After years of speaking at the excellent Pubcon conference, I felt it was time to introduce a brand new concept that I have been working on for a few weeks: congruent marketing.

The general concept is that you can no longer attain success in Google, search, social media, or internet marketing by using disparate tactics. Instead, you must bring everything together under a harmonious strategy. Not only does congruent marketing make your brand stronger, but it makes you less reliant on any one source of web site traffic and revenue.

Here’s the presentation I gave:

While social media monitoring is important for any industry, those in the legal profession–lawyers, attorneys, etc–will find many benefits to tracking online conversations.

Here are 5 reasons why attorneys should use social media monitoring:

1. “Ambulance Chasing”

Let’s assume discussions start spreading about lethal side effects of a prescription drug. Using social media monitoring, you can set up alerts that match any online conversations about those issues.

Or, why not monitor for tweets, posts or updates from those in a car wreck, employment dispute, or [fill in the blank]?

2. Trademark/Copyright infringement

Help your corporate clients out by monitoring for unauthorized use of a registered trademark. Or, take a snippet of text from any document or web page and get an alert if someone uses it on the web.

3. Litigation evidence & support

Let’s say you’re knee deep in a case where the plaintiff accuses your client of rear-ending them and causing immense pain and back problems. Fortunately, their friend just tagged them in a photo of them skydiving. How much stronger did your defense just get?

4. Competitor research

A little more of a traditional use of social media monitoring is to spy on your competition. Keep track of other lawyers’ efforts to promote their practice, using social media. What are they blogging about? What meetings are they attending?

5. Industry insights

Lastly, keep track of legal news so you don’t get blind sided by a new bill or legal ruling. Go one step further and proactively advise your clients of any industry updates that might affect them.

These are just five of many reasons why your legal firm should include social media monitoring as part of its daily routine. What others would you add?

I'm an attorney! Let me try Trackur

It’s no big secret that social media is a large part of our everyday life.  Even more so now that nearly half of all Americans own a smartphone, making the connection to social media literally at our fingertips at all times.  We’ve become a culture obsessed with oversharing, constantly letting others know where we are, who we’re with, and what we’re up to via a variety of channels.  Want to know what we’re eating?  No?  Don’t care?  We’ll show you anyway.

What kind of impact does this have on our daily lives?  Many wonder about this, and a marketing agency in the UK took the challenge of finding out.  While these results are based on a study done in the UK, we would venture a guess that the results look quite similar here in the US.

Have your housekeeping habits taken a nosedive since you set up that Facebook account?  Are you reading fewer books?  Watching less television?  We’d love to hear what you’ve given up for your social media screen time.  Do you connect more from a computer, or from a mobile device?

When you think of social media monitoring, you likely focus on the benefits of catching an online reputation crisis before it flares up. Yet, there are many more reasons why you should listen to the web.

We’ve put together this infographic-lite to help you understand that there are many great ways to use social media monitoring to grow your business.

Help me get a $1M ROI for my business

If you want your viral video to actually go “viral” you need two things.

1. An awesome video, worthy of being shared:

2. A fan base that will actually share your viral video:

However, sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes you need to make sure that the spark behind your video doesn’t get extinguished. How do you do that? It’s quite simple. You take the time to thank those that are fanning the flames:

Well done Kmart, well done. Your social media savvy is so amazing, I may just ship my pants!

OK, here’s an infographic with some interesting stats about who uses social media.

If you thought rich white guys with college degrees ruled the internet, then you are either a) living in Silicon Valley or b) not looked at the latest studies from Pew Research Center.

The infographic does a great job of breaking down different demographics and social media usage However, take a look at the list of social media sites adults use, see any glaring omissions?

Infographic via DocStoc

You know that a bad Google reputation is bad for your business, right?

Well, just in case you’re comfortably living in ignorance, let this infographic be a wake-up call for your company. With 78% of consumers researching your brand before making a buying decision and 75% of consumers influenced by negative search results, you may want to make sure that you’re putting forward your best search engine reputation.

And, just in case you need help with your search engine reputation management, we can help with that!

Get a free quote!

Infographic via Infomonkeys.

Sir Richard Branson has joined the likes of other billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett by pledging to donate half of his sizable fortune to charity via the Giving Pledge.  Branson and his wife Joan said that they want to use profits earned from the Virgin family of companies to build a more ”healthy, equitable and peaceful world for future generations to enjoy.”

Apparently, the Bransons are doing something right at home too, as the heirs to their fortune are in agreement with the decision to help make the world a better place.  And they’re not the only ones.  Started just three years ago by Bill and Melinda Gates in conjunction with Warren Buffett, the foundation now has over 100 billionaires and their families pledging to share a sizable portion of their wealth to causes that they feel need funding.  The goal?  Inspiring others.  Dollar amounts and causes are not specified or chosen for the donors, it is completely up to them who and how they want to help.

What does this do for the donors?  For entrepreneurs such as the Bransons, it perpetuates an already great reputation.  It is a demonstration of Branson’s words taking action, and we’ve all heard that actions speak louder than words.  Expensive?  Perhaps, but you can’t take it with you when you go, and you can never put a price on a great reputation.