The Pros and Cons of Producing Law Firm Podcasts vs. Videos
Using podcasts and videos to provide value to your clients and promote the firm enhance the value of your brand and places your firm and attorneys among the thought leaders in the legal industry. The main difference between the media channels is deciding whether your target audience will engage visually or would rather engage audibly. Remember, it’s always about being where your clients and prospects are. Here are some of the pros and cons of podcasts and videos for reaching your target audience.
Podcasts
Pros:
The podcast industry is exploding in popularity. it’s grown 23% between 2015 and 2016, and continues a rapid pace of adoption this year. Many people look to thought-leadership discussions in podcasts to expand their knowledge. Another significant advantage of podcasting is the ability to reach out to influencers and invite them as guests on your firm’s podcast. This gives lawyers the opportunity to expand their business’ network, while also gaining content from other leaders.
Also, in all likelihood, your competitors will not be podcasting– this will give firms a competitive advantage and a unique new way to reach their desired audience. But this advantage won’t last long as firms discover the value. Podcasts share many similarities with blogging but it gives a law firm the ability to open up and engage with an audience who prefer listen rather than read.
Cons:
As podcasts continue to grow in popularity, it will be difficult making your podcast stand out from the crowd. Most people have no problem finding a video on YouTube. It’s a search engine they’re familiar with. Searching for podcasts is a learned behavior.
Podcasts also lack visual aids so it can make it more difficult to connect if not done properly.
Finally, there are some technical aspects to podcasting that may intimidate some, such as finding the right podcasting host, submitting RSS feed to iTunes and other platforms, and the right tools to use.
Contact Good2bSocial for help with getting your podcast up and running.
Videos
Pros:
More than 500 million hours of video are watched on YouTube every day. 87% of online marketers use video content. The scale of YouTube means that the potential reach of a successful business channel will outstrip that of a podcast in most cases. Videos enable law firms to reach a global audience and connect with potential clients. See: A Law Firm’s Guide to YouTube.
Cons: Producing and editing videos consumes time and resources. Videos also require participants to be comfortable in front of the camera.
Conclusion:
Since both have their pros and cons, a suggestion would be to film your firm’s podcasts when they are being recorded and post that footage to YouTube. this enables a firm to get all of the benefits of taping a podcast while also creating visually engaging content for your target audience. This has been a growing trend in podcasting and has proven to be successful for other business.
Examples of how companies use their professionals in videos
- Ernst and Young: Videos feature mentors and stories from their lives and how those experiences have gotten them to where they are now. Also feature news interviews their professionals have been involved in.
- Mckinsey & Company: Uses a combination of graphics and footage of professionals. Here’s an example.
- PWC: Uses a combination of their professionals to give their expertise on a specific topic all in one video. All of their videos link back to YouTube from their website. Here’s an example.
- KPMG: Their videos have parts that include infographics and text.
- IBM: They have their own YouTube channel with several different videos including their version of “Jeopardy” with a company executive and full videos of their professional’s public speeches.
Law firms:
- KL Gates: Their videos are in an interview format, where someone is asking the fellow a series of questions. Here’s an example.
- Mintz Levin: Their videos are no longer than 4 minutes and they feature different professionals covering an individual topic in each video. You can directly access all of their videos via their homepage.
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