One of the most challenging pieces of a law firm content marketing program is content distribution. Your writers dedicate hours to writing blogs, articles, legal alerts, etc., and law firm marketers are tasked with getting content in front of the right audiences. While publishing content on your website, sharing social media posts and pushing information out through email marketing are key content distribution tactics, law firms should also consider using content syndication platforms.

What are content syndication platforms?

These platforms offer content curation services: They republish your content on their websites and distribute this content to their subscribers through email newsletters, social media posts and other partner sites. They typically have high domain authority, so pages on their websites perform well in organic searches. Most of the worthwhile syndication sites in the legal industry charge content producers (law firms) an annual fee and provide the content free to readers and subscribers.

How do syndication websites work in the legal industry?

Configuring a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed with your law firm’s website lets the publisher pull content automatically when it’s first published. Usually, the feed is set up to pull specific types of content, like blogs and articles. (Most syndication companies will not publish promotional firm news content.) Your firm may have to go through an approval process, and some companies require doing their own editorial review before your content is published. This ensures high-quality standards for curated content.

What are the benefits for law firms using content syndication platforms?

Reaching a wider and highly relevant audience is the primary benefit of using a content syndication platform. According to the syndication websites, their subscribers and readers include in-house counsel, corporate executives and media members. Some platforms distribute content even further through online search channels, proprietary databases and other syndicated networks for exponential reach.

The top syndication platforms in the legal industry are well-respected and convey credibility for authors and firms that publish on their sites. Most syndication sites provide profile pages for authors and law firms that allow readers to learn more about them.

A key benefit that is often overlooked is access to data on readership, including names, companies and industries. Because newsletters and alerts from syndication platforms require readers to opt in, they gather important information from subscribers and pass it on to their content providers. For example, an attorney who publishes an article about a recent merger and acquisition can see who read the article, where they work, which industry they’re in, how many times they opened the page, etc. (Metrics vary with each syndication company.)

Before deciding which platform (or multiple platforms) to use, first determine the features that are most important to your content marketing strategy. Committing to a platform is only the beginning. Each platform provides valuable insights about your readership that can be used to drive business development and further inform your content marketing strategy. This information should help with making that decision.

Top Content Syndication Platforms in the Legal Industry

National Law Review
The National Law Review (NLR) publishes both original and curated content from law firms across the country. Content on the NLR site is further promoted through multiple social media posts, homepage placements and e-news bulletins (+135,000 subscribers). According to founder Jennifer Schaller, the website saw 1.86 million page views per month in early 2022. NLR prides itself on its high standards for content and only accepts new contributors if they will uphold the credibility and reputation NLR has fostered since it first began publishing legal content in 1888.

Articles are formatted to appear in Google News, and they also have news syndication and organizational partners, including Apple News, MSN, LexisNexis, Thomson West Reuters, Findlaw, BNA, Yahoo News and Bloomberg.

Contributors have access to usable statistics and information about their content through a web-based analytics system. Customized monthly, weekly and daily reports can also be emailed automatically.

According to Schaller, NLR anticipates launching a new website design and analytics dashboard before the end of 2022.

Social Media Followers
LinkedIn: +20,000
Twitter: +39,300

Cost: Ranges from $6,500-$8,500 annually

Click here for more information.

Mondaq
Mondaq publishes articles, videos, blogs, podcasts and events for more than 5,200 law firms across the globe. With more than 23 million users worldwide, Mondaq promotes its use of technology that leverages AI to further improve content delivery to the right audience at the right time.

Articles are formatted to appear in Google News, and Mondaq also has partnerships with Lexis Nexis, Wolters Kluwer, Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Thomson Reuters for further distribution. Their personalized biweekly/daily news alerts are sent to more than 466,000 subscribers who include inhouse counsel, C-suite executives, company owners and directors, HR personnel, and compliance officers.

Through their data integration partnership with Passle, Mondaq provides contributors with extensive readership data (GDPR compliant). Their monthly analytics reports detail key data points, including top articles and recent readers.

Founded in 1994, Mondaq offers a free publishing trial for select law firms to try out their platform.

Social Media Followers
LinkedIn: +7,600
Twitter: +4,500

Cost: For pricing, contact Jordan Wright, Business Development manager, North America, or Megan Hill, director, North America.

Click here for more information.

Lexology
Lexology is a content syndication site that publishes free content to more than 600,000 subscribers. According to Eddie Costelloe, Lexology’s managing director, the company differentiates itself as an end-to-end content marketing solution, providing additional service offerings and tools for firms to create better content and help business development teams generate actionable leads from analytics.

Distributed worldwide in 25 languages, Lexology publishes more than 450 articles per day with contributions from 900+ law firms. Their archive includes more than 1 million articles covering topics related to 50+ practice areas.

Lexology publishes webinars, surveys and reports, regulatory tracking, a database of primary source materials, reviews (121 in-depth guides) and other forms of content. Lexology is also part of Law Business research and provides a key research platform for law firms and in-house counsel.

Their user-friendly analytics dashboard allows contributors to see actionable information about their readership, including names, companies, job titles, industries and engagement with content.

Social Media Followers
LinkedIn: +11,700
Twitter: +10,200

Cost: Pricing is based on a number of variables and can be obtained by contacting them directly for a plan that makes sense for your firm.

Click here for more information.

JD Supra
JD Supra’s syndication platform delivers law firm content to in-house counsel, corporate executives and media members. In addition to publishing content on their website, they also have a mobile news app and push content to third-party associations, 90 subject-specific media channels and other partner sites. Adrian Lürssen, JD Supra Co-Founder, says their platform focuses on delivering "clients' content to targeted readers and, as such, all of our feeds–social and email–are subject-specific and enable us to have engaged subscribers in the many hundreds of thousands, all of whom are getting the information they need as they need it."

Publishers can customize brand elements (colors, logo, banner image) to match their websites. The individual article pages are clean and reinforce brand awareness.

Because JD Supra has more than 50,000 authors from 5,000+ law, accountancy and advisory firms, subscribers can customize their own email newsletters tailored to their preferred areas of interest and delivery frequency. Access to the archive of 500,000+ articles is free to subscribers.

JD Supra’s robust analytics provide information on the full reach of client thought leadership and highlight BD opportunities within that visibility. Data points include information on readers, companies, industries, content performance and linking sites.

Social Media Followers
LinkedIn: +6,700
Twitter: approximately 100 subject-specific Twitter accounts with a total of +480,000 followers

Click here for more information.

Cost: Contact JD Supra for pricing details.

Other republishing and syndication sites include OnPractice from Law.com, a paid article publishing service, and Lexblog’s syndication portal, a free RSS feed for legal content. LinkedIn publishing is another important (and free) tool in your content distribution arsenal.

One last piece of technical advice: Ensure that the informational content on your firm’s website has an RSS feed configured so your readers can use their RSS feed readers and aggregate apps like Chrome’s RSS Feed Reader extension, Feedly and NewsBlur to pull in your content.

Law firms that are actively writing original content on a regular basis targeted to in-house counsel, corporate executives and media members should be using a syndication platform.

For more information on content marketing strategies or syndication solutions, contact Melanie Trudeau at mtrudeau@jaffepr.com.

This page was updated on November 1, 2022, to correct the number of JD Supra social media followers.