A couple of months ago, the Canadian Bar Association ran an article called SOLO Transformation. One of the solos featured was Donna Seale who blogs about Human Rights in the Workplace.

Donna talked about the power of blogging in the article mentioned above. “It [blogging] forces me to stay current, it adds to my legitimacy and my exposure, and its a huge networking tool in terms of getting my name and my expertise out there.” Donna went on to say, “I had all this knowledge in my head, but no one really knew that I knew what I knew. I needed a platform. And the blog is an ideal platform.”

Seale goes on to state, “with a blog, if you set it up right and optimize search engine status, the information can go out like wildfire.” Her readers are all over the world and it has increased her profile so much in such a short period of time.

After I was provided a copy of the article and I had read Donna’s story, I had the pleasure of visiting with her on the phone about her practice and how she was using blogging. I also had the opportunity to ask Donna some additional questions about blogging and what it has done for her practice.

When did you start your blog? How much time do you put into blogging on a weekly basis?

I started my blog in August 2007. I was at a point in my business where I needed to do something ‘more’ in order to get the exposure I needed to establish myself as a go-to person in my niche area of the law. I was surfing the internet during some downtime I had last summer and discovered this concept of legal weblogs; something I had no idea about prior to that. I subscribed to a few blogs and started to understand what they were all about and decided that this was an ideal platform to experiment on with very little cost and downside if the effort failed.

Initially, I blogged about three times a week to capitalize on that initial buzz when you enter the blogosphere for the first time. I have since scaled that back to a committed once a week, maybe twice if I have the time. Between following other blogs and the various feeds I have subscribed to on search terms relevant to the work I do which I read to keep up with what’s new and of interest in my niche and then writing an actual post flowing from that reading, I would say that I spend about 4-5 hours a week combined.

If you were to compare the other marketing efforts you currently do, would it be fair to say your blog gets you the best return on your investment? What other marketing do you do?

When I first made the decision to start my blog, the only marketing I was doing was handing out a brochure that I had had developed for my company and, of course, handing out business cards while networking. I considered putting an ad in the yellow pages but the cost seemed to outweigh any potential benefit that I could think of. I also considered placing an ad in local bar publications and other industry publications related to my niche but, again, the cost was very high. As a small business just starting out I wanted to get the best bang for my buck, so to speak. Then, I discovered weblogs and decided I would concentrate my entire marketing effort there. The weblog does two things for me. It gives me an effective web presence, since I didn’t have a website prior to the blog. I knew that in order to have any real legitimacy in our current marketplace that I had to have a web presence of some kind. The blog also allows me to showcase my knowledge and, quite honestly, my personality to potential clients. It is as a result of my blog that I have received inquiries about my business and subsequent work, requests to speak at conferences, requests from human resource publications (both web and print based) to link to my blog or republish posts and a presence across the internet (and the world) that I could never have accomplished by continuing to simply peddle my brochures and cards. It has been such an effective investment for me that I am now considering putting even more effort into the blog in terms of content changes, adding new features and redesign.

How has blogging helped how you are seen or compared to the bigger firms in your area and your niche practice area? Does it put you on the same “playing field” as the bigger firms?

Blogging has actually placed me on a completely different field than any other law firm or legal related business in my locale. To my knowledge, I am the only lawyer in Manitoba who is blogging in any area of the law. I am also the only lawyer in Canada blogging in my niche area. That has made me and my business get more notice from my profession as a whole than anything else I’ve done so far – I often get asked by other lawyers what blogging is all about and why I do it. Other lawyers in my area and across Canada who I respect and admire have subscribed to my blog. It has also garnered me attention from everyday people (both employers and employees – my target audience) who are thankful to have easy access to legal information in my niche. The best comment I’ve received so far was from a Canadian woman who told me she had been searching the internet for help on understanding her legal problem and all she could find was ‘gobbledeegook’ written by faceless people that she couldn’t understand and then she came upon my blog and finally found someone who answered her questions and seemed to speak directly to her. You just can’t get that kind of reaction outside of an interactive blogging platform, in my view.

While there are certainly large firms in Manitoba and across Canada who write articles in my niche, they are articles primarily written for bar publications or their firm newsletters or for subscription only websites. These articles, although well-written, have a very limited circulation; often only getting to other lawyers or existing clients. When I write a post on my blog it gets circulated across the blogosphere instantly and has no limits on where it goes or who it gets to. My blog has catapulted me to being seen as a go-to source in my niche area across Canada in less than a year. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to get to that level being a one-woman show and all if I hadn’t discovered blogs.

Donna Seale is a great example of what you can do using a blog to market and position yourself as the “thought leader” in your particular niche and market.