Podcast Ep. 133: The Right Way for Lawyers to Use Social Media
In this episode of the Legal Marketing 2.0 Podcast Guy is joined by Ali Awad, also known as @ceolawyer on social media, Ali is a successful lawyer/entrepreneur with his own law firm (Ali Awad Law, P.C.) and media company. Ali teaches lawyers, doctors, and other professionals how to brand themselves digitally and generate clients through social media. Tune into this episode to hear Guy and Ali discuss how lawyers can generate qualified leads through social media, what kind of segmentation strategies to use, and how lawyers and law firms can get off the ground establishing their social media presence. You can connect with Ali on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
Podcast Show Notes
1. How do you build a successful brand and generate leads through social media?
The number one mistake that I see 95% of lawyers make on social media is making your page look like a bunch of advertisements. It’s costing you so much more than you could possibly imagine. People don’t go on social media to get advertised to. They go to get entertained first and educated second. My social media page is not advertisements, what I do is I create engaging, educational, fun, and sometimes funny content. I have built a large enough presence to where I am top of mind anytime an accident occurs, or someone needs a lawyer that has my specific services. In a reactive business, that’s how you build your social media presence.
2. What type of content should lawyers/firms create for social media?
I do a lot of memes and funny content that is relevant and makes fun of insurance companies on Facebook and Instagram. I also do a lot of short videos that are 15, 30, 45 seconds long. I do funny skits and comic skits, but by far I have hundreds and hundreds of videos that are just legal advice educating people on how to handle their cases on their own, the different types of insurance coverage they need to have and how to choose the right lawyer. I care way more about building a valuable brand than getting that next client, because the valuable brand will automatically bring those clients. My intention is to focus on what differentiates me. People don’t want to follow businesses; they want to follow people. I create this content for my personal lawyer account, not my law firm’s account.
3. Do you have to spend thousands on ads to increase client acquisition?
Here’s the thing about advertising on social media, you don’t have to spend a ton of money to determine whether something works. In fact, If something works organically as a post to your followers, friends, and people that are engaging on your page then it’s going to work well as an ad. Why? Because the Facebook and Instagram algorithm are already telling you that this is good content. My best performing content, the highest engaging content, is also the same content that I run and spend a lot of money on ads for. It’s purely a branding play.
Related: Why Paid Social Does Work for Law Firms
4. What kind of segmentation strategies do you employ?
I’ve identified my ideal client avatar. When you first start you may think “anyone that needs my services; that’s who I want to hire or that’s who I want as a client”. That’s not good enough, identify a client that you feel would be the highest likelihood of success with the least amount of effort. I create content that resonates with a specific client avatar that has nothing to do with my actual practice because no one can buy from you, that doesn’t know that you exist. It’s a higher barrier to entry to start with an advertisement than to start with a funny video, meme, or something historical that resonates with that specific audience. Then I retarget them with content from my page about my firm or free legal advice, that’s my strategy.
5. How would a lawyer get started?
Everyone who is now big was once small. To the person that’s starting out, understand this. Before you can sprint you need to be able to crawl and crawling on social media is this simple; the people who already know you, your friends and family need to know what you do. If you have friends and family on Facebook that don’t know the practice area that you’re in and may or may not be in an accident or a bankruptcy or some sort of legal issue and they end up hiring someone else, then you have failed miserably. Start by creating content on your personal page to let people know what you do.
Takeaway
Everybody must start somewhere. Lawyers and law firms alike must start by crawling before they can run when it comes to building a large social media following. Establish your buyer personas and client avatars, find the closest people around you that will support your practices, and begin creating engaging content your target audience can resonate with. Soon you will have a clear understanding on what content the algorithm likes and you can begin expanding your brand awareness with ads.
Do you need help creating compelling videos or putting together a social media marketing strategy that strengthens relationships with your future clients? Reach out to us for help.
Are you ready to get started generating new, qualified leads?
Contact us to get started and let us help you energize your digital marketing and business development efforts.
Contact Us