Facebook Live Best Practices for Lawyers

These days, video is everything and Facebook Live counts as video.  It may not be prerecorded, but it is a great way to reach your current social media followers as well as potential new clients; to get them to tune into what you’re saying.  As with all forms of content, remember that your Facebook Live should provide value to your followers in hopes that you’ll convert them to clients – a great tool for social media marketing for lawyers.
 
 
 

What is Facebook Live?

Facebook Live is a feature on the social network, Facebook, that allows users to record themselves live (aka real-time and not prerecorded).  It is a great way of boosting engagements and connecting directly with your audience, and beyond. According to HubSpot, as of 2018 there were over 78% of online audiences watching video on Facebook Live.

All you need is a camera and a Facebook profile or page.  While you can certainly outfit yourself with the latest green screen gear, a suspended microphone on a boom and a 4K camera mounted on a stand, you simply don’t need all of that to get started. Grab your smart phone and get started.

If you’re wanting to go live in an effort to boost your law firm’s brand awareness and maybe even generate a few leads, you’ll want to go live directly from your page and not your own personal profile.  In fact, always go live from your business page and NOT your personal profile. Did you know that you’re able to go live on Facebook connected through your Zoom?!  That’s right, Facebook live just made things a bit more user friendly.

Those watching your Facebook Live video will be able to like and comment on the feed, giving you direct access to them, in real time.  Law firms who choose to go Live often end up answering various questions posed by those watching the video.  They would simply post a question in the comments that you’re able to see and answer Live.

10 Facebook Live Hacks

As with everything, there are some best practices to going Live on Facebook.

• Always test out your live video before sharing your live feed with your followers. You’re able to do this by changing the video to “only me” in the privacy settings. If you are using zoom to control your live feed, there is a handy preview. You will want to follow their steps to getting your connect started (link).
• Space out your Facebook Live from other posts. Facebook typically shows traditional posts to about 1.6 – 2% of your followers, depending on the level of engagement.  With Facebook Live, however, Facebook will rank Live higher than traditional posts, giving you a wider organic reach to your feed.  Spacing out your content can help you achieve a higher level of organic reach. So don’t make a bunch of social media content posts immediately prior to your event that clutters your profile.
• Keep reintroducing yourself during the feed. When you turn on your Facebook Live feed it may take your followers a minute or so to tune in to your video.  This is why it’s important to every so often pause and reintroduce yourself.  A quick “For those just tuning in…” comment here and there during your video can really help out!
• Encourage viewers to Like and share the video. Going back to the engagement statistic, the more people who interact with your post (like, share, comment), the more people that will see your post (and hopefully engage).  You can get creative in how you ask your viewers to share your video.For instance:
  • “Thumbs up if you like X hockey team.” Or even “Share this with someone you think is strong and capable.” (ß or another descriptor for those that may fall in your target audience)
  • Have your feed posted in Facebook groups like garage sale, freecycle groups and more. Viewers of your feed can post the feed in their favorite Facebook groups. Encourage them to do so. Remember it’s about the size of the audience that matters.
• Engage with viewers who are commenting on your video and call them out by name. Pro Tip: use their first name only as people asking legal questions often don’t want to have their full name shared. Practice this from the beginning of your feed to encourage more engagement. Your audience will be thrilled to hear you mentioning their name, and even more delighted that you’re taking the time to address their questions or concerns, thus providing value to them.  Another plus to this is that Facebook’s algorithm will assign your video a higher relevancy scores the more comments your video has, meaning it will show up on more people’s News Feeds organically.
• Broadcast for at least 30 minutes. As soon as your Facebook Live starts recording, you’ll slowly start appearing in your follower’s News Feeds.  It may take them a few minutes to get their video fired up.  Going Live for at least 30 minutes (though you can stay live for up to 90 minutes) give everyone time to tune in and to have plenty of time to ask questions, leave comments and ultimately, engage with your video.
• Take a bow and thank your audience. Well, maybe not an actual bow, but you should sign off with a closing such as “Thanks for watching” or “I’ll be going live again soon.”  You could even make the call to action once more for both your business and for your viewers to like and share the video. Don’t be afraid to read your phone number, mention the names of staff who would take calls. We encourage you to have someone answering your phone after the live event to help people immediately and capture leads.
• Did you know your live video is actually still on your page when you finish? That’s right, just because you shut the camera off doesn’t mean the value to your broadcast stops. In fact, you can then run paid marketing back to this video. Using audiences, you select (geo, interests, likes and so on) you can directly market this video in the future. So, make sure your content is somewhat future proof so that you can maximize its benefit.
• Have someone moderate your event. Have a friend or family member on board to help you moderate, feed you questions, monitor comments and help you guide your message. Using Zoom, you can have an additional (as many as you would like) join your feed. When we moderate on behalf of clients we act as host by introducing the attorney, feed them the questions and generally running the event. This way all you have to do, is show up. If you would like to get an idea as to what that looks like, click here (link). Having someone moderate your event frees you up to focus on the content and legal advice you may be passing on to viewers.

Social Media Marketing for Lawyers

Understanding the complexities of social media marketing for lawyers may seem overwhelming at times.  Let the experts at Precision Legal Marketing help simplify your social media marketing.  Get in touch today to discuss your needs. There is a whole lot of technology to empower yourself with, and we would be happy to help guide you and your firm in the right direction.