Stacey Burke's Pressentation for the
18th Annual Insurance Law Institute
The University of Texas School of Law and
The Insurance Law Section of the State Bar of Texas
Marketing and Advertising: Social Media for Law Firms
1. STACEY E. BURKE
ATTORNEY/OWNER
4615 SOUTHWEST FREEWAY
SUITE 850
HOUSTON, TEXAS 77027
MOBILE (713) 225-8621
FAX (877) 314-9990
STACEY@STACEYEBURKE.COM
WWW.STACEYEBURKE.COM
Marketing and
Advertising: Social
Media for Law Firms
18th Annual Insurance Law Institute
The University of Texas School of Law The
Insurance Law Section of the State Bar of
Texas
Nov 7-8, 2013
Royal Sonesta Hotel, Houston, TX
2. Social Media Channels: Overview
•
FACEBOOK
•
– Facebook has over 1 billion users, 42 million pages, and over 15 million business
pages.
– Facebook is the largest online social network, boasting 1.11 billion users.
– Over half of the United States is on Facebook, 52.9% of Americans.
GOOGLE PLUS
•
– G+ is Google’s own social media creation.
– While Google Plus has only 343 million users, Google is not going anywhere, and
it gives credence to its own content
INSTAGRAM
– Instagram boasts over 150 million users and counting
– An average of 40 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day
www.staceyeburke.com
3. Social Media Channels: Overview
•
LINKEDIN
•
– Over 238 million users and 40% of them check LinkedIn daily
– Maintaining professional relationships, an online resume
TWITTER
•
– Only 7 years old and has 500 million users.
– 32% of all Internet users use Twitter, and 175 million tweets were sent from Twitter
each day throughout 2012
YOUTUBE
– YouTube has over 1 billion total users with 4 billion video views each day
– 500 years of YouTube video are watched each day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube
videos are shared on Twitter each minute
www.staceyeburke.com
4. Social Media Channels: Facebook
• Customize your URL
• Make sure your firm has a “Page” not a “Profile”
or a “Group”
• Share your blog posts, press
coverage, videos, and relevant content from
related professional associations and other law
firms
• Facebook advertising
• #Hashtags (#law #lawyers #oilgas #hounews)
• Tag users and other Pages in your posts for
increased exposure
www.staceyeburke.com
5. Social Media Channels: Google Plus
• Google loves itself
• If you are included in a large number of circles
on Google+, that will increase your
AuthorRank and overall Google Authorship
• Google Hangouts
• Even more #Hashtags
• Tagging or +’ing other users
www.staceyeburke.com
6. Social Media Channels: Instagram
• Photo sharing social media
• You can simultaneously and directly feed out
Instagram photos into your other social channels
• Image based social sharing gets 94% more total
views and 37% more user engagement because
users prefer a quick look at something, rather than
having to read – “instant gratification”
• Yet again use #Hashtags
• Tag other users in posts
• Facebook acquired Instagram for $1B in 2012.
www.staceyeburke.com
7. Social Media Channels: LinkedIn
• Online resume – the part of your LinkedIn profile
that is most important is your
career, jobs, education, and other skills. Build it
out with SEO-driven copywriting.
• Optimize the 120-character Headline to the right
of your profile photo
• Customize your URL
• Link up your Employment section to the
appropriate Company Page(s)
• Build out your Company Page
www.staceyeburke.com
8. Social Media Channels: Twitter
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Brand your profile, including your handle
Link back to your law firm website
Follow back
Yes, #Hashtags again
@’s (mentions) and DM’s (direct messages)
Twitter Lists
Interacting with the media
If you are only self-promoting, you are doing it
wrong!
www.staceyeburke.com
9. Social Media Channels: YouTube
• Google owns YouTube and it is the second most used
search engine online
• YouTube videos auto-populate your Google+ profile if
you set it up correctly
• Transcribe the spoken words within your video content
for great SEO
• YouTube isn’t just for video you make yourself – use
your channel to repurpose your television
advertisements, speaking engagements, and news
coverage
• YouTube advertising
www.staceyeburke.com
10. Social Media& Your Law Firm Website
• Include social sharing functionality on your blog
and throughout your website
• Include links to all of your social media channels
in the footer of your website and/or in another
design element such as a right column
www.staceyeburke.com
11. Social Media Protocol
• Use a professional voice and tone
• Always be aware of client confidentiality and
inadvertently forming an attorney-client
relationship
• How to respond to client communications
• How to respond to new lead communications
• How to respond to external lawyer
communications
• How to respond to media and press
communications
www.staceyeburke.com
12. Lawyer Directory Listings: Overview
Digital Branding for the Individual Lawyer
•
•
•
•
•
Avvo – PR6
Best Lawyers – PR6
Chambers – PR6
Justia – PR7
Legal 500 – PR6
•
•
•
•
Martindale – PR7
RocketLawyer – PR6
State Bar of Texas – PR7
Super Lawyers – PR7
www.staceyeburke.com
13. Online Lawyer Directory Listings: Avvo
• How do I sign up? http://www.avvo.com/freelawyer-advertising
• Avvo empowers consumers to rate lawyers
• Member lawyers answer questions for free online
• Avvo profiles contain helpful information
including experience, background, disciplinary
history, and reviews from clients and peers.
• The Avvo algorithm
• Avvo paid advertising
www.staceyeburke.com
14. Online Lawyer Directory Listings:
Chambers
• Chambers is one of the most legitimate ratings
and listings systems both on and offline.
• They have a team of over 140 full-time
researchers who conduct thousands of interviews
with lawyers and their clients worldwide.
• They publish “guides” internationally.
• The value of this listing will depend greatly upon
your practice area and how much B2B marketing
you do in your practice.
www.staceyeburke.com
15. Online Lawyer Directory Listings: Justia
• The Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute (LII)
is a not-for-profit group that publishes law online for free on a
highly-ranked website. Its site is directly associated with the Justia
online lawyer directory.
• LII and Justia pass along “link juice” to each other.
• All searchers on LII’s website looking for legal information and news
are offered the chance to find a lawyer for free. If you are not
listed, your name isn’t an option for them to find.
• Justia and Cornell require a Letter of Good Standing or other
applicable item to be listed.
• How do I get listed? Visit www.lawyers.justia.com/new-profile.
www.staceyeburke.com
16. Online Lawyer Directory Listings:
Martindale-Hubbell
• Does the AV rating matter anymore? Do
clients know what it means?
• The majority of the profiles on their website
are not fully built out.
• While this was one of the first online lawyer
directories, it has become a dinosaur.
• More appropriate for B2B than B2C marketing.
www.staceyeburke.com
17. Online Lawyer Directory Listings:
State Bar of Texas
• If you are licensed, you are on their website for
free, so build out your profile and keep it current.
• You can include your website, the ability to
contact you via email, information about your
practice, and your social network profiles.
www.staceyeburke.com
18. Online Lawyer Directory Listings:
Super Lawyers
Basic Free Listing
• If you win Rising Star or
Super Lawyers, you are
automatically listed on the
website for free, with a
basic listing.
• Even if you claim and build
the listing out behind the
scenes, the data does not
show up online unless you
graduate to a paid listing.
Expanded or Premium Listing
• Expanded – You should pay
for this. Super Lawyers
listings show up on page
one of organic search
results.
• Premium – New listing to
get lawyers to spend even
more money basically on
pie charts. For now, go with
Expanded.
www.staceyeburke.com
19. Super Lawyers Profile (FREE)
• Michael Murray, a lawyer from Watts Guerra
does not have a paid listing. This is what his
unpaid listing looks like.
21. Inbound Traffic and BackLinks from
Social Media and Directories
• Inbound traffic:
– 2013 digital marketing surveys indicate that social
media and SEO efforts drive the majority of inbound
website traffic.
– The top three traffic drivers are
Facebook, LinkedIn, and a company blog.
• Backlinks:
– Backlinks are high-ranking website links “back” to your
website
– The lawyer directory listings mentioned herein (and
Google Places) are a great start.
www.staceyeburke.com
22. Stacey E. Burke:
Lawyer/Marketer
• You can find me on Social Media + Blogging:
–
–
–
–
http://www.Facebook.com/MarketingLawyers
http://www.Twitter.com/StaceyEBurke
http://www.LinkedIn.com/In/StaceyEBurke
https://plus.google.com/109980758416052073
177/posts
– http://www.slideshare.net/staceyburke/
– http://www.staceyeburke.com/blog/
www.staceyeburke.com