Top 5 Inbound Marketing Stories of the Week: Educate, Enlighten, Entertain

I'm a firm believer that any industry can take advantage of social media - in some way or another.  Still, many feel there are certain businesses that don't belong in or benefit from the space.  One of the most ill-represented demographics on the Web, lawyers, is an example.

This week's top story on InboundMarketing.com highlights a lawyer who is taking advantage of the social Web as a way to extend and promote his personal brand, which suggests that the Web can be used by any industry to educate, enlighten or entertain .

1. A Lesson in Personal Branding: Brent Britton "Attorney 2.0″

Author: Bernie Borges on Optimize This

The focus of Bernie's article is attorney Brent Britton who, while many other lawyers have fallen under the category of technology laggards, has used the Internet for years as a communications and personal branding tool.  As a result, Brent gets hired based not on his association with a particular law firm; instead, he's hired for him.

Brent's advice to other lawyers or players in industries where social media involvement isn't the norm?  Be natural, and approach the Web as a way to educate, enlighten or entertain your target audience.  For example, he doesn't give legal advice on his blog, but he demonstrates his knowledge of law-related issues and topics, which in turn establishes him as a trusted thought leader.

Lesson: Any industry can get benefit from involvement in the social Web.

2. 50 Blogging Lessons To Know If You're Starting Today

Author: Adam Singer of The Future Buzz

We've already learned businesses that blog get more website visitors than those that don't. Aside from perpetuating this fact and sharing some additional statistics about the benefits of business blogging according to Technorati's 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, Adam offers a number of great blogging lessons to beginners.

A few of my favorites:

• If you wouldn't do it for free, don't do it at all. In other words: do it for passion and for yourself and you can't lose.
• Realize that promotion is secondary to content.
• Hold tight, it will only get easier.
  

Lesson: Blogging is extremely beneficial for your business. It's been proven.

3. SMB Lessons From BlogWorldExpo 2009

Author: Lisa Barone on Small Business Trends

Although a great way , blogging is just one way to reach an audience.  Lisa's article highlights some valuable lessons from this year's BlogWorldExpo about blogging -- in addition to social media and email -- that small businesses can learn a lot from.

Lisa explains in detail the following four:

1. Nonprofits should tie their efforts to a story.
2. Email marketing isn't dead.
3. "You don't need a million followers."
4. Your brand is the meta data people have about you.
   

Lesson: Attending events, conferences and expos is a great way to learn a lot about a variety of topics from different experts.

4. 3 Realities of Social Media

Author: Michael Brito on PR 2.0

Because social media is a fairly new ballgame, there are still quite a few unknowns and discrepancies when it comes to determining standards and best practices.

Blogger and Intel social media strategist Michael Brito discusses three realities he's learned about social media from his experiences with working in enterprise, including: Consumers already get it, but brands are still trying to figure it out; brands should focus on the people first and the tools last; and there is no such thing as a social media expert quite yet.

Lesson: You're not the only one still trying to figure out social media best practices.

5. Got Bad Incoming Links? Google Says "Don't Fret It"

Author: Barry Schwartz of SearchEngineLand

Concerned about the quality of some of your inbound links?  Worried that Google will punish you for it?  Fuhgetaboutit!  Barry's article relays some valuable information found on the Google blog that convinces us not to be so alarmed.

While inbound links are certainly a significant factor in Google's search engine ranking algorithm, keep in mind that it's just one of many.  So instead of spending time worrying about factors you can't control, Barry encourages us to focus our efforts on the factors you can control, like creating remarkable content !

Lesson: Focus your SEO efforts on aspects you can control, such as creating outstanding content.

Photo by walknboston

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