Introduction
Ali Awad is considered by most to be the #1 social marketer in the legal world. In less than 6 years he has built a 50-person, $20 million law firm using social media as his primary marketing channel.
Ali not only has this incredible track record going for him; he is a master at explaining what has driven that success. He is articulate, generous with details, and backs his explanations with examples. We are fortunate to have someone so willing to share his learnings as one of the legal industry’s social media pioneers.
I interviewed Ali 3 times in 2022 for nearly an hour each time. He provided a wealth of practical information in every session. Reading the transcripts of those interviews would be a lengthy endeavor, so I have condensed his most valuable teachings into this quick-reading booklet.
I have highlighted Ali’s best suggestions for easy skim-reading. Also included are links to the interview recordings and the locations of each tip. When you come across a tip that is especially applicable, you can listen to Ali’s recommendation in his own words.
If Ali’s practical tips and phenomenal results inspire you to expand your firm’s social media marketing efforts but you are short of implementation time, we can take 95% of the work off your desk. Our social media marketing program is described here.
I hope you find this article and my weekly GrowWithKara interviews helpful.
Kara Prior, Founder
Getting Started
Tip #1: Brand your practice.
Kara: A strong brand has enduring value. It magnifies the impact of your other advertising, and keeps the leads flowing even when that promotion tails off. Best of all, branding generates leads who want to work with you, instead of the lawyer-shoppers that other digital advertising brings in.
Social media is ideal for building your brand, for unlike TV, radio, and billboards, social media costs little. I have interviewed several successful young attorneys whose only initial social media expense was freelance video editing.
Ideally you will select a brand name other than your own so that its value outlasts yours. Examples I’ve come across are: money lawyer, breakup lawyer, the magnifier, MVP accident attorneys, legal eagle, and Ali’s CEO Lawyer.
Ali (January 2022 interview):
[7:55] “If anyone is in a reactive practice like personal injury where there needs to be a precedent before they hire you, i.e., there is an accident, it is not their fault, they are actually injured, they want to see a doctor, they’re willing to hire an attorney, and hopefully there is insurance coverage available, that is a condition precedent to hiring you. The average American gets in one car accident every 17.9 years, so that is a very big, very long-term branding play. So for a reactive business you cannot just create one or two videos and expect clients.”
[8:44] “In a proactive business, if anyone is in the credit repair business, or you deal in expungements of criminal history, or you are in intellectual property where you advertise to specific businesses, you want to tell them I’ll do this trademark for you, I’ll do this copyright for you, you can get clients from just one exceptional video. They’re not focused on branding.”
[9:20] “The problem with that approach is that the moment you stop running that video as an ad, you stop spending money, the leads dry up. What we’re looking at here is building a brand. By the way, my Instagram got shut down last year for two weeks. You would think my business got decimated as a result, but no, people still Googled CEOlawyer, people still called 833-Ali-Awad because it is my name. Because I had built that brand over the years, the shutdown had zero effect on my business. You should be building a brand to protect yourself from always having to spend money.”
[10:18] “Your highest-profit margin and your best cases are going to come from the ones that people specifically seek you out for, based on your brand. That is why this conversation is so important.”
Tip #2: Make yourself the face of your firm.
Kara: You should be the subject of most of your social videos. Just as viewers expect Ali to appear regularly on @CEOLawyer, and me on @GrowWithKara, they will expect to see you on your social pages.
More importantly, viewers connect to people, not to corporations. People have personalities, interesting lives, families, hobbies, challenges at work, and successes worth celebrating. All of these are worth sharing with your followers.
And your firm’s spokesperson should be you, not a team member. Team members come and go, and you don’t want to someday lose the brand that you may have spent years building.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[41:15] “I haven’t seen a firm advertise and successfully build a brand on social media. Usually, the ones that are hiding behind a firm name don’t perform as well. I do think leadership should be involved. If you have partners and all of them are popular, then lean into that.”
[42:10] “I don’t think employees should be advertised. They could become your competition. Unless they are family and not going anywhere. The best example I can think of is Morgan & Morgan in Florida. He advertised Dan Newland for many years, and he made Dan the face of their billboards. They had a falling out and Dan opened his own firm. Now Dan has one of the top 5 personal injury firms in Florida. So now Morgan & Morgan doesn’t promote any of their other lawyers.”
Tip #3: Focus on one brand.
Kara: Ali made the common startup mistake of having one brand for his law firm and another for himself. In a personal service business like law, in the eyes of viewers, you are your law firm.
So create only one page on each social platform, and as recommended in Tip #2, make yourself the star of that page.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[46:55] “Having a law firm brand page on social media is a waste of time. It is better to put everything on your personal brand and run that business page as a professional account. Do you know who is following your law firm page? All of your competitors, to see what you are doing, and maybe some of your employees.”
[47:30] “Get everyone to one channel. The biggest mistake I see people make is they want to have 5 different brands. I just got rid of Ali Awad Law completely. After 5 years of using it, since that is the name of my practice, I just changed it to CEO Lawyer. CEO Lawyer is the brand, not Ali Awad Law. Scrap your law firm page; put everything into your personal brand.”
Tip #4: Share your journey.
Kara: The conversation Ali is referring to begins with using social media to let your followers into your life. You want them to get to know you – both you the lawyer and you the individual.
You the lawyer: What do you do when in the office? What are the high points of your week? What frustrations arise? What does your workspace look like? Who works nearby?
You the individual: What do you do on the weekends? Do you have a partner? Kids? Where do you go on vacation? Do you participate in any charities or community events?
Over time many of your followers will come to know and like you. That is the first step.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[3:40] “You are always allowed to share information. That’s the piece that so many lawyers miss. You need to give people information throughout your journey of growth. Whether you are a first-year law student, just graduated, or in your first year of practice, every one of those obstacles is an opportunity for you to market yourself and show the journey you are going through. You are building a following in that process.”
[4:55] “You are especially building a following of your friends and family. I’m always shocked by lawyers wanting to get new clients, new followers, and new attention to their page before they have captured existing friends and family. Start with the people you already know. You probably already have 500 or 1,000 friends on Facebook. If those people need a service you offer, and they don’t hire you, you have failed at marketing. Those people already know and like you, and it is your job to make them trust you by showing your credibility and qualifications as a lawyer.”
[5:40] “The fastest way to build a brand is to do it slowly. Consistently take time out of each day to show people what you have going on. Share your wins and your losses. People really like stepping in to give you constructive criticism and feedback, so give them the opportunity. Example: ‘I just opened my practice, what name and logo do you think I should use?’ ‘Hey, which photo should I use for my promotional brochure?’ ‘Man, today completes my first year in business and it’s been way more of a struggle than I thought. What do you recommend that I do more of to build my business?’
Tip #5: Don’t sell; teach.
Kara: After getting followers to know and like you, the next step is to get them to trust you. That is best accomplished by selflessly sharing helpful information and advice.
When you provide answers to common prospect and client questions, viewers learn that you know your specialty. When you explain how to overcome hurdles that frequently arise, viewers see that you have experience. And when you detail past cases, viewers learn that you have handled cases just like theirs.
Sharing what you know is the surest way to convey your expertise and build trust.
Ali (January 2022 interview):
[3:25] “Don’t focus on client acquisition. My sales and persuasion strategy is to educate you so much that you cannot imagine working with anyone else. I’ve already given you so much free legal advice, marketing tips, and business strategy, whatever you’re coming to me for, I’ve given you so much overwhelming value that you feel bad if you don’t hire me.”
[3:50] “You do that by educating people and getting the stuff that is already in your head onto video. The number one problem is not lawyers using the incorrect platform, improper aspect ratios, or not using catchy headers; it is overcoming the mental block of sharing content with people.”
[4:18] “All you have to do is think about the frequently asked questions – the information that your clients always ask you for – and put it on video. Just answer. Most of the time you will find that your answers come extemporaneously. You will be able to speak about these topics easily; you don’t have to practice. You know this stuff. You’ve lived it for years. Get out of that thinking that you have to create content. It is just documenting. In fact, while I am doing this Zoom I have my phone right here. I know that at some point I am going to say something usable.”
Tip #6: When getting started, don’t boost any videos.
Kara: When getting started, work on (a) getting comfortable in front of the camera, (b) selecting high-interest topics, (c) beginning with a strong hook, and (d) conveying valuable information concisely and energetically. More help with b, c, and d can be found further below.
Your initial goal should be to create popular videos. You need to grow your follower count, and the best way to obtain those followers is by posting videos daily, and having several of those videos obtain a high number of views.
Ali (January 2022 interview):
[25:25] “I recommend you spend the first 90 days creating content before you run any ads. The reason for that is your $500 you have to spend on ads cannot go very far if your content sucks. However, if it is viral content, something that got 5,000, 10,000, 100,000 views, and you put a little money behind it, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram will reward you by showing that to more people.
[26:10] “As a general rule, you should not run your content as an ad unless it already has an element of virality. The video needs to perform well organically to perform well as a paid strategy. The best ads are very memorable. You have to test out different styles of content in your comfort level, or maybe a little outside your comfort level, to see what your audience likes most. And when you create for your audience, they will tell you what works.”
[27:55] “Don’t run ads for the videos that you like; run ads for the videos that your audience tell you they like. The highest level of engagement that you can get on a video is a share. In Instagram you click View Insights. The shares and saves are the highest levels of engagement. Next are the comments, and next are the reactions. Likes are the lowest form of engagement. Don’t pay attention to views because they can be manipulated.”
Platform Choice
Tip #7: Instagram and Facebook are a powerful combination.
Kara: For lawyers serving consumers, I recommend you begin your social media marketing efforts on Instagram and Facebook, using reels for the majority of your posts.
Instagram is more businesslike than TikTok (which I know is a low bar), and its messages are more substantive, so it is my first choice for lawyers looking to expand their social presence.
Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, it is easy to post on both platforms simultaneously, so I recommend using them together. Ali has his most loyal followers on Facebook, so it is his primary source of social media clients.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[41:10] “If Instagram is working well for you, go all in on it until you hit a point of diminishing returns. It costs you nothing to share the same content on Instagram as on Facebook, so re-post it as a Facebook Reel. The biggest reach you are going to get on Facebook now is on Facebook Reels, so push it out there. It is free.”
[41:30] “On Facebook you also have the ability to get people to follow you and direct message people at scale. We actually get the most clients from Facebook. I have 8,000 friends and followers on Facebook, and get most of our cases from there.”
[41:50] “The followers we have on Facebook are so much more loyal. We get 100% engagement organically. When was the last time you posted anything on Instagram and got 100% engagement? That doesn’t happen on Instagram, but it does on Facebook because we built it slowly over the years and didn’t inherit a bunch of old followers like we did on Instagram.”
Tip #8: Add TikTok next.
Kara: It is currently far easier to grow your following on TikTok than Instagram, so some lawyers are beginning there social media marketing efforts on TikTok.
TikTok is more entertainment-focused, however, so you will need those additional followers to generate a meaningful number of leads and clients from the platform.
I recommend TikTok as an add-on after you are established on Instagram. Ali recommends beginning with TikTok.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[38:50] “It really depends on your market. If you are going after a younger audience, and your service resonates with a younger audience, then TikTok does work well. The problem with TikTok is there is so much spam in the messages. You will have to go through 20-30 messages before you find one prospective client.
[39:10] “On Instagram, I feel like people only hit that message button when they genuinely want to communicate with you. Instagram does work very well for us for converting, perhaps because people see it as a more serious platform.”
[40:10] “I think Facebook and Instagram have more robust platforms and have more serious people on those platforms, but today, you still have the best chance of growing a following on TikTok. I think it is a good idea to start on TikTok and keep harvesting and getting as many clients from it as possible, because by the end of 2022 it is going to be very expensive to compete on TikTok. They are going to start pushing out ads, and there will be corporate clients investing.”
[40:55] “It goes in cycles. Just because you are winning on TikTok now doesn’t mean you always will. That is why I have decided to be omnipresent on all my channels. When you dominate one, keep at it and put a system in place. Then go experiment with the next one.”
Powerful Presentations
Tip #9: Grab the attention of your target audience.
Kara: Your social videos compete with crazy stunts, swimsuit models, and physical feats, so they need to be well-designed. That means:
– Skipping any introduction and starting with the key point or question to be answered
– Using motion to draw the eye
– Concisely and directly conveying your information
– Delivering that information in more animated fashion than you usually do
– Captioning your words for the many viewers who don’t have their sound on
– Adding an entertainment element when you comfortably and authentically can
Ali (January 2022 interview):
[16:50] “When you’re doing face-to-face communication and talking to people, you don’t need to have an elevated or an elated type of personality and charisma. You are face-to-face, you’re 18-36” apart, 12-18” apart. They can read your body language, your eyes, your expressions, everything. However, when you are doing the same type of communication in two-way video like on FaceTime or Zoom, it’s a little bit lower. You can’t give that same type of body language, so you have to increase that level of energy.”
[17:50] “When you go to one-way communication, where I’m just putting out a video and posting it online where I can’t see your reaction, now you have to increase your energy even more. You have to increase your voice an eighth of an octave, you have to give people a little more excitement, you have to smile more, you have to be more proactive about raising your energy, and raising your eyebrows and getting closer to the camera.”
[18:25] “Boring content kills. I would rather you create one exciting video a week than create 100 every single day. Be exciting first, because you are competing against supermodels and cute kittens and delicious food, and people are so easily distracted. They’ve got a thumb and all they have to do is swipe and they’re off to the next video.”
[18:45] “You have 1-1/2 seconds to grab someone’s attention. And during that 1-1/2 seconds you have to get excited, you have to bring that energy. Even if your video is only 15-30 seconds, think about how you can cut as much bullshit from your video. Get to the point fast, grab people’s attention in the first second, and that’s when you will have a higher chance of going viral.”
[19:35] [To stop the viewer’s scroll…] “It’s a hook. The hook can be something like, ‘My billionaire friend told me…,’ ‘The first time I ever made a million dollars was…. Stop scrolling right now and watch this.’ The hook is never, never, introducing your name and your law firm.”
Tip #10: Shoot client testimonials.
Kara: I know I don’t need to persuade you that video testimonials from clients are high-value. But they can be difficult to obtain. I know, as we have shot dozens of them for attorneys.
Ali’s technique of having clients come to the office to pick up their settlement checks, and videoing them in the process, is wise, for the tallest hurdle is getting clients in front of a camera and talking.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[43:30] “I think people underestimate the value of testimonials. Getting your clients to talk about how great you are is way better than you blowing your own horn. The best strategy for personal injury lawyers to grow their fan and follower base is to have video capability at their firm anytime someone is coming to pick up a settlement check. Those stories are going to resonate with anyone in a similar situation.”
[44:00] “If you have a strong relationship with those clients, they are going to say things you could never say on video because you don’t want to seem like you are promoting yourself so blatantly. Using testimonials is a huge way to drive traffic and business to your practice … especially if that person is likely to share the testimonial on their social media.”
Popular Topics
Tip #11: Go outside the confines of your specialty.
Kara: This is a smart but controversial suggestion. Lawyers sometimes have difficulty understanding that social media marketing … especially in personal injury … is a two-step game. First you accumulate followers. Then you tell them what you do.
Accumulating followers for personal injury lawyers requires that you provide information outside the specialty, for few who have not been in an auto accident care about what to do if they are in an accident.
The two-step technique is also valid for non-injury lawyers, as you can grow your follower count much faster if you talk about everyday law topics. More on this below.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[20:10] “Car crash videos have a voyeuristic element, so we create a lot of them. The more they have a live dashcam view, the higher the likelihood that people are going to engage. The videos on my page that are getting a million-plus views are usually those car crash videos. The views are completely organic.”
[20:50] “You run that car crash video as an ad, and let the algorithm pick who wants to see it. You don’t have to target a specific audience so long as it is within a demographic or geographic location. Target that video to a specific subset of audience within a geographic location, let Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok decide who they want to see that video, because they are motivated to have more people see it so you spend ad money. Have the call-to-action be to follow your page. That is how you get new followers and how you retarget them with new content.”
Tip #12: Shoot and post videos on criminal law, especially DUI.
Kara: The single most popular legal topic on social media is criminal law – what to do if the police knock on your door, what to say if the police stop your car and want to search it, or ask if you have been drinking, and so on.
Again, you have to believe in the two-step approach to social media marketing – attract followers with popular content and then share your specialty-specific information with them.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[33:05] “Let me give you some strategies you can implement right now. The easiest way to create viral legal videos is talking about criminal defense, and specifically DUI. You might be a personal injury lawyer, but I promise your DUI checkpoint videos are going to get hundreds of thousands more impressions than your personal injury videos. Why? Personal injury is boring. People don’t care about car accidents until they’re in one. I dangle that carrot with criminal defense and DUI content, and then retarget them with personal injury content.”
[33:40] “So start a video with, ‘Here’s what you need to do if the police pull you over. Then list your 3 points. Do that video 10 times, with varying content, and I promise that one of them will go viral. I’ll pay you if it doesn’t go viral.”
[34:10] “The reason personal injury lawyers don’t find success on social media is because they are using it as a lead generation and advertising platform instead of a branding platform. You don’t need millions of followers; you just need your friends and family to recommend you to their friends and family, and that is enough for you to have a multi-million dollar business.”
Tip #13: Everyday law topics perform well, so discuss them.
Kara: This is my recommended approach. Rather than just focusing on criminal law, which while popular can get repetitive, I suggest you provide information on legal topics that your followers are likely to find helpful in their daily living.
Money matters are always of concern, so discuss rules around credit, refunds, and taxes. Most everyone drives, so review rules of the road, with examples of violations. Many people fly commercially, and airlines have gotten tough to deal with, so explain fliers’ rights.
If you address the legal topics that surface at cocktail parties, your follower count will grow faster than if you limit yourself to discussing your specialty.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[35:05] “Credit repair, too. I have a tax lawyer in my academy. She is crushing it. All she is doing is educating people on how to use different strategies to pay lower taxes.”
[36:15] “If you’re great at bankruptcy, credit repair, tax law, or criminal defense, all those videos will do way better than personal injury because they are much more likely to be shared.”
[38:55] “The easiest way is to get organic followers by giving them viral content like how to deal with tax issues, what you can do to maximize the benefits of your bankruptcy, and how to deal with police officers at a DUI checkpoint. These are topics that have consistently performed well on social media, and they will outperform buying followers or influencer shout-outs 100% of the time.”
Tip #14: Not every post needs to be a video.
Kara: Finding time to shoot reels can be a hurdle. A team member can generate additional posts for you using memes.
I recommend thought-provoking or inspirational statements over trying to be funny, as I find them more professional. Regardless, your posts should remain true to who you are and consistent with the image you are presenting online. If you are a jokester at heart, then don’t let me hold you back.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[46:20] “My best performing content is not videos. They are just pictures with really thoughtful copy to go along with them.”
Magnifying Results
Tip #15: Boost your best videos.
Kara: This is a game-changer. You can materially expand your viewership and increase the pace of your follower growth without spending a lot. I put $200/month behind my Instagram@GrowWithKara reels. I find that putting a little money behind each of my posts works best for my content
Ali takes a different approach, boosting his viral posts. He pays less per 1,000 views when he starts with a video that is already popular. More on this technique in the next several tips.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[17:55] “Here is my entire social media strategy, hopefully in under a minute. I pay attention to the virality of my content. Whenever I generate a video that is getting tons of shares, which is the main metric I pay attention to … how often was this post, video, copy shared? If it was shared by more than 10% of my following, then I spend money on it. So if I received 800 shares when I had 8,000 followers on Facebook, then it is viral content. But the 10% is not a strict guideline. I then use that viral content as an ad, showing it to the people who were most likely to engage with my post.”
[18:35] “To recap, first I invite my friends and family to my business page, second I test a lot of different content to see what goes viral, and third I put ad dollars behind the content that goes viral. That is how I grow my brand.”
[19:05] “What is successful is almost always the stuff you think is not going to work.”
Tip #16: Spend $5-10/day on your sponsored content.
Kara: Compared to other advertising venues like TV, radio, or billboards, advertising on social media is cheap. You don’t need to spend much to have an impact … especially if you are promoting a video that is already popular.
Over time your spend can and should steadily grow, because you can leave a particular post’s ad budget in place for years. Ali has been running some ads continually since his startup years.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[28:10] Ali: “Whatever you can afford – a dollar a day, 5 dollars a day, 10 dollars a day. This is how you become the 800-pound gorilla in a small market. If you are in a town with 50,000 people, and you wait until you have a video that goes viral and then target those 50,000, everyone in that town will have seen your video for a few bucks. If you do that 3-5 times, now suddenly you are a celebrity.”
[28:40] Ali: “That is we take over markets like Atlanta with 7 million people, or Georgia with 11-12 million, or nationally with 300-400 million people. You play that game. You create content, figure out what people actually like, run that content as an ad to your ideal client, with a call to action that says ‘Come and follow my page,’ and then re-target them with advertising for your particular product or service. That is the branding play.”
Tip #17: Once successful, increase your ad spend.
Kara: My most successful interviewees, Ali included, have all steadily increased their marketing and advertising budgets. They are careful to track lead and client sources so they correctly allocate their budgets, but they work to keep the total spend growing. That is how they expand their firms.
Once social media is delivering for your firm, you should seek to enhance the branding benefits, flow of leads, and new-client signings by posting more frequently and enlarging your ad spend.
Ali (March 2022 recording):
[14:00] “In 2018, my first full year in business, I spent $6,698 on social media ads and generated $3.2 million in settlements for my firm, which resulted in over $1 million in attorney’s fees. That ROI was wonderful, but is obviously not sustainable as you grow your business and realize there are ceilings to advertising.”
[14:25] “Keep in mind as you are growing your business that the clients who say, ‘I saw your ad on Facebook, or I saw you on Instagram or TikTok,’ that doesn’t take into consideration that other people who are following your page may have recommended you to a friend or family member. Look for the long-term play in branding and building your reputation online instead of just a dollar-for-dollar case acquisition cost – cost per lead and cost per case.”
[15:00] “My cost per case on Facebook right now is $3,000. That includes the cost of our intake department – we have 6 full-time people there, we have 2 virtual assistants handling my social media, we have another two VAs handling reception, plus two office assistants for backup calls. And our media team is included in that mix.”
[15:00] “Most lawyers would say $3,000 per case is a ripoff. Don’t do it. But you need to go deeper into your data. For example, I got 17 new referrals last month. The same month last year I received 9 referrals. The people following me are now recommending me to other people. My branding is building an ecosystem of word-of-mouth referrals.”
Tip #18: Ask viewers to follow you.
Kara: Growing your follower count is a key foundation step. You won’t see much viewer engagement until you have a decent number of followers. Those followers are also needed to guide the platform’s algorithm for any boosting you do.
The surest route to additional followers who could become clients is to boost your popular posts to the geographic areas you serve, and ask those new viewers to follow you.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[26:05] “So you have to take some of the content that works well and then figure out how to convert that into clients. Whenever you get viral videos … with viral for a social newcomer being anything over 10,000 views, usually 100,000 views, and for veterans 1,000,000 views … you should run that video as a sponsored ad. Boost it as a promotional advertisement to everyone in your local market.”
[26:40] “Why? Because TikTok has already shown you that this is content people actually want. TikTok will show it to more people because it incentivizes those people to stay on the platform. The more people see content they like, and the longer they stay on the platform, the more ads TikTok can show to them. So TikTok wants to run ads that keep people on the platform. So if you’re doing both – you create fantastic content and you run it as an ad – they’re going to blow it up and show it to many people for pennies on the dollar.”
[27:15] “The call to action should just be for people to follow your page. That is how you get thousands of followers for very little effort.”
[27:30] “Whenever you do get that fantastic video or post that performs well, run it as an ad and keep running it until you hit a point of diminishing return. We have ads that have been running since 2018. We don’t turn them off. They continue to draw comments, bring in new followers, and create engagement. They are great ads.”
[27:50] “No matter how great a piece of content, unless you retarget it and show it to people who could be your prospective clients, you’re missing out on the bulk of what business owners should be doing on TikTok.”
Tip #19: Automate your Instagram engagement.
Kara: Ali has so many followers on Instagram@CEOlawyer – 1.8 million as of this writing – that he set up a slick auto-response system that sorts his leads into buckets. Hopefully someday all of us will be half as successful and need to do the same.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[39:40] Ali: “We have software that communicates with clients automatically on Instagram. TikTok does not give you an open API, so you do not have that ability to integrate chatbot messaging software. On Instagram when someone messages me, a chatbot responds, ‘Hey, thanks for reaching out to the CEO Lawyer team, do you need help with one of the following: car accident, legal advice, business advice, or the Academy?’”
Helpful Tricks
Tip #20: Hide crashes with stickers
Kara: For personal injury lawyers running car crash videos, which remain highly popular, you can keep them from being taken down by displaying a “Boom” or “Bam!” sticker at the time of impact instead of showing the crash. The videos will draw just as many viewers, and you won’t have to worry about deletions.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[20:45] “If anyone is doing personal injury videos, you probably get a lot of them banned for community guideline violations. Reem, tell them about the workaround that you discovered doing hundreds of these videos with me. Also, what have you noticed about the videos going viral on TikTok with hundreds of thousands and even millions of views.”
[21:30] Reem: “This was a process. I didn’t figure it out on day one. I went to YouTube and found some car crash videos. At first I would just post the videos themselves. A lot of people were asking questions and wanted Ali’s reaction. So we added Ali’s response to the video.”
[22:10] Reem: “If it is a simple rear-end collision, ‘How much is this case worth?’ ‘How much could it be worth if a Walmart truck is involved?’ I used the CapCut video editor to pull the YouTube video and add Ali’s reaction. But don’t do too much editing on CapCut because TikTok wants you to use their editing and captions. I posted it and TikTok took it down! These car accidents are scary for the public.”
[23:30] Ali: “Everyone loves seeing car accidents. They love the dashcam video view because it is exciting. The guys that are killing it on TikTok are the ones that take the attention from viral videos and put their face in it somehow. The challenge then is, ‘What happens when TikTok takes down your car crash videos?’”
[24:10] Reem: “You don’t want the dashcam portion to be too long … tops 5 or 6 seconds. Then when the cars collide you put a Boom! or Bam! sticker. I had one car crash post taken down after 100,000 views. I put the Boom! sticker on it, reposted it and it got even more views.”
Tip #21: Loop your videos
Kara: This is another slick little trick. The higher a video’s average watch time, the more it will be shown. Conversely, the lower its average watch time, the less it will be shown.
As a result, anything you can ethically do to increase average watch time is helpful, including this looping tactic.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[31:45] “We made the video into a loop so the end of the video transitions perfectly into the beginning of the video, so lots of people watch the video 1.1 or 1.2 times before they realize they are watching the same video footage again. That drastically helps with your numbers.”
Evaluation
Tip #22: If you’re not generating leads and clients, you’re not doing it right.
Kara: I state this cautiously, for social media is like SEO in that it takes time to deliver its benefits. If you already have a following and do some boosting of your best posts, you can begin seeing results in 3-4 months.
But if you are starting with a new profile and have zero followers, you should figure 6-8 months before benefits accrue. Does that time requirement make it any less valuable? Only if you are not going to consistently post new content for the long haul, for like SEO, it is that consistency which delivers results.
You also need to engage with the followers who respond. Per tip #19, some of that engagement can be automated and delegated once social media is generating a material number of responses.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[11:45] “The only thing that matters when you’re creating social media content … or any type of marketing … is to get clients and make money. That is why you do it. Marketing is an investment, not an expense. If you are investing your time creating videos and writing captions, working to create exciting and engaging content, and you are not getting any clients from it, it is time to switch your strategy.”
[12:15] “I’m not saying the first video you post should go viral and you will get tons of cases from it. But at some point getting clients needs to be the litmus test. If all you’re getting is random people commenting ‘That’s great,’ or your friends saying, ‘I saw your video and love that story,’ change is needed. If 6 months in you haven’t gotten a single client, that is a problem.”
[12:40] “Yesterday we signed up 3 cases just from TikTok. It is normal to be getting clients from social media. Does it happen every single day? For me, yes, but in the beginning, no. Not for the first 3 or 4 years. Over time I’ve built an infrastructure for responding to messages and integrating social media into our intake department. Now we have a robust 50-person operation, and social media drives all of it.”
Tip #23: Have you attracted quality followers? Are you engaging with them?
Kara: If after 6 months you are not getting clients from social media, you need to examine your approach:
– Do you have many followers? Is that count steadily growing? Have you added a meaningful number of local followers by boosting your most popular posts to the geographic region you serve?
– Are you or someone in your office engaging with those who comment? You need to respond to comments that might become leads and encourage a call.
– Are you running ads offering lead magnets, sending responders to a targeted landing page, and following up with the downloaders?
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[1:04:55] “You should be getting cases with the first couple hundred followers if those are good followers. Or you can have a million followers and not get any cases if they are not relevant to your practice area. So how do you do that? How do you get people to become your clients?”
[1:05:15] “First, they need to know you. They need to know that you exist. Give them entertaining content that invites them to like and follow your page. What is entertaining content? Anything that makes them want to share it with someone else.”
[1:06:00] “Then you need to get them to trust you. Most people just go to the know, know, know. The way you get them to convert is by educating them about the practice area you are in once you have gotten their attention.”
[1:06:25] “The advertisement, just going out and saying, ‘Hey, I’m Ali Awad and I fight for maximum compensation.’ That riff to a cold audience will never work. But if you start with, ‘Here is what you do when you deal with the police. Here is how to deal with a DUI checkpoint. Here is what you do at an airport when TSA starts asking you questions.’ You produce videos to educate them, now you have some followers, and then you hit them with a video about injury, immigration, taxes … whatever type of law you practice.”
[1:06:45] “If you do that systematically, your followers will begin to understand the work you do and the type of law you practice. That is how you convert them. You don’t convert them from a cold audience. You warm them up first to become your ideal audience and your ideal clients.”
Tip #24: Have you made a sufficient commitment to social media?
Kara: To succeed on social media, you need to go all in, stick with it, and steadily increase your efforts and budget – just as you would and likely have done with your other successful marketing channels.
If you are only posting once or twice a week, rarely or never boosting, and not offering lead magnets with ads and targeted lead magnets, your odds of success materially decline.
Study the winners. Adapt their techniques to your unique style. And give your efforts a minimum of 6 months and preferably 12 to bear fruit. I am confident that you can do this, and that if you do, you will develop a profitable social media presence.
Ali (June 2022 interview):
[45:45] “I met with a firm a couple of days ago that spends $12 million a year on advertising. We are about half that – $5-6 million a year. I looked at how they spend their $12 million. Their budget for social media was $2,000 a month. I asked them, ‘Are you telling me your social media spend is only 0.2% of your marketing budget? That shows me you don’t care.’”
[46:20] “Why do they not care? They’re old school. They’ve been on TV, billboard, and radio for the longest time, and they don’t believe in their social media marketing. So my problem with you not being the face of your marketing is that you won’t understand and appreciate how powerful this is and how important it is until you’ve actually done it yourself.”
[46:40] “That is why we are the fastest-growing law firm in America. That is why we have a $20 million practice in 5 years, and that’s attorneys’ fees, not settlements.”
Conclusion
I hope you have found some tips you can apply to your social media marketing efforts. My favorite tips and Ali quotes are:
Tip #1: Brand your practice.
“Your highest-profit margin and your best cases are going to come from the ones that people specifically seek you out for, based on your brand.”
Tip #5: Don’t sell; teach.
“Don’t focus on client acquisition. My sales and persuasion strategy is to educate you so much that you cannot imagine working with anyone else.”
Tip #13: Everyday law topics perform well.
“The easiest way is to get organic followers by giving them viral content like how to deal with tax issues, what you can do to maximize the benefits of your bankruptcy, and how to deal with police officers at a DUI checkpoint. These are topics that have consistently performed well on social media.”
Tip #15: Boost your best videos.
“To recap, first I invite my friends and family to my business page, second I test a lot of different content to see what goes viral, and third I put ad dollars behind the content that goes viral. That is how I grow my brand.”
Tip #19: Automate your Instagram engagement.
“On Instagram when someone messages me, a chatbot responds, ‘Hey, thanks for reaching out to the CEO Lawyer team, do you need help with one of the following: car accident, legal advice, business advice, or the Academy?’”
Tip #24: Have you made a sufficient commitment to social media?
“I met with a firm a couple of days ago that spends $12 million a year on advertising. Their budget for social media was $2,000 a month. I asked them, ‘Are you telling me your social media spend is only 0.2% of your marketing budget? That shows me you don’t care.’ They’re old school. They’ve been on TV, billboard, and radio for the longest time, and they don’t believe in their social media marketing.”
