The markets wait to see who and whether someone (Microsoft, Twitter?) will acquire TikTok’s US operation, a video streaming social media app from the Chinese technology developer Bytedance. Facebook is yet again playing its usual move of introducing yet another feature, identical to that of another social media app, Instagram Stories ⇔ Snap. Enter “Instagram Reels.
In this week’s conversation, we discuss how, now more than ever, law firms should continue to invest and work on their Facebook and Instagram presence. There are no indications that either one of those platforms will be slowing down in the near feature.
While having a paid presence is a must for any business that wants visibility on Facebook, organic postings are necessary to keep your audience engaged and stay top of mind.
Plus, we do an SEO reality check and share some exciting news for YouTube Ads.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Facebook Posts Your Law Firm Should Be Posting Every Week
- How to Make Quotes for Instagram: 9 Apps to Try This Year
Send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com
Enjoy the show? Please don’t forget to subscribe, tell your coworkers, and leave us a review!
Transcript
Liel: [00:00:00] This week, Facebook introduced Instagram Reels its version of Tick-Tock, and while Tik-Tok is fighting to survive a potential ban, one thing is for sure Facebook is not losing momentum. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media, and this is In Camera podcast, where we meet our audience where they are.
Liel: [00:00:49] Welcome to In Camera podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversation. Grace, how are you today?
Grace: [00:00:54] Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:00:56] I’m doing very well, Grace. Thank you very much.
Liel: [00:00:58] We’re getting old, caught up with a bunch of things that have been happening over the past few days. And I think we should get started with that. Grace, we need to talk about Tik-Tok. Right. And what’s happening with it very likely. Well, we don’t really know what the future holds for it if it’s going to get acquired by a US company, potentially Microsoft or not. But as of now, it’s facing a ban. So, Grace, I don’t want to really talk about Tik-Tok ban’s politics, but I do want to mention what has Facebook done in light of the ban. Right. So I’m going to read here a paragraph that was published at New York Times yesterday with regards to this.
Liel: [00:01:40] So listen closely, Grace.
Liel: [00:01:42] On Wednesday, Instagram, the photo-sharing up owned by Facebook, released Reels just like Tik-Tok. People can use Reels to create 15 second videos that are designed to be easily shareable. And just like Tik-Tok, Reels allows users to sync up their video recordings with clips of music or audio files that they record themselves while adding other effects, like augmented reality filters. Whether Tik-Tok will continue growing at the pace that it has been growing for the past few months is yet to be seen. But what we do know based out of history is that when Instagram launched stories back in 2016, it definitely did a dent to Snap’s growth, right?
Grace: [00:02:28] Yes.
Liel: [00:02:28] And it’s expected that the same potentially may happen to Tik-Tok Grace. So with that being said, Grace, I think, you know, we have lots of reasons to still want to encourage law firms and our listeners to consider Facebook as a very, very valuable platform to build brand awareness, because it doesn’t seem that anywhere in the near future users are going to be leaving that platform. And it’s very important to differentiate that while there are many users that no longer appreciate Facebook for the platform, that they are still avid Instagram users. Right. And so it still covers a major part of the social media ecosystem. So I think, you know, with Reels now launching we’re looking at even more reasons to want to be present in the platform. And so the last part of this episode, Grace, we’re going to dedicate it to talk a little bit about having an organic presence on Facebook. What are the posts that law firms should be posting regularly or at least weekly to really keep their audience engaged and be relevant. But Grace, Before we jump into that, there is one more thing I would like us to talk. Well, actually, two things. So the first one is about an article that I came across this morning by Barry Schwartz in Search Engine Land. It’s kind of like a series that they do SEO myth-busting. And it’s what is not a Google search ranking factor. Grace, the reason why this is important is because when I went through the list, I was reminded about really the fundamentals of SEO and how obsessed digital marketing people, Seos get over details that officially Google say, hey, those are not ranking factors yet we are all obsessed about. And it kind of helps put into perspective really what you should be doing when it comes down to establishing a strategy to drive traffic to your website.
Liel: [00:04:34] Great. So I’m going to go it’s a long list. I’m not going to stop by and explain each one of these terms because we could potentially be here three days, just trying to go over each one of these factors. But I still going to mention them all. OK, so are you ready Grace?
Grace: [00:04:50] I’m ready. Let’s go for it.
Liel: [00:04:52] Search quality radars guidelines, ratings, Google Apps, social media mentions or likes clickthrough rates from search results. Pogo sticking back to the search results page dwell time on page bounce rates. User Engagement Data on your web pages. User Behavior. Chrome Data Use of core with vitals. Google Analytics Data, Toolbar Data, Traffic on website, shopping cart abandonment, E A T which stands for expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. I always struggle with that. But there you go. Responsiveness Design, AMP, which stands for accelerated mobile pages, content accuracy, author bios. Structured Data markup, word count. Outbound links. Product prices, you, URL, Accessibility, starts rating and reviews Better Business Bureau, trust organizations and badges, domain ages, 3D and AR images, email newsletter sign-ups, Google-Plus Real Live Users signals higher pitch counts, content frequency, MOZ domain authority.
Liel: [00:06:10] Grace. The list is endless, right?
Grace: [00:06:12] It just keeps going.
Liel: [00:06:14] And it basically covers every single thing that you would be tackling as part of an SEO strategy. But when you strip the least out of all of these things, what is left? One thing, Grace, quality content. That’s it.
Liel: [00:06:32] That’s it. Ultimately, the only thing that Google is going to consider is the quality of your content and how relevant it’s going to be for the user. How good of the experience is going to be of the user in your page. Everything else in reality doesn’t matter. You’re just trying to play out the Google game and Google won’t necessarily reward you no matter how hard you try if your content is good. Now, what comes hand-in-hand when you have good content links? Right. But disregarding whether you have very niche websites, that doesn’t necessarily get a lot of links. If your content is the best for that niche topic, you’re going to get the rankings, Grace.
Liel: [00:07:15] And so this is a really, really good reality check and reminder for everyone who is desperate and really kind of breaking through their SEO strategy, just concentrate on your content and do really, really, really good professional quality content and make sure that your website has very good user experience. Basically, the rest are distractions. There are important that they’re going to make a difference potentially when you’re in a very competitive market, Grace, but the reality is that content will continue to win. Grace, now, let’s move on into some. So we talked a little bit about organic. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Google ads, which actually here are some very exciting, I think I consider these are very exciting news about lead forms being introduced to Google. Right.
Liel: [00:08:07] So we know that since last fall, lead forms have been tested in the search network. And that’s great. But already now, Grace, we can start using lead forums for YouTube ads. And that’s really powerful.
Liel: [00:08:22] Right, because when you’re showing an ad on YouTube, obviously users are on YouTube because they want to see whatever the content they want to see. But if you’re showing them an ad and you want them to take a call to action, that’s not going to detract them from doing whatever it is that they are doing, which in this case is going to be watching content on YouTube. A lead form is actually a very good and efficient way to convert that lead without them having to take too many steps. The beauty about lead forms is whether you use them on Facebook, where you use them on Google, is that prepopulates all of the information for the user. And so the user just has to submit. And so it’s so effective because you can really build up your list and get some quality leads that you can then convert them through your funnel strategy. And so I really think this is a very great add-on to the Google Ads ecosystem. I think what’s going to be even more exciting is when this gets added to the display network. I think we’re going to be able to make display ads and campaigns even more effective than what they already are. And I’m not too sure, though, about leads for the search network, though, but that’s going to be something that we’re going to have to test and really see which practice areas can benefit the most out of it or not. But I can tell you display and YouTube, super welcome that we can now use them. So again, on YouTube are already available. You can already start using them and display network. We are expecting them to be released later this year.
Grace: [00:09:58] So somewhat related, but not exactly the same. I kind of thought this was coming down the pipeline, to tell you the truth, because you may have noticed, I’m sure you did actually Liel, that Google was doing all of these things that it possibly can before COVID, before anything for the last I’d say maybe two years, maybe more with the Google shopping and trying to have people buy things right from Google with the link to the site. So I could see how this kind of goes kind of hand in hand. Right, right. From the ad. You’re able to fill in, do everything right from there rather than, because more clicks, right. Less conversion. And so I’m thinking that they’re trying to help increase that. And that’s what it seems like to me.
Liel: [00:10:40] So let me further explain my thought process and why I do think lead forms are going to be a game-changer for both YouTube and the display network. So. When someone, as I’ve said, is on YouTube for watching content or they’re actually reading an article somewhere, right. And they see display ads, whether they’re reading the news lifestyle ad that they’re booking travel plans, you name it. Right. They’re actually focused on trying to complete another action, yet they see an ad that calls to their attention. It makes it very convenient for them to be able to easily convert, kind of like bookmark the ad, send out their contact details to the advertiser so then they can get to them and have the conversation or follow up on that at a time that is convenient for the user and it’s really effortless for the user. They don’t have to write anything because all of the information is already prepopulated from their Google account or Facebook account. Now, why do I think that this may not necessarily work on the search network? Because when somebody goes to the search network and they search specifically say you for accident attorney, many of the users do want to see the actual information. They’re actually fully focused on finding out information about this. Right. And so they may want to read a homepage, a practice area page. They may want to read reviews. They may not be satisfied entirely just by taking a simple action as sending their contact information to the law firm and then call it a day.
Liel: [00:12:07] Right. They have more intent and they have the willingness to dedicate time right now for that. So I think that they’re not necessarily going to perform better than call only ads, I think that call only ads will continue to serve and cater for a particular segment of the market. But I still think that for a big majority of the market that are doing a little bit more of research, they want a bit more of information before they convert, particularly when the intent is high and they’re actually taking the time to search specifically for that in Google search network. So that’s why I think users are more likely to still want to want to go to landing pages, to home pages when they’re searching for law firms and still call only ads will continue performing well because you still have a segment of the population who just wants to get on the phone very quickly with someone and see whether they can get helped. Right. But the lead part doesn’t really satisfy that either immediate need for attention nor it gives enough information for the users right there and then when they want it. So, Grace, that’s with regards to Google ads updates. But let’s go back now to where we first started the conversation.
Liel: [00:13:31] And it’s Facebook. It’s been just growing like crazy, right? And with growth over the past few years, what we have seen is that Organic reach has really dropped dramatically for any business, not just law firms, but for any business, and ultimately this is all due to Facebook. Well, a few reasons want to deliver a better user experience to the users by actually showing them content, that is actually of super relevance to them or at least entertaining. Right. So that would be all of your parking lot fights, your Ben Shapiro videos and all of that content that really gets a lot of attention on Facebook. And then it will show advertisers content in between these posts that have more engagement and are more likely to get engagement from the users. So that’s the reality. And really, any business, not just law firm that wants to have visibility and grow brand awareness through Facebook. They should definitely consider advertising on Facebook, boosting their content because otherwise it’s going to not be seen by a lot of people. Disregarding to that Grace, that doesn’t mean that law firms or any other business should just take a hands-off approach in Facebook and say, no, I’m not going to do anything because anyhow, nobody’s going to see it. It doesn’t work that way. If you are running engagement campaigns, if you are running, if people are engaging with your ads, if people are liking or commenting on them, your organic postings will have some visibility to those who have very recently interacted with your brand. So that’s number one, right? You want to keep them engaged, you want to keep the momentum going, not just they saw you once and that’s it. Or the next time they’ll see you, it’s going to be again another ad. So you want to keep that going a little bit. But on the other hand, we’re going back to you know, you have links to your social media pages, your website.
Liel: [00:15:42] Right. And we’re going back to the research that some users like to make. You need to account for the fact that some users at some point or another will want to go and check your LinkedIn page or your Facebook page or your Twitter page, because you know how many law firms have them all the badges there on their homepage. And then you click on them and they take you to error pages or they just take you to the main Facebook page. No actual page, right. That’s not a good reflection. You want them whenever they land to one of your social media pages to see that there’s been activity, that it’s updated, that it has content that at that point can actually be very relevant to them. So Grace, let’s talk a little bit about what are those social media posts, particularly for Facebook, that you should be leveraging. So I’m going to go with one that we have talked here before in other episodes, and it’s so super easy.
Liel: [00:16:37] One very low hanging fruit share moments of success, right? Share mMoment of success, Grace.
Grace: [00:16:43] People forget that.
Liel: [00:16:45] Just, you know, if you’re a personal injury lawyer, those pictures handing out the checks, those verdicts, all of that, those are moments of success. Celebrate them. Right.
Liel: [00:16:55] Part of your community is also the people that work with you. And so it’s also a way of acknowledging them, celebrating that creating of that moment. And whoever is your current community on Facebook, whoever is engaging with you, will also want to see you winning and share those great moments with you. Right. So that’s an idea. Grace, take those big check things, you know, that you can customize there, write the number and so and then take the picture. It’s really great, Grace. I’ve seen some really good content from immigration law firms, right. When they achieve getting status for an applicant for whatever, for residency or when they won an appeal on a DACA application or something. Right. There is all these great stories that can be shared and told. And they are so relevant for social media because you’re putting the people at the center of all of this. So share your moments of success. Now, Grace, this is another one again. And it’s kind of like goes back to we all work so hard in creating content. We all work so hard to get reviews. We all put a lot of effort into these things. So once you have these things, you have to use them in kind of like maximize those assets so you can really use them to promote your brand and create awareness.
Liel: [00:18:16] So one of them is reviews, right? Grace, you’ve probably seen it now. It’s becoming very common to take quotes from reviews and create some nice, cool artwork using platforms like Canva or other apps that exist that make it very easy to really just create artwork of a sentence or something and just post it out on social media and just share it right. Here are some lovely comments we got from one client that we recently helped with this and that. And so you share that. And it’s actually great content, right? Because it again helps tell the story of how you are helping, how you are impacting people’s lives and also how you appreciate it. And it’s just a good content for the platform, right? It’s platform relevant now. Grace, this can be many things. You can take a picture of the entire Google review if you want. You can actually take a picture of a handwritten note. Right. Of course, you know, make sure that you are not disclosing information that shouldn’t be disclosed. Of course, take all of those privacy precautions that you should be having, but share this great information that’s getting in front of you.
Liel: [00:19:27] Here we have another great way of sharing content on Facebook is create either artwork or Facebook lives to answer questions. Grace, these are extremely effective. I’ve seen them work marvelously well for immigration lawyers, right?
Liel: [00:19:47] They do. They’re kind of like open forums where people can come in during the Facebook life, join, chat with the lawyer, put up questions. The lawyer will actually be giving out answers live as the questions are coming. It’s an amazing way to not just create brand awareness, but actually convert leads. Right, Grace? So that’s a really powerful way. I would very highly encourage particularly bankruptcy law firms to start having those, because as people are starting to evaluate their financial situation and potentially what’s yet to come as a consequence of the current economic climate. People are going to potentially be in need of having filed bankruptcy or debt relief or something, right. And so it’s going to be very powerful for those law firms who are actually having those Q&As. Grace, what do you think?
Grace: [00:20:48] I think so. I mean, you know, truthfully, just looking at it from all the different perspectives moving forward, people will have to pay attention, you know, and that includes with, like you said, bankruptcy, I think is a great idea of FAQs, have always done well. And video FAQs in particular. So that’s just how I feel. I agree with you.
Liel: [00:21:08] Yeah. Video FAQs are also very good, Grace, I totally agree with you. You do don’t have to do it live every single time. But what you can certainly do is, it’s again, a great way to mine for data because you can actually get firsthand information of your actual audience, your market. What are the questions that they have right now in their mind? Right. So from there, you take that information and pass it on to your content team and then you create articles on it. Right. And then you take fragments of that article. And again, you create nice, artwork and you put it back on your Facebook page, making it informative for everyone. Now, with that being said, Grace, OK, so you obviously want to take some bits and pieces to make the content sharing more easily digested. Not everybody wants to necessarily go and read the fifteen hundred word document or article on it. But you know, some and factual information is always interesting. Statistics are always eye-catching. So that’s definitely something to be leveraged now. And another strategy a lot of law firms do is they take pieces of news, they take pieces of press releases and then they share them. They share them in the add on a comment. So that’s great.
Grace: [00:22:21] They call it newsjacking.
Liel: [00:22:23] Exactly. But that’s actually great now because it’s a great opportunity that actually to show your opinion on certain things and matters, which is what social media is for. Right. Comment, engage, and also ask other people what do they think about things. But it’s also great if you actually are creating content, just like we spoke. Right. If you want your website to rank, you’re not going to be able not to have great content. Right. So if you are already working so hard and creating wonderful content, share it on social media and put up a nice intro to your article and then send users to your link and well, not only that is a great way of guiding users to conversion, but you’re actually then able to retarget them later on if you want to build a campaign for people who have visited certain particular blog post or practice area pages, Grace.
Liel: [00:23:17] And then, you know. Let’s again go back to basics here. Just. Sure, joyful moments featuring your team, right, what can these be, of course, birthdays, right?
Liel: [00:23:33] That’s like the most basic of them all, and particularly when it comes down to law firms, we’re not just talking about the managing partner birthday. We’re talking about birthdays and special occasions at all levels across the organization. Right. Anniversaries for LinkedIn, of course, we see just kind of like a little parentheses, but great content in LinkedIn is always onboarding of new team members, the welcome that you’re doing for them. There are job anniversaries on the roll like those things are always very welcome there. They can work also very well on Facebook. Right. I’ve seen some really cool posts from law firms that are showing how are they keeping in touch with their team while at the pandemic, sending birthday cakes whenever they’re having birthdays and then sharing them on social media. I mean, really, really great content, Grace. And it’s just that’s exactly how Facebook became what it became. It’s because it put up content that people like to see it put up people celebrating and joyful moments in their lives. Right. So definitely that’s something that can be leveraged by any law firm. Now kind of tying into that Grace. And going back to another topic that we’ve talked a lot about here in this podcast, we have community outreach. Facebook is another great platform to share about projects, about initiatives that you’re participating or organizing in order to help the community. So definitely use the platform to communicate about those initiatives, to share the impact that those initiatives are having or just to promote future events or seek your community’s involvement in some initiatives that you’re taking. Right. Those are always great content to put up on Facebook. I think we are kind of like at the end of this conversation, which is very straightforward. Right. I think, like the takeaways are very simple, Grace. I would say number one would be post on Facebook. Don’t be discouraged by the little visibility and engagement that your post gets. Again, you are, as you’re doing with your website, creating a face for your law firm on a different platform. And then as you’re posting and as you are promoting those posts, you are going to start seeing some engagement. You’re going to start building up an audience and then things are going to start slowly turning around. So I guess I just gave away their what could be a takeaway number two, right, Grace?
Grace: [00:26:23] Yeah, I suppose it could be.
Liel: [00:26:26] So what do you think takeaway number two could be?
Grace: [00:26:28] So I know we’re talking about Facebook specifically, but I would like to say takeaway number two, having to do with the YouTube and the lead forms and what we were talking about much earlier in the conversation.
Liel: [00:26:40] Oh, yeah. Thanks for bringing that back up.
Grace: [00:26:42] Because I think that was super important.
Grace: [00:26:44] And actually it was a trigger for me that I was like, well, these are things that people can try. And, you know, I’m always saying try at least three new things every month if you can, if you have the bandwidth for it. So to me, takeaway number two is take a look at those lead forms into on YouTube and they are available right now. That’s what you told us.
Liel: [00:27:03] They are available as of now, Grace, and absolutely. If you are. But first of all, if if you have great video assets and you’re running YouTube campaigns, then this should be like a no brainer, right? No brainer. But if you don’t, this is such a good of an improvement on how efficient by YouTube ads can be moving forward that it’s definitely worth considering adding to your mix of Google ads, campaigns, a YouTube ad with a lead form as your conversion method. I definitely think that is worth trying and I think it’s going to help a lot. Right.
Liel: [00:27:44] Grace, last take away, I’m going to bring it back to Facebook is boost your posts, advertise on the platform. That’s right. It’s not enough just creating the content you want to get extra visibility. The segmentations that you get on Facebook is second to none. You can really, really get very granular and really create custom audiences that are specific to what you want for your law firm.
Liel: [00:28:14] Last week, Grace, we were talking about how important is it to choose who is the best fit as a client for your law firm? Well, after you’ve identified who is that best client that you can serve, go after them in Facebook.
Liel: [00:28:33] Right. You can actually be very granular in the way that you segment. How do you want your ads to see? You can do it from all different ways, whether it’s through interest, age.
Grace: [00:28:44] Lookalike audiences.
Liel: [00:28:46] Yes, specific targeting locations. There’s a lot that you can do there. Right. And really, yeah, we can dedicate a whole episode to talk about Facebook segmentation, but it’s almost unethical how granular your segmentation can be here.
Grace: [00:29:05] It’s super personalized, right? It’s like down to your behaviors and like the things that you click.
Liel: [00:29:11] Maybe one step away from being able to target people based on health care conditions and religious beliefs.
Grace: [00:29:21] Right, personally identifiable information that they say you’re not supposed to. But yeah, I mean, you’re right.
Liel: [00:29:27] Grace. That’s what it is not because you’re doing Facebook active means you should not regard what’s happening with your page in terms of organic posts and not because you’re doing organic post it means that you shouldn’t also be boosting those posts and making sure that you’re running ads to grow further that community. Grace, thank you so much again for another great conversation. Looking forward to having another good conversation next week.
Grace: [00:29:54] Me too, Liel. This was pretty interesting. I like the freeform nature of this one. So thank you all for tuning in.
Liel: [00:30:00] Thank you all. Have a great week. Bye.
Liel: [00:30:04] If you like our show, make sure you subscribe. Tell your co-workers. Leave us a review and send us your questions at ask@incamerapodcast.com. We’ll see you next week.
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