The Best of the Week for November 24th, 2013

Last Sunday, I posted a list of articles that I had been reading during the past week with very little commentary from me. This format seems to work well on Sunday mornings, so I began actively seeking out great articles everyday this week, in preparation for today’s post.

I found a lot of great gems this week, but my favorite by far is this article from Jeff Goins, entitled A Life Worth Writing About. This article talks about the disciplines that it takes to be successful, as well as, the importance of having a “why” in what you do.

Here’s the rest of the list for this week:

• 5 Tactics for Content Creators to Increase Content Consumption by Heidi Cohen of the Content Marketing Institute. A great primer in how to structure a blog post or online article to get maximum value. A fantastic and useful read.
• How to Create a Culture of Referral Giving by John Jantsch from the Duct Tape Marketing. How you can change the referral mindset of your customers and referral sources from one of “what can I get?” to “what can I give?” John Jantsch gives some ideas that are applicable to Health Club owners, but could just as easily be applied in a law firm.
• Extinguishing the tantrum cycle by Seth Godin. If you have a frustrated client or employee, how to you handle their frustration in a meaningful and productive way? Seth gives some great ideas in another fantastic blog post. Also good advice for anyone with 2-4 year olds.
• Avoid the Biggest Mistake Content Writers Make by Steve Maurer of Maurer Copywriting. The basic idea of this article is to remember, whenever you are writing content for your website or blog, to not overlook the importance of a well-crafted headline.
• How to Market Your Practice with Facebook by Jacob Sapochnick from enchantingLawyer.com. Social media is the future of law firm marketing, and Jacob gets it. He wrote this blog post to provide an overview of how he engages with clients through Facebook (he has 96,000+ fans on his Facebook page, so he seems to know what he is doing).
• The Top 10 Small Business Marketing Podcasts of 2013 by Aaron Fletcher of geekfree.net. This blog post is a little dated (originally published back in March), but if you are just getting into podcasts, this is a great list of business podcasts to start with.  And while you are thinking about podcasts, (hint, shameless plug coming up) you may just want to head over to iTunes and subscribe to my legal marketing podcast.

That’s it for this week.  If you came across an article that you would like to share, or that you think should make this list, please send me a tweet (@jwhart518) or post a comment below.  Have a great week!