do from the outset. It was easy - swing...
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This book was selected as our first entry in the Conscious marketing book club and what a read it has proven to be. Written by one of the (if not THE) best sales and marketing authors, Jeffrey actually breaks his own trusted and valued ‘little book...
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New rules about the use of cookies came into effect in the UK on 26 May 2011. Many people have asked what impact the new rules will have on their website - the attached PDF is our summary of the EU Directive on use of Cookies and what it means for you...
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T-147 Days and Counting – The Impact of ABS’s Our first day began with a presentation by the former managing partner of Eversheds, Peter Scott ( Peter Scott Consulting ). Asking some tough questions about the impact of ABSs, such as “why...
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How cool does this table look? It's a meeting room at Pentlands, a business & tax advisor business based in Leamington Spa (aka a Leamington Spa accountant ). There's not only pens & pencils, but biscuits, chocolates and even a...
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The partial image below is extracted from this letter which I received in the post on the 2-Apr. I had been sent a cold targeted email from a company a few days before, but something caught my eye enough to open it. Clearly they are smart with their...
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We've just prepared a new case study on the benefits of social media for law firms. It's based around the fantastic work that Paul Hajek from Clutton Cox has been doing with blogging & Twitter. Clutton Cox are Chipping Sodbury conveyancing...
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Are you interested in trying out " video staff profiles" on your website rather than boring old photos? Video is clearly one of the best uses of the internet. The big problem with video is that is still relatively expensive to produce just a few...
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Seth Godin’s latest book aims to once again turn the readers attention to a goal they may think they know, but not quite necessarily understand how to achieve it. Some might say Godin's work is stating the blindingly obvious. However, it is only...
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Too many law firms. Not enough work. What do we do next? By the time of our 4th annual client conference in May, it will be less than six months to go to the implementation of ABS's. Everyone knows change is coming but in exactly what form is still up in...
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We spent the last two days at Legal IT in London talking to clients and prospects about SugarCRM and Intranet DASHBOARD. We had a great time talking to people about these two fantastic software applications and answering questions about our orange puppies...
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Please fill in your name & email address below and you will be taken to a page where you can download a six page PDF file that provides some statistics on the trends for online search & advertising data relating to the Personal Injury market. The...
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Does your law firm have a "Binning League"? One of our clients does. I've seen the list of finalists on their intranet. Here's the first three Rules :- 1. A waste paper basket of regulation size (2) (hereinafter referred to as “The...
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The full question was :- Too many law firms. Not enough work. What do we do? that came up earleir today at a dicussion forum afternoon that we hosted in London today. Here's a funny animated video we put together as part of the whole...
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This is just a GREAT cartoon from Tom Fishburne. It really struck a chord with me as we spend a lot of time talking to our law firm clients about Social Media and you can just imagine a bunch of lawyers sitting round a table having this conversation. ...
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I was at Ramsden's in Huddersfield the other day and they have a snooker table in their main meeting room! How cool is that! Got a photo coming shortly....
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I had the pleasure last night of presenting at the Marketing Network (Bristol & Bath) event at The Square @ Berkeley Square Hotel in Bristol last night on the topic of "sales". The title of the talk was :- The Ancient Art of Selling ...
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I was reading the bad news regarding the collapse of Fridays Property Lawyers into administration yesterday as reported on the Legal Futures website . Interesting how the use of "pre-packs" is becoming the de facto standard for getting...
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We made the following websites live for clients in December :- http://www.ogrstockdenton.com - OGR Stock Denton who are solicitors in north London http:/www.findersuk.com - Finders UK who offer a fresh approach to finding heirs ...
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Well, Movember is coming to an end, and along with it a colder upper-lip. As promised here are the finished moustaches : For those of you not in the mo, Movember is a charity that requires its...
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Help is requested by Jon Roberts of Nelsons with a short survey relating to the likely use of Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) under the Legal Services Act 2007 when the Act is fully implemented in the latter part of next year. Jon is researching...
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Matt Elson and myself are participating in Movember this year. For those of you not in the mo, Movember is a charity that requires its fundraisers to sport a moustache during the month of November to raise money for Prostate cancer care and research. ...
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I did some social media training for a law firm yesterday and as part of the session I show how you can use Hootsuite to schedule Twitter messages. My normal process is to schedule a message for 10 mins after the session will have finished saying something...
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We made the following websites live for clients in November :- http://www.vanderpumpandsykes.co.uk - Vanderpump & Sykes who are solicitors in north London http://www.4willsandprobate.co.uk - 4 Wills and Probate is a trading style for ...
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We did some direct marketing recently that was very "targeted". The letters went to the Marketing Director and Managing Partner of some large firms. The letters then got followed up personally by me on the phone. I'm not...
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Repeating the exercise first carried out in 2009 we have analysed six key website statistic metrics for 163 law firms (twice the sample size from the 2009 survey). The data collected was for the month of September 2010. The key metrics we continue to track...
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I see that QualitySolicitors.com have a five page advert in this week's Law Gazette. What do you think they paid? The full price of £23,676 or less? I think QS.com paid the following for their 5 page advert in last week's Law Gazette ...
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Someone sent me this today and it tickled me so I thought I'd post it. I'm sure none of us work for businesses or organisations that are like this.....do we?? ...
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I got this new report from Google today telling me some information about the usage of my record on Google Places (the Artist Formerly Known as Google Local!!). Did you get one today? ...
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I still have a few FREE one hour consultancy slots available on Thursday 30 September. I will be at the IoD all day, so if you want to talk about LinkedIn, email newsletters, Google PPC, Twitter, website design, SEO or any other apect of digital marketing,...
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It's tough out there for some law firms and it's been tough for some while. Around 18 months ago one of our clients were struggling and had to close the business and go through quite a complicated IVA/bankruptcy process. Anyway, the good news is that...
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I had a great time at lunchtime today presenting a seminar on social media on behalf of the PM Forum . I did the theory bit and then Helen Hammond from Elephant Creative did a case study on Wards Solicitors, a Bristol area law firm. Feel free to browse...
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Did you notice anything different about Google today? The search results page appears the instant you start typing and the results page then updates in real-time as you type more. Read all about it on the Google Blog . It will be interesting to see what...
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The concept of work is changing. The “assembly line” philosophy where workers are treated as a “cog in a machine”, performing set tasks or processes without the need for thought is a waste of resources. Technology can...
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I've only just decided to be brave enough to post this, having changed the names to protect the guilty, I thought it's a great lesson of how not to do something. In our social media tips booklet I wrote about how not to ask for a recommendation on...
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I still get skeptics tell me that social media for law firms "does not work". So I thought it was about time I found at least one incontravertible truth to justify my comments. The image below is taken from Google Analytics for one of our...
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I've only just got around the reading the page on the Legal Support Network website regarding the SRA ruling on the Capita/Optima ownership situation . It makes quite interesting reading and definitely gives an insight into how ABSs might well be...
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I've just listened to the BEST voicemail of the whole year. I've been trying to set up a meeting with a prospective client in London and we've played a bit of telephone tag and this was the message I just listened to :- "Hello David it's [name] from...
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Look at the billboard on the left first, before the one on the right. Many thanks to Chris Horsley-Wyatt of Intranet DASHBOARD makers of the great intranet software product for sending this to me. I just hope it's real and not some Photoshopped...
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