One aspect of law firm marketing that your firm may not have given much thought to is information security.  However, according to recent studies, hacking and other breaches of information security are actually costing companies over $1 billion every year.  You can't afford to be the next victim of information security leaks.  In this guide, we'll look at how you can implement an online marketing plan without risking an embarrassing or costly hacking incident.

#1: Have Longer, More Secure Passwords

This seems very easy, but when vast password leaks happen, it invariably turns out that the most common passwords are incredibly insecure—things like “12345,” “password,” and “Password.”  If you're not yet using very secure passwords, consider that even adding a few additional characters to the end of your password can make it substantially more difficult to break.

Many services today will actually limit your password choices, trying to ensure that you choose a password with enough special characters and numbers that it will be difficult for a hacker to guess.  However, you should also make sure that your longer password is something you can remember easily.  One of the best ways to make a password that is both secure and easy to remember is to abbreviate a sentence that you'll remember for a long time.  It can be a saying, a favorite movie quote, anything—just use the first initials of each word, perhaps substituting an occasional number or special character where you feel they'll be memorable (like 1 for I, and so on).  For example, “Life isn't fair, it's just fairer than death, that's all,” becomes “l1f1jftdta.”

#2: Use Secure Software

How do you know if the software you're using is secure?  It's not always easy to tell.  In general, the more commonly used a piece of software is, the more likely it is to be secure—but the more likely it is that hackers are trying to find their way around its security systems.  The two ways that you can choose to deal with this issue are to use programs that are less common (a solution commonly called “security through obscurity”) or to only use programs from companies that have good track records of keeping data safe.

#3: Avoid “Social Engineering” Hacking

Even if you have fantastic passwords and great software, they might not be enough to save you from a breach if a social engineer comes to your workplace.  These are hackers who specialize in charming others and in some way misrepresenting themselves in order to gain access to your data.  The best way to avoid social engineering hackers is simply to be aware of their existence.  Make sure that any staff who have been given your social media passwords are aware of the existence of these hackers, and that they understand no passwords are to be given to anyone without authorization of specific people in your law firm.

A common guise for a social engineering hacker is as a tech support person from a company whose software you use.  The hacker comes in, says they need to do some software updates or fix a computer problem, and simply asks for the password you took so much time coming up with.

#4: Keep Hardware and Software Updated

Even the most secure software can have occasional vulnerabilities that are exposed by either hackers or people working internally at the company to fix bugs.  When breaches and vulnerabilities are discovered, companies develop software patches and driver fixes that can make them run better while being less vulnerable to hackers.

If you're not routinely updating your hardware and software, including both software applications and your operating system, you could be setting yourself up for a serious information security breach.  The higher the profile of your law firm, the more likely it is that a hacker could try to use a backdoor into your computer systems to try to obtain your data.

#5: Read Up on Information Security News

In order to know which software packages are most likely to remain secure and what the biggest topics in keeping your information safe are, you'll need to start looking into information security news.  It may not seem like the most exciting topic, but having this understanding will mean that you're able to plug security holes faster and get through major security weaknesses involving widely used programs without having your data compromised.

For example, let's say that you find out that a new critical security flaw has been found in Java.  You may choose to disable Java runtime environments on your computers until the breach has been fixed and Java can be updated on your machines.  While this kind of thing may seem like it takes time and hurts efficiency, the amount of productivity and money lost to a single information security breach is massive—keep in mind that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

#6: Own Up to Mistakes and Leaks Right Away

Uh oh.  The worst thing happened, in spite of all your efforts: you've been hacked.  Your website's a graffiti-covered mess and you're not sure how much of your clients' data was obtained by the hackers.  When something like this happens, there's a tendency in some companies to want to sweep it under the rug.  However, things like this tend to come out—and when they do, you'll want to have been transparent the entire time.  If you're seen as lying or trying to cover up the truth, you're going to risk losing a great deal of face and sacrificing a reputation for honesty and forthrightness.

#7: Use Different Passwords For Different Services

Too many people, once they have a password that “works” for most services, use that password over and over.  The problem with this way of thinking is that when you operate with just one password, it only takes people knowing one of your passwords to learn all the others.

Make sure that each of the social networks you're using, as well as your website, have different passwords.  This will help ensure that even if someone manages to get hold of a password for your social media accounts, they won't have passwords for your automated emailing program.

Not all material on Twitter has to be original.  In fact, of the over 100 million tweets sent on Twitter daily, a majority of them are actually re-tweets—copying something that someone else already said.  When you're new to Twitter, getting used to the etiquette and norms of re-tweeting can seem a bit daunting.  That's what this guide is for: helping marketing professionals understand when, how, and why to re-tweet and how to get the most out of copying and sharing the content of others.

#1: Use Retweets Sparingly

Keep in mind that as a business, you shouldn't be spending all of your Twitter time re-tweeting.  People do want original content, and that means that you should make sure that at least half the posts you tweet are actually completely original.

Overusing re-tweets can often be a sign of a law firm marketing professional who is feeling too overworked to create their own content consistently.  If you are unable to make new content, consider devoting more time to your Twitter account.  In general, you should only consider a few posts a day to be worth re-tweeting.  If you re-tweet too often, it's one of the fastest ways to watch your number of followers decline day after day.  Very few people want to read a Twitter account that is just a list of re-tweets related more or less to the law.

#2: Watch Whose Tweets You're Re-Posting

If you see a great idea in a tweet, you may want to immediately retweet it.  However, this would be ignoring some vital aspects of business and reputation management today.  Before you decide you're going to re-post someone else's tweet, make sure you know who that someone else is.  Even a seemingly innocuous tweet can turn into a big scandal if it turns out that it was originally from someone who was, in some way, media poison.

If your re-tweets are coming from sources that could potentially be offensive, you may wonder what to do.  The right idea?  Forget that tweet and come up with something new.  There's no reason to offend people with your law firm Twitter account.  It's just not worth it—the risk vastly outweighs the reward.  Stick to re-tweeting from safe sources when you decide to re-post the content of others.

#3: Do a Reality Check

One of the most embarrassing things you can do on Twitter as a company is to re-tweet a post with factual information, only to find out that the facts were wrong and the tweet was a hoax or prank.  This kind of thing happens in the online world all the time today—Twitter rumors have started about topics from celebrity deaths to presidential conspiracies.  In order to avoid being caught up in a rumor that turns out to be false, make sure that you're verifying the facts before you press “enter” and re-tweet the information.

One of the best websites for doing a quick fact check online is snopes.com.  If something you see being tweeted sounds like it could be an urban legend or hoax, Snopes is one of the best places you can go on the web to see whether it's true or false.  The site includes thousands of popular hoaxes, and can give you reassurance before you re-tweet factual information.  Snopes will tell you nbot only whether your content is true or false, but also where it comes from.

#4: Check Existing Responses

Even if a tweet sounds like a great idea initially, there may be some flaws you hadn't thought of.  To avoid looking silly, consider that you may want to check on whether people have already been responding to a tweet in both its original and re-tweeted forms.  If it seems like the responses are limited to agreement and re-tweets, you're probably good to re-tweet the content yourself.  On the other hand, if you're seeing a lot of disagreement and controversy, you have to consider whether it's the kind of disagreement you want to foster on your own Twitter feed.

#5: Re-Tweeting Up and Re-Tweeting Down

You'll have two types of connections on Twitter: people who have more connections and more social clout than you, and people who have less.  When you retweet, you should consider making your re-tweets a combination of re-tweeting up (repeating content said by someone with less social clout, so that more people can see what they have said) or re-tweeting down (repeating content by an already popular content producer for people with fewer connections and less social clout to see).

Giving yourself a mix of these kinds of re-tweets ensures that you keep the loyalty of your followers who aren't as well socially connected, while also giving you ways to re-tweet some of the biggest names in your field.

#6: Posting Re-Tweets on Other Social Media Sites

If you want to post a tweet to another social media website, like Facebook or LinkedIn, that's a great idea—ideas propagate across these networks today, and what starts on Twitter can easily end up on Youtube, LinkedIn, or anywhere else on the entire internet.  However, make sure that if you're posting re-tweets to another site, you're not doing it too often.  Once in a while is cross-pollination, but if people wanted to read re-tweet after re-tweet every day, they'd get their own Twitter account rather than reading your content on other social media sites instead.

#7: Follow Re-Tweeters

When you notice that your own original content is being picked up and re-tweeted, you should consider starting to follow the people who are re-tweeting your content.  Often, re-tweeters who find your content interesting enough to share are exactly the kinds of people who make the best brand ambassadors.

By following re-tweeters and making some kind of direct Twitter contact with them, you can make sure that they continue to read your Twitter feed and interact with other members of Twitter in a way that makes your tweets get more exposure.

Almost all technologically savvy law firms today engage in some kind of email marketing.  However, according to a 2012 study of over 8 million emails sent from law firms to potential or established clients, only 20 percent—just one in five—of those emails is ever even opened.  Once the email is opened, the numbers can be even more dire.  Only one in ten people who opens the email you send will make a call because of it.  With numbers like that, even small improvements can translate into big increases to your client base.  In this guide, we'll look at how to create email marketing that pops for your clients, lowering your bounce rate and increasing your open rate for law firm emails.

#1: Make Your Emails Look Good

It may seem a bit shallow, but people do like to have an email that is well formatted and looks competently designed.  This doesn't mean that you need to do your marketing emails with big photo backgrounds and desktop publishing programs.  Even an email that's almost exclusively text can still be put together in a way that conveys an attitude of professionalism.

Verify before sending any email to a large email list that it looks good in most or all browsers and operating systems.  You don't want to send an email to thousands of people, including hundreds who will open the email on their Android phones, only to find out that Android displays the email all wrong and you'll now need to send a corrected version.  Making sure that your emails are formatted correctly and look good the first time is key to avoiding embarrassing re-sends later on.

#2: Include Video When You Can

Many law firms forget that video can be one of the best tools for establishing client contact and making clients more at ease with talking to a lawyer.  Studies have shown that video has a significant impact on conversion and bounce rates.  Make sure that your video is hosted reliably—perhaps through YouTube or another free online video host—and that you keep it around 3-7 minutes.  Too short and people won't want to start your video—too long and they won't want to finish it.

Your videos shouldn't just be a longer version of your television advertising.  Instead, you should use the videos for different purposes: introducing yourself or other attorneys at your firm, discussing commonly asked legal questions, or giving information about legal consultations and current legal issues.

#3: Use Targeted Lists of Contacts

If you're sending all of your emails to the same one, big list of clients—stop!  What are you doing?  It's the 21st century, and today it's much easier to divide your emails into targeted lists of contacts that will be most likely to open and respond to them.

For example, you may want to divide your clients by type of case, so that you can target your emails to exactly the kinds of clients that you want to focus on with that email's copy.  This avoids other people on your list getting “ad fatigue.”  If you make sure that every email they receive from your firm is in some way targeted at them, readers will be more likely to open and respond to your email.

#4: Have a Sense of Humor

Sounding boring and like everybody else is a great way to get your email tossed into the trash with barely a second glance.  When people check their email in the morning, they often have many emails to look at and are already feeling overwhelmed.  By making your content quirky, funny, or otherwise relatable, you ensure that your clients will see something different in their inbox—and something different is much likely to get read than something that looks just the same as every other mass email.

#5: Don't Mislead With Headlines

Some consultants will actually advise law firms and other businesses to make “linkbait” headlines that do more than just tempt people with the actual content of the email.  Their advice is to mislead—leading to people opening the email, being disappointed, and bouncing right back out.  That's not the kind of email response you're looking for, so make the headline something that's real and gives a good idea of what's actually in your email.  This may decrease your open rate slightly, but it will also decrease your bounce rate.

#6: Give Something Away

Even if it's just something in electronic form, having something to give away to the people on your email list can be a great way to get your emails opened and read.  Consider creating a brief guide in .pdf format about how to deal with a common legal situation that clients of yours commonly find themselves in.  The sky's the limit—you can also give away real, physical goods with a consultation or appointment, if you so choose.

#7: Be Personal and Personable

Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because your emails come from a law firm, they need to sound like a stuffed shirt wrote them.  Being personable and telling stories in your emails is one of the best ways to keep people reading.  If you're using some personal narrative even when talking about current events, you're not being unprofessional—you're creating a great way for people to understand the underlying legal issues.  Personality matters when it comes to choosing a law firm, and by letting your personality shine through you'll be doing more to convert business.

#8: Don't Oversend Emails

The single biggest mistake you can make with your email marketing campaign is to flood people with so many emails that you start getting sent to spam or trash folders before you can even make a case for someone to open your new email.  That means no sending multiple emails every day.  In fact, usually you should try to keep your mass emails limited to just one per week.  This will minimize the chances that someone will consider your emails spam, while maximizing the quality of your content.

One of the newest ways to interact with the rest of the web is with social bookmarking.  But what is social bookmarking, and how is it affecting the way people use the internet and find new websites?  Can your law firm actually make use of social bookmarking, or is it a fad that will fade away quickly?  What is social bookmarking going to look like in the future, and how can you plan for it?  This guide will answer all of your questions about social bookmarking so that you can start planning out which websites to post your social bookmarks on.

What is Social Bookmarking: History and Definitions

When web browsers started appearing in the mid-1990s, one of the first features they added was bookmarking.  Bookmarks allowed people to come back to a favorite URL again and again without needing to write down or memorize the web address of a particular website.  These bookmarks were stored in a file on your computer that was kept with the browser application you were using.  That bookmarking functionality stayed basically the same for about a decade.

In the mid-2000s, a new type of bookmarking appeared: social bookmarking.  Now, instead of just storing bookmarks on your own computer, you can actually store them on websites.  What's more, instead of keeping your bookmarks to yourself, these websites allow you to share them with other users.  Social bookmarking sites also often let users determine whether a submission is good or bad, and promote it or demote it accordingly.

What is Social Bookmarking Used For?

If you're going to start to use social bookmarks as part of your marketing strategy, you should know what is social bookmarking being used for by marketers.  One of the best parts about social bookmarking is that it can generate high quality, high PageRank inbound links that will make your search engine optimization efforts more successful.  Google and other search engines base your search rankings in part on the quality of your inbound links, so it's very important to have links coming from websites that are popular and authoritative—which many social bookmarking sites are.

Another answer to the question of “what is social bookmarking used for?” is that you can actually draw in new clients and business with social bookmarks.  If you're using the right websites and making contextual links to quality content, your linking could actually help you to score a new case.

Keep in mind that if you're not creating quality original content, it may not be very beneficial for you to use social bookmarking websites.  What is social bookmarking if not a way to show good content to others?  If your content could use improvement, work on that before starting to post your links to it.

General Social Bookmarking Websites

Some types of social bookmark websites are made to accept just about any type of link there is, and just about any legal practice can post links that would be relevant to their viewers.  For example, right now, there's no trendier site for social bookmarks than Reddit.com.  What is social bookmarking with Reddit?  After making an account on the website (a process that takes only a minute), you can start posting links to your content immediately to a wide variety of “subreddits,” each of which is related to a different topic.  You might want to use a subreddit like “law” for your post, or you might post it in a more general subreddit like “news” or “politics.”

Other general social bookmarking sites include Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.  These websites are all different in their approach and interface, but serve the same purpose.  You can feel free to post the same content to several different social bookmark sites rather than just using a piece of content on a single website.

Specialized Social Bookmarking Websites

What is social bookmarking that is specialized, and what is it useful for?  Let's say that you work in the field of intellectual property litigation.  Instead of posting something to a general social bookmarking website like Reddit or StumbleUpon, you might want to try your hand at getting a story onto one of the most popular technology oriented social bookmarking websites: Slashdot.

Now, keep in mind, if you're able to get a story posted to one of these websites and it makes it to the front page, your website may get hammered—an effect originally known as the “Slashdot effect.”  Be sure that your web hosting provider is capable of providing the hosting you need before  you start making posts to social bookmarking sites.

Social Bookmarking Etiquette

What is social bookmarking etiquette?  In brief, every website that you use for social bookmarking will have its own way of doing things—and those ways can be very, very different.  Don't jump right in and post content onto a site that you've barely read or have never participated in before.  Get a personal account first, post a few comments, get comfortable with the website and the people on it.  Only then will you be properly equipped and knowledgeable about the etiquette that guides members of that website.  This will give you a much better chance of being listened to and having your link accepted as part of the community.

Why Social Bookmarking Is Here To Stay

One of the things many people don't seem to understand is what is social bookmarking's appeal?  Well, part of that appeal—and part of why social bookmarking sites have staying power—is that they become communities all of their own, with their own personalities, quirks, and moral codes.  This gives people a very strong sense of identity and belonging with the website.

This is why it's a good idea to choose a few social bookmarking sites and really get acquainted with how they do things.  It's better to post only to a few websites but to post with quality, relevant posts than it is to spam every social bookmark site that you can find with the exact same content, whether it's relevant or not.

Social bookmarks are such a new tool for most marketers that there haven't even been studies done on how many law firms use them.  Getting in on the ground floor of this new marketing technique is incredibly important for both your search engine optimization and just to improve brand awareness.  If you don't know a social bookmark from a social network, this is the guide to get you started.  We'll explore the world of social bookmarks, including how law firms can take advantage of this new tool to expand their inbound link presence and overall reach.

What is a Social Bookmark?

If you've ever clicked the star icon to bookmark a website, you know how convenient traditional bookmarking can be.  Social bookmarks put your bookmarks out into the public, on the web where anybody can see them.  Unlike traditional bookmarks, which are held in the configuration files of your browser software on your computer, social bookmarks are located on websites designed to be communities of bookmarkers.

Many, but not all, of these social bookmark communities allow users to not only submit bookmarks, but also to vote on submitted content.  If content is judged by a large number of people to be good, it will become more visible for more users.  If people think it's spam, it can be removed by a moderator or will just become basically invisible to users.

Most places with social bookmarks also allow for commenting.  Submitting your social bookmark to a website can be a great way to get feedback for a particular piece of content that you've worked on before you link it from your Twitter or LinkedIn accounts.

How Do Social Bookmarks Affect My Blog/Site Traffic?

By having a social bookmark that links to your website's URL or that goes to your blog, you can get more readers to your pages.  Depending on which site or sites you post social bookmarks to, you could see a very small increase to your traffic or—if it ends up on the front page of one of the bigger social bookmark aggregators—a tremendous increase.

If you suspect that your content has the possibility of “going viral” after you include it among your social bookmark submissions, check with your web hosting provider before putting links on social bookmarking sites.  If you don't, there is a chance that a huge increase in traffic will be too much for the servers to handle, leading your website to go down in what amounts to a non-malicious distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.  People who try to click on your website while it's down will just receive errors and won't be able to view your content until fewer people are trying to access it simultaneously.

How Do Social Bookmarks Affect My SEO?

The biggest reason that marketing professionals want in on the social bookmarking game is that social bookmarks have the potential to vastly improve your search engine ranking potential.  How?  Every time you create a new social bookmark, you're also making a brand new inbound link to your website.  What's more, since posting social bookmarks often requires only a very minimal sign-up process, it can be one of the fastest and easiest ways to make new links from high PageRank websites.

Keep in mind that you'll always need to have diverse links in order not to trip Google's over optimization detection algorithms.  If you're bringing in all your links through social bookmarks, you may actually end up being penalized.  If you use a social bookmark strategy as just one element of a larger SEO campaign, though, you'll have much better luck maintaining a rankings rise.

Where Can I Submit My First Social Bookmark?

One of the easiest places to start making social bookmarks is Reddit.  Part of the reason this is so easy is that the sign-up process can literally take as little as fifteen seconds—create a name, give your email address, and you can make a social bookmark right away.

When you create an account, though, don't try posting social bookmarks immediately unless you're already very familiar with the process.  Get a feel for the different communities within the overall website (they're called subreddits, and odds are there's one for your specialty practice area).  See how people are interacting, what they respond well to, and what seems to irritate them.  By doing this, you're getting valuable intelligence about what kind of social bookmarks are most likely to interest your target audience.

How Can Social Bookmarks Go Wrong?

When marketers first learn how to use social bookmark applications, they often start by posting some sort of advertising material.  If you haven't already learned this from social network websites like Facebook and Twitter, you need to learn it now: people don't want to see an advertisement unless it's very, very unusual and interesting.  Unless you have an ad that you know for a fact makes people talk, it's probably not good material for a social bookmark.  Some websites will actually delete your links if they think you are creating social bookmarks to benefit your own business.

It's also a bad idea to lie about who you are or who you represent if someone asks you about your connection to your social bookmark.  People who use these websites are very internet savvy, and if you're caught in the lie, it's unlikely you'll be able to create successful social bookmarks on that website for a long time to come.

How Can I Get the Most From My Social Bookmarks?

Making a good social bookmark is a lot like making a good blog post.  You want to have interesting content and a title that makes people want to read “below the fold”—or, in the case of social bookmarks, below the title.

You should also get a feel for the differences in each place where you put social bookmarks.  Check out the comments and community, rather than just using these tools to place your own social bookmarks.  If you're actively participating as a member of the community who's doing more than just advertising yourself, every social bookmark you make will have higher value and be read by more people.

Ten years ago, there were only about half a dozen active social bookmarking websites.  Today, there are thousands, and you may be considering getting social bookmarking services to help you understand the strategies you'll need to use them correctly.  Before you hire any social bookmarking service, though, you need to know about social bookmark etiquette and how your service should behave online.  If your social bookmark service is doing a lot of the “don'ts” and isn't doing most of these “do's,” you need to look for other social bookmarking services as soon as possible.

DO Use More Than One Social Bookmarking Website

Any good social bookmarking service will include submissions on several different websites.  This is one of the best reasons to get a social bookmark service, because multiple submissions can be time-consuming and very boring—exactly the kind of work that your firm might be very comfortable with outsourcing.

Social bookmarking services may post to just a few, or up to several hundred, different websites.  The value added that you get from these additional websites, though, may be not as much as you expect.  After the most popular fifty or so social bookmarking sites, the remaining sites have little traffic or activity.  You may be better off hiring social bookmarking services that give you better links on fewer websites.

DON'T Use Social Bookmarking Websites You're Unfamiliar With

It's important for your social bookmark service to provide you with a list of the websites they plan to submit your links on.  It's very possible that a social bookmarking service would want to submit a link to a website that you might be uncomfortable having a presence on.  If this is the case, you always have a right to tell the social bookmark service to remove that website from the list of websites they're posting to.

Additionally, social bookmarking services should be able to demonstrate for you that they have a knowledge of how these websites differ.  If a social bookmarking service is using identical headlines on all websites or is otherwise treating them as a homogeneous group, you need to find a better social bookmark service.  The difference between websites can be huge, and social bookmarking services that don't recognize and compensate for differing web cultures will be unsuccessful in driving traffic to your site.

DO Set Up a Personal Social Bookmarking Website Account First

Before you even choose a social bookmark service to work with, consider setting up your own account on a few social bookmarking sites.  This will help you do a better job evaluating social bookmarking services, because you'll understand more of what social bookmarks are all about.

DON'T Post Too Often on Any Social Bookmarking Website

If you notice that a social bookmark service is posting very frequently and that your inbound link number is increasing rapidly, you might be ready to praise them.  However, the truth is, you're likely to be penalized by Google if your social bookmarking service posts too many links too quickly.  Google is getting very good at detecting when social bookmarking services are automating posts rather than making new headlines for every new post.

DO Post Relevant, Interesting Content to Social Bookmarking Websites

No matter how amazing your social bookmarking service is, it doesn't matter a bit if you're not making good content.  Bad content won't draw in new people, and even if your search engine rankings go up, your conversion rates will remain dismal.  Content is king, even for social bookmarking services, and if you're posting interesting entries to a blog regularly you'll have a head start on all the firms that are just posting to their company website or attorney biographies.

The more unusual your content, the more likely it is that a social bookmark service can make it go viral.  This is the ultimate goal for the best social bookmarking services, because virality will mean you get a huge number of additional views and inbound links.  A good social bookmarking service can help you develop a viral strategy based on what has worked for them in the past.

DON'T Post Ads—Well, Not Most Ads

If you have your social bookmarking service post links that direct to URLs containing direct advertisements, whether in video or text format, you won't see an increase in site traffic.  In fact, your social bookmark service probably won't be able to help you keep the link, because many websites will delete it right away.  Most social bookmarking websites are ad supported, and if you're trying to advertise blatantly for free, the sites have a good financial motivation to remove your posts.

The only time you should ever have social bookmarking services submit an ad is if you've made a very creative, funny, or informative advertisement.  A very funny lawyer ad could have the potential to go viral, even if it's submitted through a social bookmarking service.

DO Tailor Your Submissions to Each Social Bookmarking Website

Your social bookmark service should know enough about each of the websites you're using that there will be subtle differences in the headlines associated with each page.  This not only helps your social bookmarking service to get more positive attention from the users of each site (because it's demonstrating an understanding of their values), but also to evade Google's detection algorithms.

DON'T Keep Using Social Bookmarking Services That Automate

If you find out that the social bookmark service you're using is automating content submissions, find another service.  There are plenty of social bookmarking services that use manual submissions, and this type of social bookmarking service is much more likely to get good results.  

Automation through a social bookmark service shows that you don't seem to care very much about the communities you're posting to—it shows that you'd rather spam them than participate in a conversation with them.  Would you want to do business with a law firm like that?  You need a social bookmarking service that doesn't make potential clients feel like they're being ignored.
 

It's a sad truth of the search engine marketing world: most of the people trying to talk to you about the Next Big Thing are trying to sell you something.  Almost every review of social bookmarking software online is being produced by people who have a financial stake in making you believe that their program is the best social bookmarking software on the market.  If you want unbiased information about both paid and free social bookmarking software, you've come to the right place.  In this guide, we'll talk about several different types of social bookmarking software.  You'll also learn that in many cases, the best social bookmarking software for lawyers is no software at all—something that most other websites will never mention.

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social bookmarking is a new way of sharing content with other internet users. The lines between social bookmark websites and social network sites has become blurred in recent years, but in general, a social bookmarking site exists mostly for users to share links to content.  This means that before you use any social bookmarking software, you'll want to have content to link to.

The reason that law firms have recently taken an interest in finding the best social bookmarking software is that these websites can generate inbound links.  Inbound links created with paid or free social bookmarking software can then, in turn, make it so that your law firm is more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results (where over 90 percent of searchers find the answer they're looking for).

What is an Automated Submitter?

One of the most common types of social bookmarking software—and probably the most controversial—is the automated submission system.  Because there are so many websites dedicated to social bookmarking, an automated submitter gathers them all and allows for mass posting.  Often, this is not free social bookmarking software.  Some of the best social bookmarking software in this category, like Bookmarking Demon, can cost in excess of $100.

What Are the Advantages of Automated Submitters?

Using automated submission social bookmarking software can save you hundreds of man-hours versus doing your submissions manually.  What's more, the best social bookmarking software in this category will be very likely to include listings for many more social bookmarking websites than you even knew existed (and most allow you to add more sites when you want to).

Another advantage that automated submitter social bookmarking software gives you is being able to quickly review your submissions.  It can be much harder to do this without downloading any free social bookmarking software, so many marketers are glad to have this part of their jobs fully automated.

What Are the Disadvantages of Automated Submitters?

The biggest disadvantage of using even the best social bookmarking software in the automated submission category is that Google is getting wise to these auto-submitters.  Google considers this kind of automation through paid or free social bookmarking software to essentially be a form of cheating, and will penalize websites they believe are using social bookmarking software.

Some of the makers of the best social bookmarking software for automating submissions claim that they have managed to find workarounds so that Google doesn't notice.  However, whether you're using paid or free social bookmarking software, loopholes get closed.  Workarounds are figured out and cut off at the source.  More than once already in 2012, Google has found listings that are being created by free social bookmarking software and taken away their link juice.

Other Types of Social Bookmarking Software

If you want to use the best social bookmarking software for the long term, automated submissions may be the wrong way to go.  Instead, you may want to consider using a piece of free social bookmarking software that just assists you with creating manual submissions.

Other social bookmarking software can help you to keep track of whether people are repeatedly commenting on or sharing your links.  By using the best social bookmarking software in this category, you'll find who your brand ambassadors are online.  There are both paid and free social bookmarking software solutions for tracking friends.

Where Can I Try Out Free Social Bookmarking Software?

There is very little fully functional free social bookmarking software that does submission automation.  Even if you were to find some, it would be far from the best social bookmarking software available.  If you want to use good social bookmarking software for free, try using Onlywire.  This is one of the few pieces of free social bookmarking software that allows you to partially automate your links, while allowing you to maintain a great deal of control.

Keep in mind that the best social bookmarking software tends to cost money because the research into developing Google-proof algorithms takes a great deal of time and effort.  Most software producers simply aren't willing to put that kind of work into free social bookmarking software, so freeware is more likely to be identified by Google, especially if it's fully automated.

Alternatives to Social Bookmarking Software

While social bookmarking software has certainly made a big splash in the search engine marketing world, questions remain about its efficacy in driving traffic to websites.  As a law firm, you can't afford to have your reputation or your search rankings damaged by using free social bookmarking software that later turns out to have been a bad idea.  Use extreme caution when picking your best social bookmarking software solution.

For many law firms, the best social bookmarking software is none at all—manual submissions are more personalized, more interesting, and less “canned” sounding than spamming many different sites with automation tools.  If you become a real part of just a few online social bookmarking communities, the people in those communities can do more to promote your website than even the best social bookmarking software on the market today.  People won't make spam go viral, but fantastic content combined with real community participation is the ultimate recipe for a campaign that markets itself.

Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit: these four names are the biggest names in social bookmarking, and are used by a combined total of over 300 million unique users.  The biggest social bookmarking sites have become so successful that they've inspired thousands of imitators and a big new marketing industry.  In a quest for social bookmark submission, some law firm marketers have started to use automated social bookmarking submission service software.  But is this the right way to do social bookmarking submission, and are there alternatives that work better?  Keep reading to find out.

A Brief History of Social Bookmark Submission

Social bookmarking submission started with the first social bookmarking websites, like Digg.  Digg was the first truly open social bookmarking submission service, allowing anyone to submit a link of any type as long as it conformed to basic decency guidelines.

However, social bookmark submission has changed over the years.  As people began to use a social bookmarking submission service in order to get more inbound links for SEO purposes, rather than just to share something new and cool with their friends, users got more aware of spam and marketing materials.  Today, good social bookmarking submission is more difficult than it was in the past.

The sites that are most popular are changing as well.  While Digg still has the highest number of users of the “traditional” social bookmarking submission service websites (Twitter is excluded as being primarily a social networking site),

Do We Need Social Bookmark Submission?

Although some marketers considered social bookmark submission to be much less important than using social networks, social bookmarkers are among the best brand ambassadors on the internet.  They tend to be logged on more and have more connections to more people in more places—making social bookmarking submission much more valuable than it's often given credit for.

There's a reason that most of the time, viral content is started on these social bookmark submission websites and then picked up later by people using Facebook and Twitter.  The members of social bookmarking websites view themselves as content curators, and are actively working to create the newest big viral sensation on the web.  Facebook and Twitter users are more numerous, but they also tend to act like a herd, following viral trends that have already started and developed from a social bookmark submission.  While it can be relatively easy to automate social networks, a social bookmarking submission service can start to run into trouble.

The Automation Question and How it Affects Social Bookmarking Submission

The most common reason for a law firm to hire a social bookmarking submission service is that they want for their submissions to be fully automated.  However, there are some big problems with automating social bookmarking submission, and any law firm that is considering automation needs to take these issues into account.

If you're automating your content across many different social bookmark submission websites by using a social bookmarking submission service, what do the users of those websites think of you?  You can actually tell by looking at whether, on the bigger social bookmark submission websites, you're actually getting upvoted or upmodded.  If you're not—and if you're using automation, you won't be—you aren't actually getting links that people are following or even seeing.

Social bookmarking submission is tough to do effectively through automation because the people who use social bookmark submission websites are, for lack of a better term, internet nerds.  Many of them have grown up using the internet, and know the telltale signs that a link came from a social bookmarking submission service rather than being submitted organically.  They're very tough to fool, and getting tougher by the day.

Google Penguin Strikes Back at Automated Social Bookmark Submission

It's not just users of social bookmarking submission websites that are ticked off at automated social bookmarking submission services.  Google has made its displeasure with automatic social bookmark submission known by penalizing links made with these services (an algorithm called Google Penguin).  If you use a social bookmarking submission service, even if it works at first, it could stop producing any link juice with absolutely no warning.

One of the biggest ways that Google detects non-organic social bookmarking submission is by looking at your overall traffic and your number of inbound links.  A brand new website would never naturally have 1000 different people with accounts on different social bookmark submission websites suddenly recommend it.  This kind of unnatural behavior very clearly shows that you're using an automated social bookmarking submission service, and Google won't hesitate to “sandbox” your site (penalize its rankings so that it's no longer getting any benefit from the non-organic links).

Community Matters: Social Bookmarking Submission as Community Building

If automation isn't the answer for social bookmarking submission, what is?  Keep in mind that if your goal is content virality (which will drive the highest number of new links to your website, and can be 99% organic after your initial “push”), you should consider social bookmark submission websites to be your #1 priority.

After a particular social bookmarking submission site has been around for a while, they consider themselves to be much more than a social bookmarking submission service.  The members consider themselves part of a real community.  On some social bookmark submission websites, members have banded together to give very real financial help to people in hard times, or have used their connections to get interviews with some of the most powerful and famous people in our time.

When you use an automated social bookmarking submission service, you disrespect that community by telling it that it's not worth spending real time or effort on.  It's like sending a tape recorded message of your voice to a partners' meeting instead of coming on your own—unlikely to be received well, and likely to reflect very poorly on your level of commitment.  

Instead, participate actively.  Answer people's questions, build a real presence on several websites.  Not only will this be a great deal more fun than social bookmark submission through a computer program, it's also likely to lead to better networking opportunities and more chances for your content to go viral.