As we all rush to finish up our work for the end of the year, very few things will make me stop what I’m doing and focus on them – and that, folks, is what you want to achieve with your own content.
What am I talking about?
Greentarget and Zeughauser Group’s 2025 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey Report. Along with being one of my favorite ways to wrap up the year, this report offers critical insights into what content resonates with executive decision-makers – which is why lawyers and law firms should also be digging into its content.
Why does this matter?
We operate in a crowded digital landscape. Picture Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Yes, the internet has been fantastic for leveling the playing field when it comes to getting your content out among those who are interested in accessing it. But are they accessing it? Is it worth accessing? As my friend and content guru, Adrian Lurssen always asks, are you the signal in the noise? To stick with the NYE metaphor – are you the crowd at Times Square, or are you the giant apple of lights?
I had the opportunity to speak with Greentarget’s John Corey this week about the survey and its key findings, and there is a LOT to talk about and think about – 2025 is going to be a big year for everyone and the legal industry is no different. How can we make the most out of what we’ve learned from this report?
Key Findings of the Report
Traditional Media’s Resurgence:
One of the things that surprised me about the report’s results – but probably shouldn’t have – is the resurgence of traditional media. Let’s look at the stat:
88% of decision-makers value traditional media, up from 79% in 2022—marking the highest share in seven years.
Why does this matter? Despite AI disruptions and an increasingly fragmented news landscape, executives STILL trust established media sources like The Wall Street Journal and industry publications. Why does Corey think this is?
Although we’re seeing intense polarization when it comes to politics and a deep distrust of traditional media thanks to “fake news” post-pandemic, in talking to business leaders, they value editorial curation and trust in editors who are sifting through the noise and sharing what they should be paying attention to. When considering publications like American Lawyer, Bloomberg, or Reuters, these continue to be important for business leaders, along with their industry publications because they believe that they’re going to “give it to them straight” in terms of business news, and that’s what they want. They believe that editors have their back.
The takeaway for firms of all sizes here is that they need to be leveraging traditional media as a trusted platform while continuing to focus on producing high-quality content. Yes, larger firms will have more resources when it comes to earned media strategies, but it all comes down to expertise, and earning the opportunity to have a point of view – and skilled lawyers of any size firm can do that by building relationships and being a resource for the media. It’s about what brings value to editors and reporters – insights, points of view, and guidance.
LinkedIn’s Growing Influence:
Those of us who use and love LinkedIn weren’t surprised by this statistic:
66% of decision-makers see LinkedIn as valuable—more than double any other social network.
Why does this matter? LinkedIn remains the dominant platform for professional networking and content consumption, far surpassing Twitter (I refuse to call it X, and in fact, I finally deleted my profile, after being one of the earliest adopters of it).
But! There is some need for strategy here. Corey and I talked about LinkedIn at length, because here, there is a LOT of noise. Yes, we can all curate our connections in our feeds, he said, but there are now tens of millions of users, and you’ll be connected to people who post and publish things that have nothing to do with your needs, business or industry – and not just you, but your clients and potential clients as well. Of course, the better you curate, the more likely you are to be tuning into the right folks. What’s the takeaway? Firms and lawyers need to be using LinkedIn strategically by avoiding low-value, promotional posts and focusing on content that provides actionable insights and real value.
But even more than that, Corey reminded me about going back to the basics. He said:
If the goal of any firm’s thought leadership is to cause consumers to go from interested, passive reader to prospect, it has to include relevance, urgency, novelty, and utility built into every piece of content they put out.”
The real value, he added, is having bespoke one-to-one. As an example, let’s say there’s a new piece of legislation that comes out, and the firm issues an alert to a list. The real value is to take ten to fifteen clients and offer a conversation to them about what it means to them and their industry, and what they need to do to mitigate risk or take advantage of the opportunity. [Here’s the part where I piped in and suggested that firms should have been doing this all along, and Corey agreed, but with the further caveat that while many law firm marketers and business development folks often push this, lawyers are also busy doing client work and may not take their hardworking, long-suffering professionals up on this advice. So consider this our push and reminder that when you’re busy, it is still necessary to build in the time to do client-building activities like these.]
Back to LinkedIn for a moment though, and social media generally – we are INUNDATED, and we all feel it. In order to make the most out of anything we do, we need to be disciplined and intentional.
AI and Cybersecurity Demand Actionable Content:
It’s no surprise to anyone, I’m sure, that AI was also a highlight in the report. As Corey mentioned to me, there are two topics around AI – what firms are doing internally to utilize, experiment with, ensure ethical approaches to, and then what clients are doing with AI. Clients need guidance too, and a key statistic from the report showcases a big gap where there’s room for firms to offer some guidance:
90% of decision-makers plan to integrate AI into their businesses, yet only 50% are satisfied with the AI insights from their service providers.
Why does this matter? Decision-makers are hungry for practical, tailored guidance on implementing AI and navigating cybersecurity challenges. They need and want to know about industry trends and developments, internal training and education, best use cases in their industries, use cases to pay attention to, external regulations and policy, internal governance and oversight and what that looks like, getting help to structure to manage risk, internal policy development and ethical usage. They need guidance and counsel and they are ripe for content and perspective.
Smaller and midsized firms can get a real advantage here – not only is AI leveling the playing field for them because they are nimbler in how quickly and opportunistically they can leverage the technology, but they have just as much ability to offer guidance to the clients who have a need for the specific guidance and they’re not happy with what they’re currently getting.
Content That Misses the Mark:
Finally, and this relates to being the signal and not the noise, there is a LOT of content out there that is missing the mark. We got so excited about the ability to produce our own content that we failed to consider whether we SHOULD be putting some of it out there.
As the report says:
Lack of relevance is the No. 1 reason content fails to resonate with decision-makers.
Listen, I’m as guilty of this as the next person – we have to share that the firm has x number of Super Lawyers, because it’s what those lawyers want, whether or not clients care about it. Our lawyers are our internal clients too.
But this matters because relevance and utility are the bedrock of effective thought leadership and even more importantly, the algorithms are constantly changing. It’s a crowded marketplace out there, and it’s never been more difficult to be successful. Corey pointed out that with the immense congestion we’re seeing, we’re also seeing a growing risk of misinformation (even among business posts). LinkedIn penalizes posts that link off the platform, and even penalizes posts that share original content with your new comments. It values individual users more than organizations.
But content is still influencing client hiring decisions – it opens the door. The most important in ultimate hiring is still recommendations from sources you trust, and that will always be the case, as it should be. But after that are articles, speeches, credentialing, and demonstrating expertise on issues that they care about. And LinkedIn has an impact on this. Firms must focus on creating content that directly addresses their audience’s needs, challenges, and opportunities without fluff or filler.
What Does the Future Hold?
Corey and I wrapped up by discussing the trends in content marketing that midsized firms and law firm networks should prepare for in 2025 and beyond. He said that understanding the impact that AI is having on search is a big, big deal – AI is having a huge impact on our ability to reach audiences. In the past, people would search for something and look at the first and perhaps the second page of results. Now, they are looking at AI overviews only, which has a big impact.
We have to prioritize owned content through distributed channels – as an aside, I will mention that this is a drum that Luvvie Ajayi Jones has been beating for several years, so although she’s not in the legal industry, I highly suggest following her. The other key will be differentiated content – when some will be using AI to author content, eventually, all this content will look and feel the same – what will be different is YOU (again, this is something Luvvie says all the time). Corey said the “content” in content marketing is about finding ways to add to the conversations that are happening. Ask yourself “What is the pressing problem that is facing my clients” “What is missing from the conversations?” To be seen as different and to improve our distribution, we have to focus on sharing our own, unique voices and also focusing on those four key characteristics that Corey shared earlier – relevance, urgency, novelty, and utility.
2025 will be here in just about ten days. Are you ready?
