Mitch Jackson is a senior partner and founding attorney of Jackson & Wilson, an Orange County Personal Injury firm. He has represented clients in the Orange County area for over 30 years where he has obtained numerous multimillion dollar verdicts and settlements for his clients.
Today we share his presentation, “What’s Your Why on Social Media” from MaxLawCon 2018.
Watch the presentation here.
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Transcript: “What’s Your Why on Social Media” with Mitch Jackson
Speaker 1
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Becca Eberhart
In today’s episode, we’re throwing it back to a presentation from Max law con 2018. Orange County Personal Injury Attorney Mitch Jackson shares his presentation. What’s your why on social media,
Mitch Jackson
let’s get to it, Nike. And that’s the name of this band. And what this Boston based band started doing is they started sharing their content for free on all of the different platforms, and especially Spotify. And they are a band where they have a unique sound to themselves. They have a unique message they’re sharing with the world. That’s their why. And so they just started sharing this content over and over and over again, go back in time to about a year ago, and I’m at a John Mayer concert with my wife, Lisa, who’s also my partner we met in law school, they were the opening band. And I’m listening to the Spanish at Lisa, these guys are awesome. I mean, I just love this music. Every single song was better than the last one. And when Mayer comes out, he says, Listen, I hope you guys enjoy the night game as much as I did, because I was looking for a new warm up band. And I went on Spotify, and I heard this song I heard this music. And I had to listen to their music again, just to make sure that I heard it right the first time. And I fell in love with these guys. And so last year, they opened up for John Mayer on half of his summer concerts across the country. So here’s a little known Boston and band because they were sharing free content on the internet on Spotify. God John Mayer’s attention, and are now just killing it. If you guys are not the night game fans, check out this band because it’s really, really good music of different types. I’d like you to think of what the night game has done with sharing all of their free content and doing the same thing and the John Mayer’s in your life are your potential clients. They’re the people out there that are looking for answers, looking for solutions, looking to connect with other people to get their problem solved, especially if you’re a lawyer. And they’re the people that will be connecting with you is such a powerful tool. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I’m glad Chelsey started this off this morning. Because if you guys follow some of the things that I talked about today, you’re going to get more calls coming into your firm, you’re going to get more potential clients that you’ll accept as clients or potential clients that you can refer out to other law firms and build a residual business model with respect to referral fees if your state bar permits this. But the point is, is you got to be ready for the additional business. If you put into play some of the things that we’ll be talking about today, the things I’m talking about today work for us really, really well. It works for for friends of mines that are implementing and taking action and executing on some of these things. And because of that, be ready for the new business, when it knocks on your front door. Okay, when the John mayors of the World Reach out for your, for your health, for your legal services, for your solutions, you got to be ready for that. Because today when it comes to social media, and that’s what I’m going to be talking about the attention span on social media, unlike 100 years ago, which was about 20 minutes, today’s attention spans about eight or nine seconds, the same attention span as a goldfish. So you gotta be ready when someone knocks on your front door, when they step on your welcome mat of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, your blog posts, you gotta be ready to execute and implement a lot of the services that Chelsea mentioned, to bring those clients in, to provide an exemplary client experience. And that’s what it’s all about in today’s world, so that you can help them build rapport and create a long term relationship. Going back in time, once again, to honor media about 2004 2005. Before social media as we know it. I was doing a lot of blogging, traditional blogging, and just a little background about about my online experiences in 1996. We set up our first web site, about eight months later, our first online million dollar case came in through that website. And I’ve never been accused of being the brightest bulb in the lamp. But when that happened, I realized, okay, there might be something to this internet thing. And so from that point forward, we started blogging, we started sharing content and watch good things happen. So around 2004 2005 I got a phone call. It was from called went like this uncle Mitch, a friend of mine who’s a police officer may have an issue with an excessive force of use of force case. I was wondering if we could run the facts by you tell, tell us what you think. And so we have some police officers in the family. And so I started doing some research. I’ve never done an excessive force case before but I found the con concepts of that area of law are fascinating. And so I started blogging about this. And I started blogging about all the different things I never even thought of or knew about when it came to excessive use of force cases when it comes to police misconduct. And the reason I’m sharing this with you is that after a couple of years of doing these blog posts, my phone rang. And it was a gentleman who was referred to Johnnie Cochran and law firm by his minister, and it had to do with the wrongful death police misconduct case. And for whatever reason, Mr. Cochran at the time decided that they could not help out this family with the case. So the family went to the internet and look for a lawyer in Southern California that might be able to help with the case. And because of all the blogging that we did, and because of the perceived expertise that this family thought that we had, they ended up sitting across my desk in my office. Now, I’d never handled a police misconduct wrongful death case before. And I really wasn’t that interested in doing it. It’s just not my cup of tea. But what happened was, the facts were such where it shouldn’t have happened, their son shouldn’t have been killed. And I thought it was a case that I could bring value to. I mean, if you try a lot of cases like we do, it doesn’t really matter to me what the underlying issue is a trial to trial. So having said all that, because I wasn’t that interested in handling the case, I told the family and I talked to my partner about this, because they’re expensive cases to litigate. Listen, if you’d like to help us out, we’re going to require a $50,000 retainer, and then I’ll handle this case on a contingency fee basis as a lawyer. And I thought that right there would probably have them leave and go to somebody else that I was thinking about referring them to. And what Mr. Lewis did is he looked me in the eye, he said, Mitch, who do I make the checkout to? Okay, now, this is someone that I’ve never met before. But he built a relationship with me, he built relationships with our firm, he looked at our perceived expertise, and ended up retaining us and it was a pleasure to represent the family, we obtained a large $5.5 million jury verdict firm. And because of that case, because of the original blogging, those efforts of the Orange County Bar Association, recognized our firm and recognize me as trial lawyer of the year back in 2009, because of that case, so it’s a case that wouldn’t have come to our office, unless we’re engaged online, really, really cool. Social media started coming out. And I realized with social media, that we could do the same thing, but amplifier efforts. So instead of just doing a blog post, we can take that blog post, we can share it on Facebook, we can share it on Twitter, we can share links on LinkedIn, Instagram, and just just blow this whole concept up. And that’s what we started doing. So that’s what I want to share with you guys. Today, I want to share with you what works for us what we’re doing using social media, using digital, what doesn’t work, despite all the hype, and what works really, really well. What works really, really well is when lawyers give themselves permission. And by the way, this is what I’ll be talking about it Tony Robbins in August, um, you guys have a preview, I’ve kind of playing around with the concept right now. So you don’t have to go to the Tony Robbins. It’s 10,000 a ticket. All right. What works really, really well for professionals on social media, is sharing your why. Okay, sharing your human side. What doesn’t work on social media is doing a video while you’re sitting behind a desk, talking about 10 things to do after a car crash case. Nobody cares except you. And I don’t care what anybody tells you. It’s boring. It’s not engaging. It just doesn’t work. What works really, really well. Social media, which brought in a ton of cases into our office, which brought in a bunch of quality relationships. What we talk about in my legal minds mastermind, is it’s all about sharing your why. So what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is, first of all, give yourself permission to show who you are as a human being. Give yourself permission to go live on video. When you haven’t shaved, you’re in the middle of a run. Like Tina, one of our running lawyers, running past the alligators out running the alligators. Thank goodness so good for you. But hopping on a periscope hopping on a live video and sharing something about yourself while you’re in the middle of a run. That’s what connects you with other people. Think about and ask yourself, why do you guys get out of bed in the morning? They really give that some thought. What’s your why in life? Is it to support your family? Is it to go into the law firm? Is it to do community service with your rotary club? Is it to participate in sports and working out? Is it to be engaged in politics? Is it religion, whatever your Y is really, really give some thought to what your why. And then give some thought to how can you integrate that why? With for example, lawyers what we do for living with practicing law? How does your y intertwine with practicing law? Then start sharing on a daily and consistent basis something about your Y and link it back to the practice of law. Okay, that’s the secret to engaging others on social media. So for example, you guys follow me? How many of you follow me on social media on one platform or another? Just raise your hand? And by the way, how many of you? How many of you have one of these? with you right now? Raise your hand. Look around the room. Every guys keep your hands up for a second look around the room. Okay, everything we’re talking about, everything I’m talking about right now has to be mobile responsive, your post social media, blog posts on Instagram, everything needs to be able to be digested on a mobile device. More people around the world have access to one of these with an internet connection than they do drinking water toothbrushes, and working toilets. Okay, everything we’re talking about the next two days, think to yourself, will this work on a mobile device? Okay, so you can build a website. But if your website is not mobile responsive, I think you’re wasting your time. Okay, if you’re sharing a blog post and sharing videos, and creating content, you want to make sure that content displays properly on a mobile device, it’s critically important. If you’re not creating an exemplary client experience, you’re going to tap and swipe and go someplace else. Okay, so just kind of keep that in mind as we talk about some of the techniques with respect to using social media to bring new clients in. So if you follow me on social, what works really, really well, is if I’m down at strands Beach, doing a walk, doing a run flying my drone in the morning, baseball cap on haven’t shaved, and a breaking news story comes across my phone. Okay, maybe it’s something to do with politics, maybe it’s something to do with
Mitch Jackson
a sports team, I’m looking at maybe somebody signed a big contract, whatever it might be, what I’ll immediately do is I’ll stop, I’ll go live on Twitter live, also known as Periscope, maybe Facebook Live. And I’ll immediately share in a 32nd, to two to three minute blurb my thoughts as a lawyer on that breaking news story. Okay, I don’t care how I look, I don’t care how sweaty I am, it just doesn’t matter. What then happens is people that are following me that have a shared interest in my why, because if you have the same why you build relationships, you start to bond with other people, they take that content, and they share it out with their followers, they share it out with their audience. And as lawyers, what happens is you start developing the perceived expertise as a lawyer in that social media community, when these issues pop up when things happen. And when I get back to the office, I’ll then do a blog post, or by then reporters will reach out and I’ll do an interview on the topic that I first touched upon at the beach an hour and a half earlier. Okay. And what I’m talking about is a concept called newsjacking. And that’s what were you talking about Tony Robbins and it’s probably the most powerful social media brand building tool I’ve ever come across in my life. So if you’re not newsjacking spend some time getting up to speed on reading David Meerman Scott’s books on newsjacking. Connect with us in my legal minds mastermind, because we talk about it all the time. And it’s just a really, really powerful tool. So what is news jacking newsjacking is when this breaking news happens, and it happens every single day. It’s not a matter of finding content to news, Jack, it’s a matter of having the time to news Jack. Okay, I could be newsjacking every hour of the day. If I have time, and I don’t I’m still a full time trial lawyer. But when breaking news happens, news jacking is about sharing your thoughts, your comments, your opinions on breaking news, while it’s happening as quickly as you can, and interjecting your personal take thoughts perspective, your unique position on that breaking news. That’s what newsjacking is. To give you an example. And there’s some do’s and don’ts with newsjacking. To give you an example. I recently news Jack when Manafort was indicted, okay, I knew stacked a very generic story, something like what to do when your clients been indicted? Okay. didn’t offer any views politically one way or the other. But if you’re a criminal defense attorney with everything that’s happening in the news today, people are interested in what’s happening. What does an indictment mean? What does a subpoena mean? When somebody’s records are subpoenaed, for example, and you can immediately comment on what that means. What you would do for your clients if they were indicted. What are three things that anyone needs to do if you’ve been indicted? And that’s what people are interested in? When you’re writing content about this stuff. And you’re sharing it on Twitter, you’re sharing it on Facebook, you’re sharing it on LinkedIn, you’re sharing it on all the different platforms. What happens is, Google picks it up. What happens is people are on those platforms, when they’re looking for information. You’re typing in keywords in your post, your live streams, your your social media images, your graphics are popping up in response to those searches. Okay, and that’s the first step of a relationship. Some of the news jacking efforts that I’ve made that were very successful for me over the years, one included the whole Bill Cosby, drugs and a drink case. And I was actually doing something when that went down, and I looked at my phone, and I follow the breaking news stories on Google News. That’s where I get a lot of my news. And I also set up lists and Twitter, with different news agencies. And I’ll follow these lists and check out the breaking news. And I immediately stopped what I was doing. And I shared I think I jumped on Periscope, how many of you are using Periscope? The live video through Okay, a couple of legal minds members jumped on Periscope, which is a live video, it’s free, you press a couple of buttons and you’re broadcasting live to the world. It’s awesome. I jumped on Periscope and talked about as a as a father of a daughter that was just getting ready or or her first year at UCLA going off to college. This is one of my biggest fears. Is my daughter at a sorority and fraternity party being handed a drink. And in California, if if you place a medication or a drug if someone’s drink, what are the ramifications from a criminal standpoint? What are the ramifications from the civil civil standpoint, you know, and I shared my thoughts just off the cuff while I was live streaming. And then when I got back to the office, I did a more detailed blog post. And what then happened is as you do these things, you start building relationships with reporters, they reach out to you and they want to interview, they want you to follow up with email queue q&a, they want you to fly someplace and do an interview. And you have to kind of pick and choose which which interviews you give. The point being is it allows you to give commentary, and to build your brand as an expert as a lawyer. When about a year ago, year and a half ago, a new law came down in California, on online, what to call not sexting but sextortion were couples were posting videos, private videos of their other friend or couple after a breakup and blackmailing each other and threatening each other and harassing each other with place with posting these inappropriate photos and videos. And the law that came down in California really had some big loopholes in it, I don’t think it’s that great of a law. So when this law came down, I did a blog post about it. And it’s a very positive blog post, just talking about some of the things we probably can have to continue to modify a little bit to make this law more effective to protect victims. So it was a generic blog post took me about 15 minutes to write didn’t put a lot of thought into it. But I just wanted to get it out there a year later, when they Rob Kardashian. Blac Chyna case came down where I think Rob was accused of posting inappropriate photographs on Instagram, USA Today did a search for California lawyers who might be able to comment on that breaking news story. And guess whose law firm they call. And as a result of that, and some people in here saw the article because you guys brought it to my attention. I didn’t see it right away. You know, there was a big article in USA today talking about that case, and then referring to our law firm, with our law firms website address about the pros and cons and the legal ramifications of what Rob may be exposing him to if he if he did, in fact do the things that they thought that he did really powerful tools that allow you to get into a larger audience than what you might otherwise be able to do. As a local attorney. Why is that important is important because of referrals, you need to start thinking on social media, you’re not just getting referrals from across the street anymore. It’s just as easy for a lawyer in New York, to refer a case to my California law firm, as it is someone across the street. It’s usually just an email, it’s usually just a text. So by by building your brand on the social media platforms. The reason I’m all in on this is because it’s increased my referral base. We’re now getting referrals from all over the world. With respect to California cases, somebody that was traveling in California, someone that was vacationing in California, someone that setting up the business in California, whatever the case might be. That’s why I’m newsjacking. And I’m so active on social media, that’s been the biggest benefit for us. And it will be for you to now nine out of 10 calls that we get nine out of 10 new case inquiries that come in because of newsjacking are cases that we don’t handle. We don’t do family law, we don’t do criminal defense, we don’t do bankruptcy, we’re a catastrophic injury and wrongful death burn. But I’ve got a referral network set up pursuant to California State Bar rules, so that when I refer a case out in California, they encourage attorney to Attorney referral fees. Okay. So it’s it’s created this sub business that we’ve got set up where we’re able to refer the incoming client to a lawyer who we know like and trust, who’s one of the best in the business in what he or she does in California. We’re able to make that connection and then when it’s all said and done if that attorney is successful or there’s usually a referral fee built into it. So it’s a very interesting business model that came out of increasing the number of incoming inquiries, because of our social media presence, and because of our newsjacking efforts. That’s why it’s so important to be organized and ready to handle the storm coming business.
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Mitch Jackson
Let’s talk about platforms just for a second. And let me give you guys a link. Because in my legal minds mastermind, and Jim and Tyson said it was okay for me to mention this and Jim did our mastermind. It’s legal minds with an S dot lawyer. So if you guys are interested, check it out. And we talk about all these things in more detail. But what I set up today is legal minds dot lawyer slash Max ma X short for our conference. And if you go to that link, you’re going to find a couple of reports. And these reports will show you how to set up every single social media platform that we recommend that you use. It’s my secret sauce is exactly what I do on social media each and every day. And it’s right there for you. Okay, I look at social media plan. And so I’m not going to tell you how to set up Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, you can Google that or you can just go to the link I just shared and set it up the way it’s supposed to be set up, especially for a lawyer. But I look at these platforms as welcome. That’s to my law firm. They’re welcome maps to my life. Okay, it allows you to connect with consumers. A lot of consumers are very, very intimidated about talking to a lawyer. You know, I remember the first time I walked into my dad’s lawyer’s office, after my grandfather passed away, and it had to do with a probate matter. I was nervous when I walked in, just to talk to my dad’s lawyer. And I remember my my voice was shaking. I was you know, it just was very uncomfortable. It’s a 15 minute meeting. But I still remember that and I remember that. It reminds me that people are intimidated to reach out and contact you guys. Okay, even though we don’t bark, even though we don’t bite you even though we’re not like what you might see on TV. They’re intimidated. So by creating these welcome mats on the different platforms, you start showing your human side, you start sharing videos and pictures from the soccer sidelines. Those of you that follow me, you’ve just watched my son’s high school varsity track season, triple jump efforts for his final year in high school. I mean, the family stuff is what connects us as lawyers. Okay. And frankly, with a lot of friends of mine in the room, that’s what I like looking at on your feeds. I love I love looking at Moe and and he’s working out he’s got pictures with his with his son, Wyatt, I just love looking at those pictures and watching what he’s doing because I was there a few years ago. Now my kids are older. You know, I love seeing Bernards shots where he’s out hiking, and he’s out talking Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, football and all these other fun things, but it connects us as human beings. I’m not that interested in reading court cases and filings and things like that. And if I’m not interested in it, consumers not interested in. Okay, so think of these platforms as welcome at and share content of all the exciting things that you’re doing. So once again, let’s go back to what is your y so my Y is I grew up on a guest ranch in Tucson, Arizona, kind of a blue collar upbringing, and neither one of my parents graduated from college. My dad actually played quarterback at Ohio State his freshman year until he was asked to leave the school. It had to do with Attorney anything. I don’t know what it was. And so I was kind of the first guy that got pushed out the door to go to college. But the point is what I noticed my mom and dad doing at this guest ranch. It’s a ranch where people would come and stay and play cowboy for a week. Yes, like Walt Disney, John Wayne. Morley Safer from CES 60 minutes, whose blood I kicked on the tennis court. And I watched my mom and dad interact with these people. And even though my mom and dad didn’t have a college education, I watched them just be very human with these individuals. And then we had a bar and a restaurant. They sit there at night and six o’clock was cocktail hour. And I just watched my parents talk to these people and develop real relationships such that they would come back year after year after year. And while other guests would want to talk to The celebrities about the show they saw him on last week. Or maybe the movie that John Wayne did whatever it might be. That’s not what my parents talked to them about. They talked to them about their families. And usually people were coming to the ranch for a reason. They just needed to decompress and chill out. And my mom was really good about you like some of the things Jim talked about starting our conference off, everybody’s got problems, everybody’s stressed, everybody’s got issues. And my mom was really good about giving them a shoulder to lean on, especially after a drink or two. And so it’s just interesting watching them grow up. So coming into the practice of law, I kind of did things the same way that everyone else in town did for the first 10 or 12 years, Yellow Page ads back in the day, this is before the internet, going to all the Bar Association meetings, doing all the traditional stuff, but what I noticed is I felt like I was running up against a brick wall, because all the established firms, you know, had the ends with the judges and the defense attorneys and the referral sources. And it was hard for a new guy to break in, no matter how nice this new guy was, it was hard for me to break into that into that circle of trust, right, that Focker circle of trust. And and I realized, okay, this is interesting, because unless you’re like really spending a lot of money with television marketing, radio ads, and things like that, which I’ve never been comfortable doing. That’s just not really my style. You know, I figured, because I wasn’t around a lot of other lawyers growing up, I took a step back. And I thought, How would my mom and dad handle this situation? How do they build a law practice in Orange County, California, which literally, I think is like the third largest bar in the country, if I’m not mistaken, it’s big. And I started doing things like, what I thought my mom and dad would would suggest that I do if they were still alive. And what I noticed is that as soon as I started doing things differently than everyone else in town, that’s when I started getting noticed, that’s when I started getting referrals from different judges in town, because I was stupid enough to try a case that other lawyers might settle. You know, and I just whenever I want to be a trial lawyer, you got to start trying cases. And so I started trying these cases that the lawyers were telling me to settle. And for whatever reason, I was getting really good verdicts for my clients, and started getting noticed, you know, but I gotta tell you guys something, trying that first case where there’s a nice seven figure offer on the table, and you’re telling them to go stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, and I’ll see you in court. You know, that’s, that’s it’s an uncomfortable situation, because there’s a lot riding on that. And but once you know that, you’re right, you follow your heart, my why, let’s get back to the lie. And that’s what I’m getting at with the ranch story is my why was I became a lawyer because I wanted to take on the bullies in the world. I’ve always been that guy, okay. In sports in high school, junior high school, I always tried to stand up for for people that couldn’t stand up for themselves. That’s just who I am. So when my folks raised me, I saw that by being a lawyer, we have the power to do that. So my why every morning is getting up and helping people that for whatever reason, they don’t have the skill, the money, the ability to protect themselves against big corporations against bad people doing bad things, putting, you know, profits over people. That’s my why that’s one of my primary business whys of why I get out of bed each morning. Well, let me share something with you guys. I’ve been practicing for 32 years. Okay, I’m more excited today to get up and go to work than I’ve ever been in my life. How many lawyers do you guys know that have been practicing for 32 years that are still excited about practicing law? I mean, that tells me I’m doing something right. Okay. And, and it’s not all unicorns and rainbows. Okay, Lisa, and I, you know, we’re, you know, we’re busy. There’s a lot going on. But when it’s all said and done, we enjoy what we’re doing. And a lot of that has to do with implementing social media and digital into what we’re doing because it allows us to amplify our y. So my business y is helping people. And so when someone asked us what type of law do you practice, when we help people, I help people that were harmed by the wrongdoing of others. I help people that were, who have family members that were killed because of distracted drivers. That’s what we do. And so those that theme is what’s presented in our business postings on all the platforms, my other why’s that I focus on and once again, you guys pick three or four wise and start sharing content about these wise on a daily basis. I’m a fourth generation Rotarian. Rotary is community service, not political. It’s not religious. It’s all about helping your community. And my great grandfather was returning my grandfather’s Rotarian, and my wife and I are Rotarians. And our kids are both active and Rotary. So what we also do is during all of our rotary events, we share pictures, videos, stories about what rotary is doing. Oftentimes, if our law firm is supporting a rotary event, we’ll talk about that need to leave the office early this afternoon. We’re heading down to a rotary event that our firm is on Under to support, by the way, Lisa and I have been are both past presidents of our rotary club. So you can incorporate this into your post. It has so many positives to it, you’re bringing in new rotary members because other people want to get involved in Rotary, you’re showing your clients and your prospective clients and your prospective referral sources, that you’re more than just an attorney. You’re active in the community trying to do the right thing. And so rotary is one of my why’s community service for me is one of my why’s when my kids when my son like John son right here, he’s a little bit older than my son. But my kids were very active in youth sports. And I was coaching them every day, despite they’re rolling their eyes and say, Dad, please don’t post any more pictures of me scoring soccer goals. It’s not about them. It’s all about me. So I post I post I post pictures let you know what I’m talking about. So I post pictures like that. And I talked about our soccer game and our big loss. But I knew there were other soccer dads and moms out there that would relate to what I was going through true story. And I actually just thought of this. I’ve always had a newsletter. And from day 119 86, the first client I ever settled a case for was the first client I put on my newsletter, okay, hadn’t heard from that client. For 18 years, we still have the same database. We tried to keep it updated. About 18 818 years later, I get a message from him. Mitch, I just saw the picture you posted of your daughter running cross country at Dana Hills High School, I used to run cross country when I was in high school, I had no idea you were a cross country family. And if you’re a cross country family, it’s tight. Because you spent a lot of time driving all over Southern California, early in the morning competing in meets, my son was just in a serious automobile accident case. Can I have him call you and can you help him. So it was that running connection, not the legal connection that prompted him after 18 years of being on our newsletter, to pick up the phone and call me about the case. That type of stuff just reinforces in me how important it is to share your why on social media on all the platforms. Because you don’t want to assume that your audiences on Twitter, when your audience may actually be on one of your Facebook pages, just because he likes LinkedIn doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on Instagram. Most of you are probably not on Snapchat. But if you’re looking for millennial clients, okay, clients that want to start businesses, digital app companies think like this, you probably want to have some type of presence on Snapchat and on Instagram, that’s that’s where the millennials are. So don’t limit yourself by your own beliefs as to where you should be building out your brand on the social media platform, just because other lawyers in town are afraid to talk about their personal lives. They’re apprehensive about showing their human side on the digital platforms. Just because they’re not doing it doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of that. And embrace that and do it for you and for your firm. And to get your team members in your firm using all of the tools that we talked to that Chelsea talked about earlier, using those tools to help amplify your social media efforts. A couple of other things just real quick, keep in mind on social what works very, very well are unpolished, spur the moment videos, okay, just pull your phone out, as you’re walking into the courthouse to, let’s just say attend a pre trial settlement conference. As you’re walking in, pull your phone out like this, hit the record button, it doesn’t need to be live to the world, you’re just recording it, shoot a video, I’m walking into court, I’m doing a pre trial conference, to have the courthouse behind you while you’re walking and share for 30 to 45 seconds what’s going on, put your phone away. And when you get back to the office, share that video and you can edit it on your phone, just just cut off the first five seconds and the last five seconds when you’re starting and finishing. And share that short video along with maybe a little blurb that you that you can share pursuant to State Bar rules on your Facebook page, change a little bit, share it on Twitter, change it a little bit, share it on LinkedIn. Each of these platforms have their own personality. But share that or email the video to someone in your office that knows how to do this and have them help share this content on social media. That’s how you get the stuff out here quickly, effectively, and in a way where allows you to build your brand. Now what I want to do is I’ve got about five minutes left. I want to open this up for questions. And if you guys have any specific questions, let’s talk about it. If we can’t get to all of your questions, I’m around all day today. I’m around most of the day tomorrow. Just grab me and let’s chat more who has questions? Yes, sir. So the noise is the content you just described in my world. Okay, those professionally polished I get the idea of having a really cool video you guys and we all have those. I’m just telling you the videos that are working. The posts that are working for us today are short, concise, to the point Wait, audios written short videos, that’s what’s on breaking news stories on something that’s relevant to today. That’s what’s working really, really well. So I think noise is noise, whether it’s a polished video, or what I’ve just described, okay, at one time, just creating content, like my old blog post about policeman misconduct cases, just being that lawyer creating content was what it took to be successful. That’s not the case anymore. Everyone’s creating great content, okay, creating content and sharing it in the right context, used to then put you above the noise. But the reality is a lot of people are sharing great content and sharing it in the right context. I think what works really well today, especially for lawyers and other professionals, is sharing content in the right context, showing your personality actually being entertaining. Okay, not sitting behind a desk with your hands folded, but using your hands when you’re talking, maybe walking down the hallway of your office, while you’re sharing your message, you’ve got to entertain, you’ve got to engage. And then once you share this content, you’ve got to go back and comment and remark and engage your audience and listen 70% of the time, and offer thoughts and advice and not 20 to 30% of the time. That’s key to lawyers, me included, it’s hard to get us to shut up. We all have opinions, just like belly buttons, right? And lawyers on social media seem to feel the need to share their opinions about everything. Listen to your audience. Listen to what problems other people are having, and then click in and offer a solution through a short post do a short podcast through a short remark or comment in a blog post. That’s what works really well. Yes, sir. Each platform has a unique personality. So you want to understand and listen and get a feel for that personality, and then post appropriately. So it does take work. Okay. But that’s that’s my secret pill. I mean, when I try case, and I’ll get it I had someone I posted about this attorney came up. This is a year or two ago, you know, how did you How did you know how to say that during your closing argument? You know, where’s the app for that? And I told him, I said, at that time, I was like 26 years of trying cases. I just I just knew what buttons to push to make it happen, right? Same thing with social, social, like anything else takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. But look, you guys I’ve been doing this for 32 years, I’ve never seen anything that’s allowed me to take my Southern California brand in office, and really expanded globally, and build a global brand. I tell everyone in my legal minds mastermind. We’re taking her local brands and expanding them to global brands. So it takes work. It takes effort, but the rate of return the return on investment. It’s fantastic. It’s awesome. Yes, sir. Well, the reason you don’t want to do that is each platform has its unique personality. So you don’t want to be that that person, basically. And I don’t want to use the word spam, but I’m going to you don’t want to spam all the platforms, we use a service called de la vie live.tv, and allows us to do a live television show, Joey and I have a weekly live video show where we talk about breaking news stories on D live.tv. And then that push it pushes to our Facebook page. Okay, that’s a great service. As far as sharing content, we use Buffer buffer allows us to easily share our content and other people’s content and set it up, set it and forget it. So right now my buffers been sharing out every 45 minutes or hour and 15 minutes on many of the different platforms. While I’ve been here in St. Louis, and my office is back in Orange County, California. Social jukebox is another way to set up a post and have that posts sent out every 60 days, every 90 days, you got to be careful with doing that you don’t want to do it too often. Some platforms don’t like duplicate post. But what I found is if I’ve got a blog post that’s got long term play, it’s a very generic type of blog post six ways to find a good lawyer in your town, for example, I’ll share that out through social jukebox automatically, I think every 90 days, and it gets shared to Twitter and Facebook and I think LinkedIn if I’m not mistaken. So those are good productivity tools. Yes, sir. Well, if you’re if you’re focusing on one platform, let’s just pick Twitter, but your audiences on Facebook, you’re kind of focusing on the wrong thing. And oftentimes you don’t know where your audience is, until you’re there until you make an effort. Okay. And so let me just wrap things up. Look, here’s the thing, everything I just talked about everything we do at legal minds dot lawyer, my mastermind, I’d love to have you guys join us. And for anyone joining us, I’m going to throw in a complimentary additional hour of one on one consultation with me which I normally don’t offer just for the mastermind. You won’t hear from me until Monday but if you guys are interested, go to legal legal minds dot lawyer sign up for one of the plans and I’ll make that happen. But look, here’s the deal. You’ve got to start lawyers are really good at starting. And then you have to execute. You’ve got to take consistent action and once again, we talked about that this morning. You’ve got Have to do social media on a consistent basis is like a relationship. Okay? If you really want to make this stuff work, you’re the one that’s going to have to do it. You’re the one that’s going to have to engage with your audience on social media, it’s really hard to delegate that to somebody else in the law firm, and it can be done, but they need to be on board with everything we talked about. Otherwise, it’s going to backfire. So I’m super excited about this stuff you guys. Keep in mind, it’s all about sharing your why on social media. It’s all about taking constant, consistent and daily action. It’s about listening and engaging. And when it’s all said and done is always about creating an exemplary client experience or prospective client experience when it comes to everything we do as lawyers. If you do that, you’ll be separating yourself from everyone else in town. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.
