A smart and active marketer successfully leverages several channels.

Mark Eiglarsh is a criminal defense and personal injury lawyer in South Florida. His practice, The Law Offices of Mark Eiglarsh, is represented online by an informative website and robust social media presence. He’s also quite a fixture on television, having made appearances on CNN, NBC, and Fox News.

Eiglarsh recently talked with me about how he uses his blog, social media presence, and tradi-tional media appearances to further build his reputation.

Web Design

Eiglarsh’s website is located at www.speaktomark.com and acts as a one-stop resource for any-one who wants to know anything about him, his practice, or criminal defense, personal injury, and wrongful death cases. He considers his website to be “very effective” at bringing in new leads. “Very few people have been to my website and not been impressed,” he says.

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He attributes this largely to his broad-scope approach. “I try to have something for everyone on my website. So if somebody cares about the fact that I’m on TV, we have plenty of stuff there for them. If they’re more cerebral, I have tons of stuff I’ve written. If they’re into accolades, that’s there for them. If they want to see results, they are there for them, too.”

By offering information about himself upfront, visitors can immediately recognize Eiglarsh as an expert. You don’t have to scroll to see an image featuring logos of all the networks and TV shows on which he’s made appearances. Scrolling down one tick shows he is AV-rated with Martindale-Hubbell, a SuperLawyer, and a 10.0 at Avvo.

As far as how the website was designed, Eiglarsh did have a few requirements:

• Easy to navigate and use
• Look clean and uncluttered
• Filled with useful information that keeps people on the site

Of course, an online presence wouldn’t get nearly as far without content and that’s something Eiglarsh leverages to his advantage.

Blogging

Eiglarsh’s blog is called the Florida Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog and is located on a separate domain. His goal is to write a couple of articles a week to keep his blog current and active. While he does have a “basic understanding” of what should go into a piece of content in terms of SEO, that’s not his main focus. “Primarily, I write to entertain and educate and that typically drives a positive response,” he says.

He also writes to make an impression. “So, if I’m not feeling it, I wait,” he says, then, “when there’s something I’m passionate about, I write it and make sure as many people see it as possible.”

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As far as inspiration goes, he finds media — both television and on the Internet — to be excel-lent resources. “There are certain places I go that carry segments on justice, so if I find stories that move me, I’ll use them as the basis for an article,” he says. He often summarizes and com-ments on current news stories relating to his practice areas and uses catchy or provocative headlines to pique reader interest like, “Cops Can Legally Have Sex with Prostitutes…Really!” and “Teen Faces Life in Prison for Making Pot Brownies.”

Television and Radio

Eiglarsh makes regular appearances on television and has appeared on numerous networks and shows including “Dr. Drew on Call” on HLN, “The View” on ABC, Fox News, and “60 Minutes” on CBS to name a few. He’s a natural on camera and that likely has something to do with majoring in television. “That was something I wanted to do,” he says.

As far as becoming a guest for several shows (he’s been on “The View” five times so far) he says it all started with relationships. “I met someone who introduced me to someone else and it started with a local gig.” From here, he made sure to do a good job in every appearance. And he made himself available to new opportunities. A lot of that involved good old fashioned net-working with the radio and television community.

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Before each appearance, Eiglarsh prepares himself. “I thoroughly research the topics I’m given,” he says, “Then I try to ‘plan my spontaneity’ by anticipating what I may be asked along with those sound bites I want to give.” He also likes to meditate in order to feel as relaxed as he pos-sibly can before hitting the set.

He also does plenty of radio. “I’m a legal analyst for a local radio station and guest co-host quite frequently,” he says.

And he makes it a point to post videos of his appearances on YouTube so they can be shared on his website and across social media.

Social Media

Eiglarsh engages on social media regularly. He’s built up over 3,000 likes on his practice’s Facebook page and over 13,000 likes on his personal page. He also has over 23,000 followers on Twitter. Whenever he writes up a new article and publishes it on his blog, he shares the link with his Facebook friends and Twitter followers and “in a matter of minutes” he sees engagement.

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His follower base grew to its current size largely due to his television appearances. “I’m a pro-moter,” he says, “So if I’m on Dr. Drew, I am ‘Mark Eiglarsh from speaktomark.com.'” And from there, people find his Twitter account and Facebook pages.

While he does share his recent blog posts when they’re published, he finds sharing controver-sial stories — written by him or other people — to foster the most engagement in terms of likes, comments, shares, RTs, and mentions. He’s also found posting photographs with his fami-ly or with famous people have garnered a larger response.

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To encourage discussion, Eiglarsh asks for it directly. He might post something like, “‘This man was released from prison after 26 years for a crime he didn’t commit,’ then write ‘Thoughts?'” he says, to invite comments and conversation.

Bonus Tip

If you want to build a better marketing presence for yourself (online or off), Eiglarsh says you need to do one thing above all else: write out your goals.

“The key is to sit down and write out short-term and long-term goals and a specific plan on how to get there,” he says. “And instead of saying, ‘I should write articles,’ you write down, ‘I must write articles.'” That simple difference in phrasing will help you to, “better follow through on your commitments to those marketing specifics.”