Chapter 1 Facebook: The Final Frontier Facebook is where social media started for me, both personally and for my law practice. As I mentioned, I joined Facebook back in the very early stages when Mark Zuckerberg was still running it from the campus of Harvard University. I have gone through various stages of Facebook interactions. At first, I was a devout follower as it was the best way to stay in touch with friends across multiple college campuses. At that time, you also had to have an email address that ended in .edu in order to join. The exclusivity of Facebook compared to its then competition, MySpace, was attractive to most college students. From the time I was first a member of Facebook in college until law school, Facebook expanded to allow anyone to join and the platform became saturated with parents and high school students. At that time, there was not the robust options for business and advertising that Facebook now offers. While I was in law school, Facebook continued to dominate the social media circles, but the introduction of a new platform, Twitter, started to grab attention from Facebook. As Facebook figured out how they would monetize and open up their robust data and tracking options to consumers and businesses alike, they won some market share back from Twitter, but were facing stiff competition from other up-and-coming competitors. Through some genius acquisitions by Zuckerberg and his team (think, Instagram), and opening up the Facebook apparatus to businesses and marketers, Facebook has reemerged as the premier platform for many businesses looking to advertise in digital and social media. The flipside to that coin is that Facebook is now saturated with business advertising. Facebook is suffering some of the lowest rates of user-generated content in its history. Sometimes looking at my Facebook feed feels like I'm watching television commercials (back when I used to sit through live television programming). All that being said, if you aren't operating a Facebook page or at least using your own profile to promote your services and generate content related to your practice, you are missing out on an incredible opportunity. More eyes are on Facebook now than ever before, and despite the saturation in the business marketplace, the law firm sector is vastly underrepresented on that platform (you will see that this is a trend on all social media platforms). There are some fundamentals we need to cover before we take a look at some specific campaigns and strategies that work on that platform. First, you need to understand the difference between your personal Facebook profile and a "page" for your business or even a "page" for a special service you provide like public speaking. This is where the vernacular gets confusing. Facebook has also changed drastically in its use of different terms for these concepts, so it can get confusing. Essentially, you have a standard Facebook profile page. Here is an image of my personal page: This is where I go to post things important to me personally, pictures of friends and family, shared stories from nonprofits I am involved with, and funny articles that I come across online. This is my personal profile so I do not utilize it extensively to promote my practice. That is not to say you can't market your practice through your personal page. I have been known to cross-promote some of my more popular content or content that I want to reach more of my friends through my personal page: Most of my social media marketing, however, is conducted through my law firm's social media fan page: Creating a Facebook Page Let's get started with creating a page for your practice if you don't already have one. The process of creating the page is actually quite simple and self-explanatory. However, deciding how to populate your page with content will require some thought. From
www.facebook.com you want to look down the left-hand menu bar and select "Create Page." From there, you will select the type of page you want to create. For most law practices, I would select "Local Business or Place." Then choose a category ("Lawyer"), and enter the address details for your main office and click "Get Started." You'll then need to add details and a description of your firm, a profile picture (your logo) and you can even pre-define your preferred audience. From that point, you will be ready to start making your social media dreams come true. Profile Picture and Cover Image While I am a firm believer in producing a lot of your own social media content using your own voice as the lawyer, there are some areas I have no problem outsourcing. One of those areas is image production, specifically, your profile picture and cover image. Let's take another look at the top of my page: The image on the left, inside the little square box is my profile picture, you'll see that it seems to be part of the larger and wider image and matches the back-ground. I chose to outsource production of both of these images to a graphic design artist (email me if you want help with doing this inexpensively:
anthony@themarronelawfirm.com). Here is my actual law firm logo, which is a little different than the profile picture on my Facebook page: I wanted to create a seamless feel on our Facebook page with the profile picture and the cover image, so I was comfortable having our firm logo modified a little to achieve that purpose. Also, you will see that with our cover image, we accomplish a bunch of different things: (i) website address, (ii) list of office locations, (iii) telephone number, (iv) contact email address, and (v) reference to Avvo clients' choice award (more on Avvo in
Chapter 6). All that in the space where most people put a meaningless image that they were able to get stretch to 828 pixels wide! I really think these are two areas you need to get professional graphic design assistance. I liken them to the lobby or greeting area in your office. You're not going to build the sign that hangs in your lobby by yourself. Spend the $50-$100 to have these images professionally produced (again, email me:
anthony@themarronelawfirm.com for more information on how easy this can be). Another example of this can be seen on my speaker's page that was created to promote this book and the speeches I give to bar associations, law firms, and lawyers across the country. Again, you will see that the profile picture is a different version of the book cover which is also represented on the cover image. I've chosen not to include my office details here because mainly what I'm trying to get people to do is click the button right below the book in the cover image to take them to the link to buy my book. Whereas on my law firm page, I'm primarily trying to drive people to my website, email, or to call me, here on my speaker page, I'm primarily trying to drive book sales. Define your goal with each page and then reverse engineer your images and content to achieve that purpose. Now that we have covered entering your basic information and starting your page with a profile picture and a cover image, let's get into the nitty gritty about the content you will post on this page. The great struggle with Facebook for a business page is that regardless of how many people "like" your page, only a fraction of them will see your status updates. Facebook employs an algorithm called Edgerank to position your content in your followers' News Feeds. So if you have 1,000 followers on your Facebook page, your page's status updates will not be shown to all 1,000 of them. In order to position your page to be seen by as high a percentage of your followers as possible, there are a few rules you should follow: Regular posting at peak times Post engaging, visually-appealing content Interact with your followers Respond to Facebook messages on your page Post questions and fill-in-the-blanks Let's break down each of these rules of thumb that will help your posts achieve more reach. Regular Posting at Peak Times Once you have posted content to your page and have some followers, you will be able to review the Insights tab from your Facebook page, and be provided with a bevy of information about your page, your engagement, and your followers. One of the items we are always looking at is when are our fans are online and engaging with our content. Posting when your fans are more likely to be active online increases the likelihood of positive engagement with your posts. Given that Facebook allows you to organically schedule your posts weeks ahead of time, you don't need to be in front of your computer at the same time as your audience. You just need to know when your audience will be there and post accordingly. Here you will see that when you go to make any status update, by clicking the arrow next to the "Publish" button, you have a couple of different options. By clicking "Schedule," you can plan out your posts in advance. Again, back to the Insights tab (this is also accessible across the menu bar from your...
