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Alan Kaplinsky, Founder and former chair of Ballard Spahr's Consumer Financial Services Group and founder, and host, of the award-winning Consumer Finance Monitor blog and weekly podcast, recently joined LexBlog's Real Lawyers podcast hosted by Kevin O'Keefe. This is Alan's second time on the program, which covers the role of publishing in the legal profession.
This comprehensive conversation opens by discussing the origins of the group's blog, which launched on the very same day that the CFPB became operational. As an early adopter to blogging, the blog's success hinged on commitment across the board: Firm leaders, partners, and associates, to ensure that the blog was able to provide valuable, timely content on a consistent basis. Kevin remarked, “there may only be a handful of the blogs on our platform that publish that much, but the ones that do have recognized the…return that they're receiving.”
When talking about growing an engaged audience Alan remarked that “You've got to look at it as a long-term investment…you've got to be patient and you've got to understand that you're building a branding and you're building something that's new that…your group hasn't done before.”
The same thoughts apply when Alan turns the conversation to provide the backstory to the group's weekly podcast, also called Consumer Finance Monitor. The key to creating an engaging show, according to Alan, is to create a conversational environment with a diverse set of expertise and opinions.
After briefly touching on how the group produces webinars, Alan closes by stressing the importance of leveraging social media platforms such as LinkedIn as tools for thought leadership and seeing all these efforts as a mosaic to help position yourself as a trusted voice within your area of expertise. Summarizing the way that Alan's foresight helped create a successful media strategy for the group, Kevin said “lawyers that will look at you as a mentor in that capacity that you can look at things differently in the way things have been, are being done by other people.”
Click the video below for a highlight from Alan and Kevin's conversation.
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