Whether you like TikTok or not, there is no denying that it can help put your law firm and your brand on the radar of thousands of potential clients, but to see success, you need first to understand what makes TikTok and its community click.
In this week’s conversation, we explore how TikTok can be equally successful for law firms wanting to join the latest pop culture trending conversation or educate their audience about the work they do in an entertaining way. You can do simple videos or use the platform’s video editing options.
From the lawyers with five million followers to a lawyer giving his take on Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah, our conversation will help you figure out how to get started with your TikTok strategy, or well in the worst-case scenario just entertain you.
Resources mentioned in our episode:
- How to Use TikTok for B2B Marketing & Who’s Doing It Right
- John in 60 by Morgan & Morgan
- Lawyer Mike Mandell TikTok
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] Tik Tok has 70 million active users in the United States, and it is estimated that 70 percent of its users are over the age of 20. I’m Liel Levy, co-founder of Nanato Media and author of Beyond Se Habla Español How Lawyers Win the Hispanic Market in this is in camera podcast where we believe you should meet your audience, where engagement rates are high. Welcome to in camera podcast, Private Legal Marketing Conversations Grace. Welcome back. How are you today?
Grace: [00:00:58] Good. How are you, Liel?
Liel: [00:00:59] Great. Thank you very much, Grace. Just to get us ready for our conversation today… As a matter of fact, you know what’s very interesting, Grace just reminded me now that I introduced the podcast, you know, the Apple podcast is actually recommending podcast creators to cut to the chase, like they’re actually recommending four podcast creators not to have long intros and all that music and all of that advertising happening at the beginning and kind of like cut to the chase straight into the content as a response, I guess, to potentially what other platforms like Spotify. Who is betting very heavily in exclusive productions. But of course, these productions are heavily backed by advertisement and such. And so the way that Apple Podcasts want to differentiate their platform, it feels like, is by actually creating a platform where podcasts are more content centered rather than ads supported. You know what I mean?
Grace: [00:02:09] I do. And that makes sense. You know, they constantly try to do things with privacy and, you know, and being overloaded and, you know, so it makes sense that they would want to cut down on the fluff, let’s put it that way.
Liel: [00:02:23] And so I don’t really have a lot of information regarding as how is this going to impact in terms of what’s going to happen to podcasts that continue to be produced with a lot of advertising material in them. If they’re going to lose visibility in their ranking or in the way that they were presenting to use it presented to users or not, that’s going to be interesting to see. But it did came up as one of their best practices that is being advocated for. So I think we’re kind of safe. Right. We don’t use this platform to promote businesses. And we have a rather small intro that basically just gets us in a brief overview, really, of what we put in. We’re going to be talking about. So we’ll see. But of course, we’re going to monitor if we need to make any changes. And who knows, maybe we’ll do. So, Grace, I want us to talk today about something that I think continues to trend, continues to work. We continue to hear stories of individuals, brands, and everything in between that have success with tik tok as a content platform and as a way to build the brand. So. We have here a very interesting piece written by Annabel Moule in there, and it’s about how to use tik tok for B2B marketing. And so we’re going to go over it, Grace, and then we’re going to jump into tik tok and see what some law firms or lawyers are actually doing in tik tok to build a brand and potentially find new clients. How does that sound?
Grace: [00:04:12] Sounds good. It sounds like a good topic for us to cover.
Liel: [00:04:16] All right, Grace. So let’s get started here. Right.
Grace: [00:04:20] All right. So the one when I was looking at this article, you know, it’s in before we even started the podcast, we were talking about how is this really good for B to B? Because I know most of us think of tik tok and you know, we think of, OK, selling consumer products, you know, the newest makeup, the newest this, the newest that. However, I have seen some lawyers. On tik tok with B2C stuff doing pretty well, you know, and actually, we did a quick search before we started and we see that there’s an individual on there with the. How many million followers, Liel? Did we see?
Liel: [00:04:59] Five.
Grace: [00:05:00] Five million followers and just a lawyer giving general information about what to do if you’re in an accident or if you’re hurt. And, you know, you’re just doing it in a very interesting and kind of fun way. You just giving you info. So we know it works for B2C if done right. It doesn’t have to be done, you know, in such a structured way as can be seen by people on Tik tok. But B2B it’s one of those things that it’s hard for people to see. What can you do? Right. So more and more B2B companies are definitely recognizing that this is something that is not only they should probably be on, but that it’s unique in that it’s authentic. Right. You have to be real. And, you know, people will know automatically, especially on video, if you try to put on a show. Tik tok is not about putting on a show. It’s about being real with the people and other people, understanding that you’re coming across because this is what you love to do and it’s appealing to who you are as a person. So this is kind of one of those avatars and even the ones for other businesses. Right. When you look at a business, you have to understand the groupthink and the demographic and what emotion will appeal to that group or other business that will attract them to you. And that includes. Tik tok. Tik tok is all video. Right, Liel? I mean, what do you think? What do you think about that in terms of like how it brings somebody to, you know, videos needs to call on emotion?
Liel: [00:06:36] Yeah, well, I think, you know, what is great about tik tok is what you mentioned about video and about it has a very informal approach. It’s meant to be very personal and very individual-centered. And I think that’s what makes it stand out from other social media platforms. And technically, what’s very unique about tik tok is that you don’t need to have massive followership in order to be visible. It basically works in a way that your videos are ranked individually and not based on by how many people are following you. And so you can go out with a video and get a lot of visibility in fast, super fast. And if the content resonates very well with the people that are actually seeing it and it’s gaining momentum, you can build followership very quickly. And that’s what actually makes Tik tok stand out. I’ll tell you something, in a way, it reminds me a little bit of Twitter from the fact that again, right, it doesn’t matter how much network you have, if you actually join the right conversation with the right comment, the right time, you can just go viral without necessarily having any track record whatsoever. Whereas in Facebook and in Instagram, it’s almost impossible to do that.
Liel: [00:08:08] And particularly if you’re a brand, organic visibility is almost out of the window. And so that’s, I think, the great platform that Tik tok can be for law firms. Now, you’re right. I mean, can it work for a B2B? I guess it can work if your law firm is a B2B model primarily and your marketing is B2B, right? We were talking just a moment ago here about how Don Worley does it very well on Instagram. He has a lot of followers, and the content that he makes is primarily aimed for other fellow lawyers. And I think that is what makes his content successful. And you can certainly do that in tik tok as well. As long as it’s very clear to you, who are you going to be going after? And the other thing here is that you can also use hashtags that can give you very good visibility. And the same thing applies. Right? This thing can move fast. So that’s I think, my take with regards to whether tik tok can be a good platform for marketing, for law firms to get an opportunity to build the brand, whether it’s B2B or B2C.
Grace: [00:09:28] That’s right. I mean, there’s there’s just different ways of looking at these things. Right. But no matter what platform you go on, Tik tok is video. Right. And so when you think about video, you think about not just who it appeals to, but the demographic and. Who’s actually using it in on there? But you also have to think about where it falls in your marketing strategy. Right. Because to me, tik tok and you know, as part of the article that we’re actually looking at, it kind of says the same thing, which is this is more of a top of the funnel brand awareness tool.
Liel: [00:10:03] Of course.
Grace: [00:10:04] So, you know, don’t expect necessarily I mean, not to say that it can’t happen, but when you’re top of the awareness type of funnel for legal, again, this is not necessarily for you know, this is B2B you’re more at the brand awareness or a brand awareness phase rather than some expecting that somebody is going to actually go and buy from you right from there.
Liel: [00:10:29] Yeah. One hundred percent. And I think that’s very important. And I think for every social media platform right now, Grace, that’s a given. Like, don’t bring the business agenda into the platform itself. You can still create content that is relevant to what you do as a lawyer but make it more broad and informative particularly, right? I would say Grace calls to action are the wild card here. Most of your content doesn’t need them. And Grace, I do want to point out something here. Sorry. I don’t know if I interrupted you or not, but it’s about the reach right in this statistic really blew my mind, because a lot of us, when we think about Tik tok, we automatically think of zoomers and very, very, very young audience. But in reality, it’s only 41 percent of the users who are between the ages of 16 and 24, which leaves the 59 percent of the users belonging to other to other age groups. And they’re more likely going to be older people than these 16 to 24 year olds. So that is big, Grace, because not all practice areas are necessarily concerned with people above the age of 18 or 21 and older. Some people are more specifically targeting people who are above 50 or 55. Doesn’t really matter. But the bottom line here is that you have a really, really diverse audience here. It’s not just Zoomers, right?
Grace: [00:12:01] That’s right. I mean, this is it’s the statistics are definitely shocking, because I honestly thought and I felt the same way that, you know, I mean, my niece is the one that uses it and she’s 12 years old. You know, so in reality, though, you know, anywhere where people are is where you kind of want to be as long as obviously you have a decent group of people that will pay attention and or listen and you want to engage on that platform because it also has to do with not just, you know, the other who’s there, but it’s. Do you want to be on there? Do you have the time to be on there and actually engage with these people? Because video and the comments and the way Tik tok works, you have to I mean, all social media, you have to. But on Tik tok, it’s very, very video oriented. And so it’s not the algorithm isn’t like Facebook. It’s not like Instagram necessarily. It’s not like any of those in that it’s not looking at all of the people following you at all of your stuff. No, I mean, looking at the video independently that you just posted. So you have a way of reaching people that you may not have normally been able to reach and you have a way of being seen and going, and goiung viral, a lot easier if you do it right and you’re being authentic because people will catch that. They will see that in Tik tok is just strips you down and chose you for who you are. You can’t hide on tik tok because it’s all video and people feel it. Would you agree?
Liel: [00:13:41] 100 percent. And here’s the thing, Grace. I mean, one of the law firms that comes to mind, right, about having done great ticktock for their brand awareness is actually Morgan and Morgan. And I’d like us to just take a moment here to watch their video, which is basically attorney John Morgan sharing humorous titbits on various topics like Ofri, Harry, and Meghan’s interview. You remember that one? So let’s let’s go over it, Grace, and you’ll let me know what you think. Ok, first of all, f bombs are dropped left, right and center. Now, this is the biggest personal injury lawyer in the United States. And I love the grease. I love it. It’s casual. It’s informal. A, he doesn’t bring the business agenda to the platform. He’s talking about Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah. That’s it. That’s The Post. It’s him not wanting to hear about it. And then here is the interesting part, right? He’s opening a window of curiosity of the audience into his life because he says, you, Oprah, come and interview me about my childhood and all the shit I had to put up growing up.
Liel: [00:15:06] And I guarantee you’re going to get much better ratings than you got for that interview. Now you’re wondering about this man’s life, right. And I must say, I love I mean, the custom design here. Now let’s give him Emmy. Yes, I’m going to give him an Emmy. Right. For it is like those mean color pants and a shirt and everything is just A-class. Love that. Love the angle of the camera. It’s just nice, Grace. I like it. It’s entertaining. It’s fun. You don’t expect John Morgan to be like that, right when you’re seeing just the business marketing side of things. But then you can see here the person behind it all, and it’s likable and it’s approachable. And that’s the good platform to these has. Now, the Post itself had eighty-seven plus comments over a thousand likes. It got shared quite a bit. And so this is actually a good example of how you can use tik tok to join a conversation to build your brand. But without bringing the business agenda into the table Grace, what do you think?
Grace: [00:16:13] Now it’s great. We’re talking about authenticity in that. You can’t be any more authentic than, you know, being you and telling somebody, you know, you should be interviewing me. So and you’re right. I love his outfit and his and the way he’s coming across is it’s him. Right. And so, yeah, all the elements of what we’re talking about on video, particularly on Tik tok, he’s done he’s saying what he wants. He’s he’s coming across as him and he’s dressed down like if he is in his home, you know. And so I totally I think this is a great way of doing it and talk about it.
Liel: [00:16:50] And so here is the cool part of it. Yeah, they have a segment which is called John in 60. And that’s what this was. This was one take-off is John in 60. And it’s 60 seconds of him talking about something. And so cleverly here they went on. The talk on what potentially was a trending hashtag back when the Megan, Harry, and Oprah interview happened. Right, which is Meghan and Harry. And so, again, it’s a great way of going and creating content in these type of John in 60 sort of things are a great concept because it also makes it easy for you to come up with this post, because you already know, it’s basically you already have the template, you know, that you have to get on, choose a topic and talk 60 seconds. And so you’re not actually thinking what the content is going to be every single time, what the post is, how is it going to look? How is going to be created. What’s going to be about? You already have the framework. You know, it has to be the lawyer talking about something for 60 seconds. And ideally, it should be a relevant pop culture topic that people care about. And so I think that’s a great example of how you can go and implement a tik tok strategy. Grace. Now, you’ve mentioned here another lawyer that has a huge following and that he’s using tik tok also to build his brand.
Liel: [00:18:16] But he does it in a very interesting way because he is indeed talking about legal things. And so, Grace, let’s go and revisit the page of law by Mike, who is the lawyer, Mike Mondale, based out of, I guess, California, Grace? I cannot really point my finger like I cannot really point out where his lawyer is located, but I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s because he went to USC or something there. It tells me that he’s based in California somewhere. But let’s go and look at one of his recent posts. Sounds good, Grace? All right, Grace. So let’s recap for the listeners. What is it that we just seen? Three questions to confirm whether you have a slip and fall case? I must say, great sense of humor. It’s funny, right? I mean, it’s lighthearted. It’s funny. And basically, the questions are, could it have been preventable? Right. Could that accident be preventable? The second question is, has it been or the cost of the accident, has it been long enough for the owner to have paid attention to it? And why was it there? Why think Grace this really? Yeah, in less than a minute. Explains to you. In a super easy and digestible way, what makes for a slip and fall case? And the way that I say that it’s lighthearted is because at some point, you know, in the video, we see the lawyer changing to different scenes.
Liel: [00:19:48] Right. In this case, we’re talking about someone sleeping with an avocado peel at a restaurant. And then the owner of the restaurant is also going to ask some questions. And the answer he answers are hilarious. And it’s just funny content, disregarding whether you’re interested or not on slip and fall. But here, the difference between this and what we just saw about Joe Morgan’s post is that we’re really talking here about one of their practice areas. So I actually think Grace that this is a creative way of doing it. I must say that you can clearly see the skill, the production skill here of the lawyer putting together the content because they’re using the really using very well all of the different transitions and effects that you can integrate in Tik tok, which actually tik tok makes it rather easy to do, but you still need to figure out your way around it. Right. He uses the music. He uses, as I said, the transitions he uses, all different types of angles that make it engaging. And so that’s really great. Whereas if we compare it, John Morgan’s post was just Joe Morgan, the entire one minute, one shot, one angle, and that’s it. So some musical, very low, a little bit putting them back, you know. But here you kind of really have a soundtrack. And again, that’s what tik tok wants you to do, right? It initially started as lip singing and such so.
Grace: [00:21:20] Yes.
Liel: [00:21:20] So, Grace, I mean, two great examples of what you can do here to build your audience and build your brand with an audience of people that are here for the entertainment.
Grace: [00:21:35] Well, one hundred percent, right. I mean, we just gave a couple good examples on both sides of the coin. Right. And but I think what’s at the core of all of this is to be authentic and put something out there that you want to put out there, because they’ll pay attention if you’re being authentic. And it’s because you want to engage with other people on tik tok so I would say try it, right? If you you have been wanting to do this forever, just like we say with just about everything we do right, Liel? If you were wanting to try this forever. Now is always the time. So go ahead. Take a look at tik tok. Sign up for tik tok. Make your username be something that makes sense. Yeah. What you want to put out. Yeah. And go ahead.
Liel: [00:22:21] I totally agree.
Grace: [00:22:22] And do your tik tok video.
Liel: [00:22:23] So let’s go. Let’s make some takeaways here, Grace, because I think we were kind of like already naturally got to the point where we want to give some tips and recommendations just by having looked at this. So, Grace, if I may, I would like to start with tip number one here is create the concept of your posts and you don’t just need to have one. Put some thought into why the different types of posts you think that are going to work well with you, that you’re comfortable doing and test them out like this, 60 seconds with John. Like that’s a great idea. Right. I think that’s a really great idea. And it’s something that, you know, works for them works for the brand, works with the personality of John. Right. And it’s just something that then you can replicate week over week without necessarily have having to put a lot of thought into creating the production of the actual video, which is really what makes it hard to keep the content flowing. So that’s important. Now, I’m going to add to that takeaway that you should definitely don’t just do one to begin with. Try different things because you don’t know what’s going to actually work, right? So have a few options, have a few ideas. And don’t don’t get discouraged. Give the first five. Don’t have the traction that you’d expect. Right. Also, while you’re doing those first fives, you’re going to get better at them. You’re going to come with more ideas. You’re going to learn better how to produce them. And so that’s definitely something that eventually is going to hopefully get you creating better content. So I would say Grace at least, you know, create two or three different types of post structures, video structures that you want to create and test those out, Grace. That’s my take away, number one.
Grace: [00:24:27] Now, it’s a great takeaway. You know, don’t silence yourself into one type of way of doing it. So, no, I totally agree with that one. My takeaway number two would be it’s not just for young people. You know, don’t don’t get stuck in the mentality that tik tok can only be done B2C and it can only be done marketing towards young children, you know, and that they’re the only ones that use it or aren’t there. Take a look at the hashtags to me. I know. I know that’s kind of two and one, but I’m I’m going to combine those two because it’s not just for young people. Look at the hashtags. You can actually do something with the hashtags and be seen. Yeah.
Liel: [00:25:09] So follow all trending conversations and make yourself relevant. Right. Don’t just throw in the hashtag hoping to get some visibility and then ignore it or ignore the topic as a whole. Join the conversation. And I guess that’s very relevant for when you are looking at using the platform, not as a way to be able to bring the business agenda into the platform, but more so about joining important conversations, potentially community outreach. That’s when that can be helpful. Grace, I’m going to go with takeaway number three and then you will add up to it looking into your network, OK, in record help from people who are in the platform. If tik tok is not something that you do because you are a native Tik tok user, then maybe someone close by, maybe inside the Law firm, maybe inside your family is and use their help. Right. You have a you may have access to a strategist that’s already seen what works, and they may even have experience on how to produce it. So reach out, seek further help now. Now, very important. I understand how well they also understand the audience that you want to reach, as we have just as Grace just said. Right.
Liel: [00:26:34] Tik tok has content for all ages. And so you don’t want to be biased or creating content that is not really relevant to the type of audience that you want to target. Right. So understand very well what’s your segmentation and just make sure that whoever is going to be working with you in creating and putting together this content is actually gonna also know how to adapt everything to be relevant for that particular audience. Right. Grace, I must say, I’ve seen some great examples of lawyers who just get on tik tok creating content with their sons and daughters and is just nice. It’s really, really nice. It shows a different side of the lawyer that you don’t get to see through the other marketing channels. So, again, there are ways that you can definitely use this platform to reach audiences that you may have not had access to before or to show another side of yourself to the audience that you do get to reach out to through other platforms. But not not necessarily showing a different side of yourself or of your law firm. So, Grace, that’s my takeaway. Number three, what you have to add to that one.
Grace: [00:27:55] So tag right on its part and parcel of what you’re saying. Reach out. Yes. But, you know, in that whole concept of what you’re doing, you need to show your fun side. This is tik tok, guys. It’s video. It’s showing people who you are. So if a friend, if nothing else, and you take nothing for else from this podcast and you’re going to go into tik tok, talk about your origin story. I mean, if nothing else came out of this whole podcast, it’s you can do this. And people are interested in the story as to why you are where you are and why you became a lawyer. We want to know we connect with people. We don’t connect with companies, and it works the same way for B2B or B2C. So if you’re getting into ticktock, put in your origin story, you know, make sure you’re hitting the right demographic and whoever you reach out to for help, including your son or daughter or nephew or niece or whoever it is that knows tik tok like this. Ask them what’s trending, you know, and and they will understand kind of what you’re trying to achieve. So you’ll know what demographics you’re trying to look for. Maybe it is their demographic. Maybe, you know, as they’re growing up, there are kids that they’re much more socially aware. Right. So maybe it is that group that you want to be in front of. So just to tack on to your, you know, number three, reach out to people that you have with you. And this can be done easily. It’s it’s it is because it’s about you and who you are, and that’s what people want.
Liel: [00:29:32] Tik tok makes it easy for you to find out what’s trending, what’s happening, what’s gaining momentum. Exploring hashtags. Right. And so there is definitely an opportunity there. It just requires some time and commitment. All right, Grace, thank you so much. And we’ll be back soon with another conversation. Have a great rest of your week. Grace.
Grace: [00:29:58] Thank you, Liel.
Liel: [00:29:58] And 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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