Can Facebook Change The Game For Law Bloggers?
How can lawyers and law firms use Facebook to distribute blog posts and other content?
When we founded LexBlog, blog posts were delivered directly to readers by way of RSS feeds, email subscription, search results and bookmarks.
Fast forward 11 years and Facebook, with Google, dominates media distribution. Readers are no longer receiving blogs directly. Blog posts are being distributed socially.
From Frédéric Filloux (@filloux), general manager of the French ePresse consortium:
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
Many great news brands today see their direct traffic — that is readers accessing deliberately the URL of the site — fall well below 50%. And the younger the media company (pure players, high-performing click machines such as BuzzFeed), the lower the proportion of direct access is – to the benefit of Facebook and Google for the most part.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, in a story in Marketing Land, claims Buzzfeed gets 75% of its traffic from social as he credits not paying much attention to Google anymore. Mashable is receiving upwards of 40% of its traffic from social, primarily Facebook.
What does this mean for law blog publishers? If you want to maintain readership levels for your blogs going forward, you better get them delivered socially, primarily via Facebook.
Sponsored
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
That’s a big problem for most lawyers and law firms who view Facebook as having little value except for trivial personal exchanges.
Law firm Facebook pages get little traction. Most law firm employees don’t even “like” their own firm’s pages.
Unlike the general population, very few lawyers share blog posts and news stories on Facebook. Lawyers don’t befriend peers, thought leaders, bloggers, and traditional media professionals in their niche. Lawyers don’t “like” and comment on items shared on Facebook.
As a result, even if lawyers and law firms wanted to get their blog posts distributed on Facebook, they couldn’t do it. Posting blog posts to Facebook is not enough — distribution of your blog posts on Facebook requires first being social.
What’s the answer? A decentralized approach to Facebook distribution. Rather than focusing energy on a law firm Facebook page, your blogging lawyers ought to distribute content on their personal Facebook accounts.
Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
Navigating Financial Success by Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Maximizing Firm Performance
There are a couple challenges associated with the law firm distributing content on Facebook in a centralized fashion.
First, content on Facebook flows socially based on trust. People can feel an affinity for other people. People begin to trust each other upon social engagement. That’s near impossible to replicate for a law firm page.
This trust is built through social networking — sharing personal and professional content, liking content, commenting on content and pictures.
Facebook’s algorithms can see trust, relationships, and interests building through this social interaction. Facebook then gets relevant and desired content into others’ Newsfeeds.
Second, Facebook firm pages work well for promoting content when you pay to boost performance of individual posts, which Facebook heavily incentivizes. But how many firms have budgets set aside for boosting individual blog posts and the people to manage the boosting and performance of posts?
Firms can also pay to promote their Facebook pages, but again, where does the budget and management come from?
In order to distribute blog posts, law firms ought to encourage blogging lawyers to use Facebook personally, for networking and business development. Teach lawyers how to use Facebook in a way that increases the chances that their blog posts will be seen in the Newsfeed of their Facebook friends. Teach them how to get their posts shared, liked, and commented upon.
Facebook’s algorithms are as complicated as Google’s in getting your blog posts surfaced in Newsfeeds. Rather than SEO though, networking, being social, and friend selection are the keys.
Just like Google search results are not an overnight phenomenon, getting your content distributed and seen via Facebook takes time. Rather than wait, take the time now to get your law bloggers using Facebook personally.
(Image courtesy of Flickr by Colby Cash.)
Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe) is the CEO and founder of LexBlog, which empowers lawyers to increase their visibility and accelerate business relationships online. With LexBlog’s help, legal professionals use their subject matter expertise to drive powerful business development through blogging and social media. Visit LexBlog.com.
LexBlog also hosts LXBN, the world’s largest network of professional blogs. With more than 8,000 authors, LXBN is the only media source featuring the latest lawyer-generated commentary on news and issues from around the globe. Visit lxbn.com now.
