Tackling Facebook Lives can be quite the feat, knowing this Amanda enlists some help from a professional.
Social Media Networks have proven themselves to be a great tool for budding and established law firms. However, gaining followers that turn into clients is the overall key. A good way to spice up your social media page and to show your knowledge to potential clients is by going live on important topics. However, going live is far more complex than simply hitting the record button and talking to a screen.
In this week’s #FollowAttorneyAmanda, Amanda talks to Stephanie Baiocchi, from Impact on how she should handle going live on her law firm’s Facebook page.
Take a look at the video below and gain some insight for your own practice!
Video Transcript
Amanda Shaffer: Hi, I am Attorney Amanda Shaffer. Welcome to #FollowAttorneyAmanda, where you follow me on my journey to get more likes on social media and ultimately more business. Today, we have our first guest of the series and I forgot – the one thing I forgot to ask you before we start recording is how to pronounce your last name.
Stephanie Baiocchi: That is fine. Everyone always asks and then butchers it anyway. So hi, I’m Stephanie Baiocchi. I’m a Director of Membership and Events at Impact, but I have been doing marketing and social media and events for over a decade now.
Amanda Shaffer: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today. The reason this all came about is I was watching one of the episodes that we had of #FollowAttorneyAmanda and I talk about in that episode, how I had these analytics that I’m looking at every time I post something and I don’t know what any of this means and I know this is like the fifth episode where I’m saying, oh, circle back. I’ll circle back. I do all the mar- I don’t know Stephanie, how familiar you are with my law firm and what we do with our marketing, but I pretty much made 95% or 96% of the content myself, post it all myself. So I’ve learned everything to do myself. It’s a lot to do. Of course, I’m sure you know. So I was saying this, and then I had an idea, like, why don’t I get connected to somebody who is an expert in the industry that could say, “Hey, this is what you’re doing. That’s right. This is what you’re doing that’s wrong”, hopefully, more right than wrong and maybe help me make sense of some of the numbers. I guess that’s if these numbers are even important. So your company worked with Law Firm Suites, I believe on their marketing.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Yes, we had.
Amanda Shaffer: And Steve Furnari reached out to you guys to see if somebody would be willing to talk to me and you agreed graciously and on that note, I pull things from my guests since I’ve had so many. This book, I’ve been reading actually, as well, is from Stephanie’s company. And we’re going to talk a lot about this today. It says, “They Ask, You Answer” is the name of the book.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Yes. It’s by Marcus Sheridan, who’s a good friend of mine, but also someone I’ve followed for essentially my entire career. Impact, our company existed before Marcus and before I worked there and we all kind of came together around the same time. I joined the company right, as he was joining and merging his company with ours. Long story short, “They Ask You Answer” just works so well. It’s a philosophy that I believe in, and I have implemented at my past companies, and Bob, our CEO, and founder of Impact saw that and said, I want to take this further and make it more well-known and used by more people because it’s what works. And here we are.
Amanda Shaffer: Here we are. So I think the plan for today is we’re going to look at some of our – we’ll go to our website and our social media stuff, see – get your opinion on some of the stuff and there were some very interesting things in the book when I’m reading that I wanted to talk to you about too because these are – it’s very common sense, very logical and I think you’ll see that I’ve attempted to do some of the things the book talks about. So maybe we can help me improve on those things, or maybe I’m doing better than I thought or worse than I thought. Obviously, whatever feedback you have for me is much better than I had this morning. So, I would love to hear what somebody like you would have to say about these things because I’ve literally never really had this done.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Yes. So I definitely want to take a look at social and I think – so I haven’t looked at any of your social accounts yet. I think it’s going to be the most fun to just kind of go through it, see what’s there and give my feedback as I see it at the moment. I also – do social media. I haven’t been managing social pages that much right now, aside from a board that I’m a member of that I volunteer to do their social. And so, it’s interesting because I was thinking this morning like, “Oh, I should go make sure I know” – there’s my dog saying hello – “I should go make sure that I know the best place to find this or that analytics.” And then I thought, “I’m not going to do that” because things in social media changed so often that even if you think where something is, you could log in the next day and it’s in a different place. It’s constantly – constantly changing. So we’ll just see if we can find what we need. That’s half the fun of social media and it’s insanity.
Amanda Shaffer: Yes. We had a virtual meeting last week and I quickly saw that a lot of the questions I had were – I was looking at the wrong things or not in the right way. So that’s why I figured from going from a more structured things so let’s just see. I always love learning new things and I’ve been – I’ve spent a long time doing a lot of research to get everything up and running, and I’ve been doing this for a while, but we kind of went up a little, and then you kind of level off and then maybe up a little and level off. So I’ve never had the full momentum behind it, but we’ve only gone up, which is good.
Stephanie Baiocchi: That is good. So we’ll take a look at it. We’ll take a look at the language that’s being used; what tools are being used. We’ll talk about posting on multiple channels, certain dates and times. But when we chatted originally just to meet and discuss this episode, it’d be like, that’s how “They Ask, You Answer” came into our conversation, is the first thing I always tell people on social media or even ask them is, okay, you want to know what contents working, if what you’re doing is right, what is your content strategy? How are you coming up with the content that you’re posting on social media? Because unlike what individuals following each other on social media is like, which is very, very different, like how I follow my mother-in-law is very different than how you’re going to follow a brand or a business and then interact with them.
It’s not just enough to do the things we can go off the top of our heads. It is better than nothing in a lot of cases, because I always tell people step one is checking your content. Step two is making sure that your page looks like a real business and that you’re alive and that you haven’t closed your doors five years ago. And so if your last post is from 2013, that’s obviously wrong too. So having posts is a good start, but having a strategy to make sure that those posts and that content is resonating with the right people, it’s using language that is appealing to them and that is interesting – it’s something that they would associate themselves with and see themselves in that language; that you’re answering the questions they have, that is the most important. And that is essentially what the concept of “They Ask, You Answer” is all about. It’s these 10 core – it’s actually 10 core concepts. But they do drive a content strategy that lends itself to posting the right things on social media.
So that is how we got to talking about it and I think if anyone is interested in learning about, “They Ask, You Answer” and the philosophy and the concepts, you can certainly read the book. It’s a great thing to do, but – and there is an audio book – but if you’re not a reader or you want a more interactive way to learn about it, I actually sent Amanda a link this morning, we have something called Impact Plus, which is our online learning community. You can create a free account and there’s essentially a video version. So you can watch a course on what “They Ask, You Answer” is in these short little videos, you can easily knock it out in – I don’t know how long the actual course is – honestly like an hour and a half. It’s not very long. And you’ll already be well on your way to what this content strategy would look like.
So we talked a little bit about that. One of the biggest things with “They Ask, You Answer” one of the most important core concepts is this thing called the big five. And it’s what we have seen and has been proven time and time again, to be the five things that – the five questions that people ask when they’re looking to make a purchase or a business decision. And so there’s all this fluffy content that we can create on social media. It could be contests. It could be day of the week themed things, like workout Wednesday or whatever, but if you’re not answering these actual five – top five questions that people are looking for, they’re not going to search through your social media and hope that they find that really great thing you posted a month ago to finally answer their question. They’re going to Google it and they’re going to find it somewhere else. And so these five things are the most important. I know Amanda, you’ve already created content for one of them, for sure, which is reviews, and product or service reviews are such a big part of this content strategy. It’s so important. So I’m looking forward to seeing that that’s essentially the gist of “They Ask, You Answer” all you need to know to get started with what we’re going to look at today. So how about we pull up some social accounts.
Amanda Shaffer: And just for anyone who was watching, I know where this blog is marketed, it is for single attorneys, smaller firms because we’re the ones who can afford the big ad agencies. And so one of the things like my journey to more likes, in general, is figuring out a way to do it, where I can do it myself or I can at least – I can sustain doing it for a while. And just, I think being a little more efficient would be incredibly helpful for me just because I [cross talk] full time and I don’t think I’m very far off and there’s – I know a lot of other of my colleagues are in a similar place, but it’s kind of like taking that next step. So hopefully we get some insight on that. So thank you again for agreeing to do this with me today, for sure. What site do you want to start on?
Stephanie Baiocchi: That is a great question. What site do you feel like is maybe working best for you right now?
Amanda Shaffer: I would say probably Facebook.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Alright let’s take a look at Facebook
Amanda Shaffer: So one of the big topics that you talk about with a lot of my colleagues is Live videos versus not. What advice do you have on–?
Stephanie Baiocchi: Yes, so my take on Live, especially on social, there’s a couple of things. If you are going to go Live and I think Live video can be really, really great. If you’re going to go Live, there needs to be a reason either you are backstage about to go on stage, you’re at a conference back when that was a thing or you’re about to maybe interview me and you want to go Live and just give a quick hello before we start our interview or something. Those are really fun to do Live, especially if it’s at a time where you know people in your industry are at their computers. You can even send a personalized invite email to a couple people and say, “Hey, I’m about to go Live, I’d really love if you could just hop on and watch.” And then you can – if you’re going to take questions Live, that is a great, great reason to go Live. If you’re just going to record a video that you plan on posting later, but you’re going to do it Live, don’t do that. That defeats the purpose of being Live. You need to either engage your audience or be somewhere that you’re only going to be able to capture that if you go Live right now, otherwise the moments passed. Otherwise, it’s not really worth doing the Live video.
Amanda Shaffer: Well then, like I said, I’ve done non-Live videos and now pretty much I only do Live. I do a couple of different types. So we do one type of Live where it’s question and answer session.
Stephanie Baiocchi: That’s great.
Amanda Shaffer: Those are a little harder to prepare for it. I do advertising and events, which is another question I had. If you’re doing a Live event, does it depend on – is there an easy answer, like generally advertising a week before is going to like boost your numbers or it might or might not, like there’s no clarification.
Stephanie Baiocchi: And when you say advertising, are you saying like an actual paid ad on social media?
Amanda Shaffer: I’m talking about – yes, I guess it was like, I would create the event a week before, probably pay 30 bucks or something to boost it, to get it hopefully in front of more eyes. I don’t know. I’ve noticed whenever I’m talking in these videos, I’m always saying I have more anecdotal evidence. I’m not comparing my memory of things. But when I look at the numbers for my shows, I have certain shows where I’ve really advertised before and some were just gone Live and I never see significantly more advertisements.
Stephanie Baiocchi: The thing with ads, especially on social media, sometimes they take a bit to get traction. And so I don’t know if a week is even enough time. I think you might actually need more time. You will see a spike in interest right before something happens. That’s just always the case. People pay attention more right before something’s going to happen, versus like, oh, it’s three weeks from now, I don’t need to pay attention yet. But at the same time, you need to get that repetition and getting things in front of people’s eyes more than once to really typically gain traction with event interest. Now I’m not an ad specialist. Social ads are completely different than organics. I don’t really deal with paid ads much. Our company, Swell does that, and they do an amazing job. Maybe you could have someone from there on a future episode too.
But when you’re going Live with something, I would say the best way to get people to attend something Live is either schedule it far in advance; take the time to promote it, ask people to share it. That’s a big way to get people interested, or consistently go Live in the same date and time and have it be something that people look forward to. So if you are always going to go Live on – today’s Monday, so like Monday at 1:30, and then people start to know, “Oh, at my lunch, I could go watch Amanda’s Live video. I could learn this week’s marketing tip and get something out of my lunch hour. Maybe ask a question.” So having something, we call it like a tradition and having something consistent like that is another good way to get people to attend the Live.
Otherwise, beyond the tradition and taking questions Live, again, if you are not doing something to make it engaging or getting people to attend, even like I said, sending a few of those personal invites, it’s probably going to fall on deaf ears. At this point, there’s so much content created on social media, especially Facebook, is just never seen by anyone. And it’s so sad, but what you can do is create valuable resources you can link back to later; you can pin at the top of your page. Even so much as like, if someone emails you an inquiry and they have a question, you could say, “Oh, actually I answered this on a Live video. I did last week. Here’s the link to go watch it.” There’s no reason that you should have to re-answer that same question in a meeting or in an email when you’ve already done a great job of answering it in a video. Or they ask you to answer.
Amanda Shaffer: That’s true. There aren’t too many questions these days I haven’t answered before. The question is where did I answer it?
Stephanie Baiocchi: Yes, exactly. And you know, that sometimes that can help with your hashtags even; it’s getting – like, it could be Shapiro FAQ or something, and you can know that’s the hashtag you use when you’re answering these questions, you get asked all the time. And then if you click that hashtag or you direct someone to that hashtag – it’s almost like a video answered your FAQ’s, which is great.
Stephanie Baiocchi: So that being said, we are almost at the end of our time, I’m going to have to wrap up. And as you can see, we’ve only gotten through part of one social channel which shows like how much effort and energy and time goes into social media, which is crazy, especially for something that is sometimes only seen by a handful of people. It’s frustrating; it’s exhausting; I get it. That’s why I love asking if there’s so much as it’s the perfect – it is the concept of the perfect way to get more out of your content while it’s being seen by other people. And so I think everything you’ve created here is really great and I love the idea of having it on your website, using it in your emails. If someone contacts you to set up a meeting, maybe sending them something in advance, that it answers those common questions, it can absolutely live on social media and that’s great. And people can see it.
Amanda Shaffer: For sure. Well, yes, so thank you so much. I’ll put the link to the Impact classes – when Megan post this video, I’ll make sure she has that and a link to buy the book as well. So we’re all basis here. So yes, thank you again and check back a future episode of #FollowAttorneyAmanda, we’ll hopefully be talking to either Stephanie again or more experts to try to figure out what’s going on with all the social media and kind of judge how I’m doing. It sounds like, at least going in a direction forward, meaning I’m going forward, which makes me very happy. I can tell by the phone, not the phone ringing itself, that’s not a good gauge, the schedule filling up that we’ve had — Usually summers are slow time and it has not been slow. So that’s always good, but it helps to definitely hear some of these things from someone who knows what they’re talking about as opposed to me, who just makes it up as I go along.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Well, for making it up as you go along, I think you’re doing pretty well, I like the content and the posts and a few tweaks and I think you’ll be moving forward even faster.
Amanda Shaffer: Awesome. I’ll try to do that and see if we can fill people in next time on how some of those tweaks have helped or not helped us. But I have a good feeling.
Stephanie Baiocchi: Sounds good. I’ll talk to you soon.
Amanda Shaffer: Thank you so much. Have a good day.
