Easy Steps to Get More Twitter Followers for your Firm

How to Get More Followers on Twitter

Of course, you can increase the amount of Twitter followers you have by using a promoted account, launching an advertising campaign, and then tracking your results with Twitter Analytics.  However, there are simpler ways to get more Twitter followers that can prove to have dramatic results. 

How to Get More Followers on Twitter

The following recommendations on how to get more followers on Twitter may seem trivial, but the fact is that many of the most successful profiles on Twitter offering legal services have used the following techniques:

1. Establishing a Good Avatar

The first step to increasing your Twitter followers is creating a scaled and professional avatar.  Many firms make the mistake of posting an image for an avatar that has too much going on.  For example, if you want to use a group photo of all the people in the firm, the picture may seem cluttered and reduce your chances to get more Twitter followers. 

Instead, a good idea for an avatar is the firm’s brand or logo.  If the firm is small, a picture may work as long as you upload a larger image and let Twitter scale down the photo. 

2. Set up an Intriguing Profile Bio

This is another important step on how to get more followers on Twitter.  Your bio should be short enough to keep the Twitter follower’s interest and should say some interesting facts about your firm.  Additionally, you should consider placing the links of your official website, your blog, and more in the bio in order to get more Twitter followers and encourage them to visit your professional material. 

3. Tweet during Peak Hours and Make Adjustments later

One of the best tips on how to get more followers on Twitter is to send messages and tweets during the peak hours of 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m., and 6 p.m. You’ll want to adjust the tweets for time zones to increase Twitter followers as well.  Also, if you’re targeting clients in other countries, you’ll have to adjust your posting hours to get more Twitter followers as well. 

4. Send Top Users @Messages

This is one of the greatest and most simple marketing techniques on how to get more followers on Twitter.  You can send private messages to increase your Twitter followers, but this technique can forward your services to people who aren’t following you.  For example, if you post a @message, the message will appear on your profile for all to see.  If the person responds to the @message, all of their followers will see the message as well.  Hence, you’ve greatly increased chances to get more Twitter followers. 

5. Link to Sites that can Help Followers

Another good way to get more Twitter followers is to post interesting or supplementary links for your services.  Apart from posting links to your own blog or website, think of how to get more followers on Twitter by using certain websites.  What materials might your followers need before or after they access your website? 

6. Repost Important Information

Another great way to get more Twitter followers is to repost your most important information.  There is some skill involved here though.  You don’t want to repost simple and general information; you want to repost your most important information in order to increase your Twitter followers.  You may want to post the information a couple of times a day at various different peak hours or even outside of peak hours. 

7. Ask Engaging Questions

This is another great tip on how to get more followers on Twitter.  For one, if you’re asking engaging questions, followers are more likely to respond to your posts.  Secondly, if the follower reposts, all of their followers will see what they have posted to your account and you’ll increase your Twitter followers.  If you ask more questions, it’s likely that you’ll get more Twitter followers as long as the questions are engaging and important. 

8. Focus on Divisions and Subdivisions

If you want to know how to get more followers on Twitter, you need target large and small groups at the same time.  For example, let’s say that you’re a real estate attorney and you’re trying to get more Twitter followers.  You’ll want to post tweets that can relate to all appropriate clients, but you’ll also want to target subdivisions.  What will you post about taxes, the market in your area, available property, changes in law, and more? Targeting specific subjects and areas will increase your Twitter followers. 

9. Post as Many Photos as Possible

Let’s face it; you’ll get more Twitter followers if you post more pictures.  Twitter followers are much more likely to look at all of your photos instead of all of your tweets containing only text.  Make sure the photos are professional and relate to your services.  Don’t post random pictures or pictures that confuse the degree of your services.

10. Link to Other Social Networks

Perhaps the best tip on how to get more followers on Twitter is to link your Twitter account to your Facebook account and your LinkedIn account.  It’s likely that a large percentage of your Twitter followers are also your Facebook friends and LinkedIn peers, but some professionals don’t access Twitter as much as the other networks. 

How to Get More Followers on Twitter: Conclusion

If you follow the techniques in this article, you’ll get more Twitter followers and probably see the results immediately.  Make sure to keep your account updated so the public is aware of any changes in your services. 

Valuable Tips on How to Use Twitter for Marketing

Twitter Marketing Guide

According to statistics released by eMarketer at the beginning of 2012, about 239 million people (75.6%) in the United States will qualify as active users on the internet.  Learning how to market on Twitter is essential because about two-thirds of those 239 US citizens will use social networking in 2012.

How to Market on Twitter: Important Actions to Take

If you’re wondering how to use Twitter for marketing with the legal industry, you’ll want to take the following actions as much as possible:

·         Keep track of how many people are tweeting about your content

·         Share only the most important content you can offer

·         Respond to every mention and every direct message

·         Try to keep your tweets related to your field of law as much as possible

·         Say thank you as much as possible

·         Unfollow all users that fail to offer tweets or offer an offensive tweet

·         Give credit to the person whose content you’re sharing

How to Market on Twitter: Things to Avoid

Some of the most important information in this Twitter marketing guide is listed within this section.  While learning how to use Twitter for marketing, your firm should avoid the following actions at all costs:

·         Don’t tweet negative comments about anyone, including other firms

·         NEVER use profanity

·         Avoid unrelated content or content that fails to engage the follower

·         Don’t tweet about politics or religion

·         Avoid sexual topics unless your firm specializes in protecting victims

·         Avoid saying anything you would not say within your workplace or in front of your partners

How to Market on Twitter: Tips for Beginners

This section of the Twitter marketing guide discusses tips that are useful to beginners, but the tips are important for a firm throughout any stage. 

1. How to Market on Twitter: Focus on the Followers, not the Money

This is one of the most important tips within this Twitter marketing guide for attorneys.  Your interest needs to focus on helping a follower instead of just trying to make money off of them.  Learning how to use Twitter for marketing will undoubtedly result in more prospective clients, but money shouldn’t be the key factor. 

2. How to Market on Twitter: Establish a Lasting Relationship

This tip is also another important factor in this Twitter marketing guide, as well as a key factor in all of business.  You try and maintain a relationship with past clients don’t you?  The same applies to your “clients” on Twitter.  Followers need to be able to trust you, and they need to know you know your field inside and out before they’re going to ask you for help. 

While learning how to use Twitter for marketing, you’ll want to make sure you have a reasonable amount of both professional followers and followers in the general public.  If the public notices you’re connected with other professionals, they’ll notice your credibility. 

3. How to Market on Twitter: Offer Services at the Right Time

One of the biggest factors on how to use Twitter for marketing involves offering your services not only at the right time, but at the right place.  Don’t hassle potential clients with an abundance of tweets, and don’t overload them with direct messages either.  These actions even border on malpractice within Rules of Professional Conduct. 

Instead, offer incentives such as free consultations to encourage clients to use your service when they’re good and ready.

4. How to Market on Twitter: Only Repeat Information Some of the Time

This is also another important within this Twitter marketing guide.  If you’re trying to advertise your services, one of the biggest mistakes you can do is repeat the same messages over and over.  This action can even get your account suspended if you’re not careful. 

If you do need to repeat material, you’ll need to learn how to use Twitter for marketing at peak hours.  Some of your clients will view more tweets in the morning, some more at lunch, and some more in the evening.  Repeat necessary information carefully and only at the right time. 

How to Market on Twitter: Tips for all Users

This section of the Twitter marketing guide is particularly important to every professional user.  Learning how to use Twitter for marketing in the following ways is proven to increase the reach of your services:

1. How to Market on Twitter: Find out about Local Events

You should find public events your followers are attending and try to attend those events yourself.  Making your presence known off the web is equally important and can even lead to more awareness in your social media. 

2. How to Market on Twitter: Compare your Profile with Other Professionals

The best way to learn how to use Twitter for marketing is comparing your campaign to other legal campaigns.  What techniques and services are they using that you have not embraced?  What techniques are they using outside of this Twitter marketing guide?  How can you offer better services within your marketing?

3. How to Market on Twitter: Keep Updated on News and Changes within your Field

This is one of the most important tips within this Twitter marketing guide.  If you can prove you are fluent on changes in your field and updated on related news, your followers will rely on your tweets in the future.

4. How to Market on Twitter: Monitor your Results and Connect to Other Social Media

Once you know how to use Twitter for marketing, you’ll want to connect Twitter to other forms of social media as well like Facebook and LinkedIn.  Monitor how many followers you’re gaining from social media and outside sources as well.  Monitor how all users are accessing your tweets. 

Conclusion: Twitter Marketing Guide

All of the tips within this Twitter marketing guide can increase the effectiveness of your campaign.  Research other tips and tools to further your knowledge on how to use Twitter for marketing. 

Potential Disadvantages and Dangers of Affiliate Internet Marketing

Weighing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Affiliate Internet Marketing

There are multiple advantages to internet affiliate marketing such as increased levels of revenue, a continuing and satisfied reader base, and the ability to increase the popularity of your website within search engines.  However, there are many potential dangers with internet affiliate marketing in the legal field, including the following and more:

·         vulnerability of brand

·         stacking and overload of advertisements

·         lack of contracts and permanency

·         fraud

·         harmful software

·         lack of control over ads

Potential Disadvantages of Internet Affiliate Marketing

1. Vulnerability of Brand in Internet Affiliate Marketing

The biggest potential disadvantage associated with internet affiliate marketing and a firm is the public recognizing your brand as unprofessional.  This is the reason you don’t see a large amount of advertisements on legal blogs and websites for attorneys.  If a firm is not careful with the types of advertisements they’re posting, the public may assume that the firm is mainly concerned with filtering in clients and readers for profit instead of educational purposes. 

There are steps to protect your brand while engaging in affiliate internet marketing though.  For example, if you’re an affiliate for Amazon, you should only advertise products that can supplement your services such as legal books and pamphlets for the areas of law you cover. 

2. Stacking of Advertisements in Internet Affiliate Marketing

The trick to internet affiliate marketing is using the least amount of advertisements as possible in order to generate the most revenue possible.  The key to such success includes choosing respectable merchants that offer reasonable amounts of commission for the legal publisher.  This can be hard though, especially for newer websites or blogs. 

An inexperienced legal publisher may try to overload their sidebars with a large amount of affiliate internet marketing advertisements in order to try and get their readers to click on at least one of the advertisements.  Not only can this technique in internet affiliate marketing damage the reputation of your brand, it can cause readers to visit your website once, notice the large amount of advertisements, and leave the website and never come back. 

3. Lack of Contracts and Permanency in Internet Affiliate Marketing

Just as a legal publisher can choose what affiliate internet marketing to post on their website, a merchant can decide what advertising to offer to whom.  In some cases, a merchant can choose to offer a website certain types of affiliate internet marketing, but some networks are allowed  to post such advertisements whenever they want and even take the advertisements off the website whenever they choose.  This is a major concern to many legal website and blog publishers. 

For example, let’s say a legal website just landed a great advertisement and they’ve been writing reviews about certain products and received success.  Then, the merchant and the network decide that they want to shift their internet affiliate marketing strategy somewhere else.  The website is left without future revenue and they have material that is now irrelevant. 

4. Fraud in Affiliate Internet Marketing in Internet Affiliate Marketing

There are two main types of fraud associated with internet affiliate marketing: CPC fraud and CPA fraud.  Cost per Click fraud can occur when competitors intentionally click on advertisements in abundance so the legal publisher is left to cover the cost without little return in revenue.  There is a large amount of protective software out there now to protect against CPC fraud, but some scammers can still slip through the system. 

CPA fraud, or cost per action fraud, is more of a concern for merchants than publishers, but the fraud has brought serious concerns within affiliate internet marketing.  This type of fraud may allow a publisher to earn large amounts of unearned commissions by a process called “cookie stuffing.”  This allows the publisher to gain revenue even though there was no real referral to a merchant’s website.  Such practices in internet affiliate marketing can land a firm in a huge amount of trouble. 

5. Harmful and Disadvantageous Software in Internet Affiliate Marketing

Although harmful software like spyware has been targeted and seriously reduced in the last couple of years, there is still a large amount of harmful software in affiliate internet marketing than can take away business from a firm.  For example, there is some software that will monitor other websites, see what techniques they’re using to bring in readers, and then target those very same readers in order to take away business. 

There is also software that can allow a person to receive promotional offers from a publisher without actually clicking on an advertisement.  The software places cookies within a client’s browser and then tracks the person’s navigation to a site offering good deals.  This type of software is still a serious problem in internet affiliate marketing. 

6. Lack of Control over Ads in Internet Affiliate Marketing

This potential disadvantage within affiliate internet marketing can be avoided by using a respected and highly rated network.  Networks that are less known and less respected can actually place ads within your sidebars and other areas of your website that may have nothing to do with your content.  This action within internet affiliate marketing goes back to the first and second points, which may cause damage to the image of your brand.

In order to find ratings and reviews for the best networks for affiliate internet marketing, refer to the recommended articles on this website. 

Conclusion: Internet Affiliate Marketing

You shouldn’t be scared off from internet affiliate marketing because of the potential hazards associated with the type of advertising.  Instead, let the potential disadvantages serves as a guide to let you set up the best affiliate internet marketing.  The disadvantages are avoidable if your take the right initiatives.  If you’ve taken the wrong initiatives, it’s never too late to revise your affiliate internet marketing campaign. 

Some of the Best Free Affiliate Marketing Tools on the Web

Why do I need to Use Affiliate Marketing Tools?

If you chose to go through an affiliate marketing network, they may provide certain tools along with their service.  However, many networks provide limited affiliate marketing tools, and it’s a good idea to access free tools if you’re already spending money on the network.  Some of the best free affiliate marketing tools are listed throughout this article.

A Free Affiliate Marketing Tool for your Campaign

If you’ve chosen to pursue your affiliate campaign, an affiliate marketing tool listed within this section or several tools at a time can help you make your campaign as successful as possible:

Google AdWords Affiliate Marketing Tool

This service provided by Google is one of the most widely accessed tools by attorneys in the internet today.  The affiliate marketing tools within this program can give you an estimate for a keyword’s search volume for the last month, and it can provide other terms that may be a better choice for your campaign.  You can search for search trends, local search volume, and most importantly, keywords in connection to advertiser competition. 

Google Alerts Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the best affiliate marketing tools you can use for your campaign.  You can establish alerts by day, week or month and see what people are saying about the legal products on other websites.  The same applies to your marketing campaign.  If you have a website or blog that is used for affiliated marketing, you can see what readers are saying about your website. 

Firefox SEO Affiliate Marketing Tool

If you use a Firefox browser, this a great free tool for your affiliate marketing campaign.  The toolbar is plug-in and only takes a couple of minutes to download.  With this tool, you can analyze your own legal website’s figure and you can also analyze the statistics on competitive websites.  You can track things such as backlinks, projections, and much more.  This is one of the most popular affiliate marketing tools offered for free. 

Tynt Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the most helpful affiliate marketing tools if you have a large amount of original content on your legal website or blog—especially if you’re writing product reviews and similar articles.  This affiliate marketing tool allows you to see if your content or original pictures were copied.  If so, the tool can provide links to redirect readers back to your legal website. 

This affiliate marketing tool also provides other services such as reports on where your readers are coming from, content reports, and even help with your SEO. 

Tracking202.com

This is one of the best free tools for an attorney in affiliate marketing that relies heavily on pay per click advertising.  The affiliate marketing tools offered by this website allow you to note conversions, but you can track campaigns across several different networks at a time.  You can also use the website to track your return on investment (ROI), and you can find more services as well. 

Traffic Travis Affiliate Marketing Tool

This free tool is highly regarded according to multiple user reviews and provides results comparable to some of the costliest software for SEO.  The tool can give you close estimates for keywords across several different search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and more.  You can also plug in a keyword and see how similar keywords will perform. 

Pingler.com Affiliate Marketing Tool

These tools along with pingomatic.com are some of the best for getting your content indexed and getting it indexed quickly.  For example, if you’ve just launched a new legal website or even a new post on a legal blog, these affiliate marketing tools allow you to alert other blogs and search engines that you’re content has been updated.  These tools will increase how fast readers travel to your website, and the more you update the page, the more you should use these affiliate marketing tools. 

Dropbox Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is a great tool if you you’re constantly traveling and want a secure place to save the things you’re working on during travel.  The service provides several options to the legal affiliate marketer, and the tool even allows you to share your Dropbox with other people if you choose to do so, such as other partners in your firm.  Some versions of this affiliate marketing tool require a fee, but there is a free version as well. 

GoGodes Affiliate Marketing Tool

This is one of the greatest affiliate marketing tools/plug-ins for adjusting your domain names.  If you have a large domain name, you can use this plug-in to reduce the length of your link in order to perform more efficiently on a search engine and look more professional overall. 

Affilorama Affiliate Marketing Tool

This website also provides a large amount of free affiliate marketing tools.  You have access to tools for research and other tools such as a domain locator, an earning calculator, a URL redirect tool, and more.  This service also provides free educational material on affiliate marketing and other advanced affiliate marketing tools for a fee. 

Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing Tools

If you’ve started an affiliate marketing campaign, sometimes the best choice is to start with free affiliate marketing tools and progress to tools that charge a fee once you become accustomed to the practice of affiliate marketing for legal products and services.  You’ll want to start off slow and adjust your content along the way, and the free tools listed within this article will help. 

If you’re going through an affiliate marketing network, they will usually provide you with a large number of affiliate marketing tools—especially if they charge a fee for the service.  If you’re not using a network, you’ll have to decide  the level of your demands.  What kind of things do you need to track, and what are you planning to do with the results?

All the best technology forecasters agree: the future of the web is mobile.  Mobile advertising and marketing are changing the way businesses all over the world sell their products and services.  What's more, when people use their mobile devices, they're using the web differently: no longer confined to web browsers, most mobile users now spend more time using internet-connected apps than their mobile browser.  The time is right to change your mobile marketing and advertising strategy.  If you want to learn how, keep reading this guide.

Why Now is the Time to Learn About Apps

Even two years ago, it would have been pretty strange advice to tell a law firm that learning about apps needed to be part of its mobile advertising and marketing strategy.  In that time, however, smartphones have come to dominate the cellular phone market in the United States.  The two main operating systems for these revolutionary mobile devices, iOS and Android, are largely app based and give developers the opportunity to create purpose-built applications for nearly any business.

As apps have become more popular than traditional browsing, it can be a great time to learn how to use a mobile marketing and advertising strategy in other people's apps.  Ad networks allow you to put your mobile advertising and marketing campaigns into display banner ads that will be shown when people are using their apps.

If you're more ambitious, you might want to try a bigger mobile marketing and advertising project: building an app yourself!  The kind of app that will be most effective for your mobile advertising and marketing purposes will be based firmly in your law firm's niche.  Try to figure out how an app could make your typical client's life easier, and then use one of the easy app building programs available online to create it.

How Mobile Advertising and Marketing Networks Work

Not all apps use the same mobile marketing and advertising networks.  If you want to get in front of the best viewers for your ads, you need to ask some questions about any mobile marketing and advertising network you're planning to use.  

You should find out what their demographics look like, and what apps their ads are displayed on.  A mobile advertising and marketing network that primarily advertises on games played by teenagers probably isn't what you're looking for when it comes to your mobile strategy.  Instead, try to focus on the mobile marketing and advertising companies who are putting banner ads on applications used by adults in the age range your law firm caters to.

The New Trends In Mobile Marketing and Advertising: Social/Local

In addition to looking at mobile advertising and marketing in apps, you should consider advertising in the mobile Facebook app by posting “sponsored stories.”  You can target these stories based on demographics, geolocational boundaries, or even by people who already know the people who are your fans and friends.  Because sponsored stories appear directly in people's news feeds, they are already more than ten times more likely to be clicked on than a traditional sidebar Facebook advertisement on the desktop site.

Facebook is just one of several companies that is now offering better opportunities than ever for marketing to people who are very near to your location.  Local ads are very appealing from a mobile advertising and marketing perspective, because it puts ads right in front of the very people who are most likely to be able to act on them immediately.  As mobile marketing and advertising becomes integrated with smartphone GPS, it has finally become possible to target people specifically when they're close to your office right now.

QR Codes

Quick response (or QR) codes are everywhere today.  You've probably noticed them yourself: the little square boxes of black and white static that you can photograph with a smartphone to go to a website.  Using QR codes in your print advertisements can be an easy way to link your mobile website with your print advertising presence.

You might also consider having a QR code as part of a mobile marketing and advertising promotion.  For example, if your mobile advertising and marketing strategies include advertising a free consultation, the QR code could take potential clients to a website with a contact form to claim this consultation.

Mobile Marketing and Advertising Mistakes to Avoid

Because mobile advertising and marketing is still a young field, a lot of people are still making amateur mistakes—don't be one of them.  Make sure that your mobile marketing and advertising consistently directs to a website that has content that is completely readable for mobile viewers.  

Don't forget to leave your phone number off your mobile website, and make sure that the number appears in text form (which becomes clickable for smartphone users).  If your number is a graphic, smartphone users won't be able to click on it and will have a much more difficult time contacting your office for a consultation.

Finding Mobile Marketing and Advertising Tips

It's likely that this won't be the last article you read on mobile advertising and marketing.  You can find a wide range of other mobile marketing and advertising on lawfirms.laws.com or by doing some Google searches.  It's important to find information on mobile advertising and marketing that is relatively recent—because the mobile market is in a state of perpetual change, what works in 2012 might not be what works in 2015.

When you're looking for mobile advertising and marketing tips, take into account the source where the tips are coming from.  Some articles about mobile marketing and advertising are trying to get you to buy a specific piece of software or use a method you can read about in a certain book (which, of course, costs money to buy).  Those kinds of mobile advertising and marketing articles should always make you suspicious.  Only take advice on your mobile marketing and advertising campaigns from sources that don't have a financial stake in your strategy.

Statistics from 2012 show that nearly there are nearly twice as many attorneys graduating from law school as there are new positions.  That's a competitive legal market, and responding to it requires learning what is niche marketing. Whether you're just looking for a niche marketing definition or you really want to know how to use niche marketing for your law firm, keep reading this guide to find out more.  

What is Niche Marketing: a Niche Marketing Definition

When you're first beginning to learn about niche marketing, it's good to start with a basic niche marketing definition.  So, what is niche marketing?  In brief, niche marketing just describes a business that is narrowing down its focus in order to stand out more from a marketing perspective.

Niche marketing has become a huge factor for businesses in the age of web marketing.  While many businesses never really thought about what is niche marketing before, today the niche marketing definition is of great interest to tens of thousands of marketing professionals.

Narrow, Double Narrow, and Triple Narrow Niche Marketing Definition

For law firms, “what is niche marketing” is a question you need to be asking now.  The niche marketing definition has become of critical importance to attorneys in a pressed job market, and in order to have a sufficiently narrow niche marketing effort, you'll probably need to do some brainstorming.

Let's say that you've started as a criminal defense firm.  What is niche marketing going to look like for you?  Well, criminal defense is already a “single narrow” niche.  That means that it's narrower than a “general practice,” in which just attorneys will serve clients with just about any legal need at all.

The double narrow niche marketing definition is when a niche market has been made, well…”niche-ier.”  For example, let's say you took the same criminal defense practice and decided to make it double narrow.  According to this niche marketing definition, a double narrow practice would be a criminal defense practice that only took DUI cases.

Some attorneys, especially those in small to mid sized cities or rural areas, can stop there.  But if you're in a big city, what is niche marketing but a way to set yourself apart from the competition?  You may already have competitors in your double narrow field, so try narrowing your niche marketing definition even further.  Now you can be a DUI defense law firm that specializes in handling cases for Spanish speaking clients.

What is Niche Marketing Doing for Law Firms?

Understanding the niche marketing definition and how to apply it to your own firm can be a lifesaver in today's economic climate.  Niche marketing is especially important if you're planning to start a new firm or have recently begun a new firm and don't yet have a great deal of name recognition or an existing client base.

By understanding what is niche marketing, you get a head start on your competition whenever you advertise on the web.  The majority of the research people do for attorneys today is through search engines.  By applying the niche marketing definition, your website will become narrower and more likely to attract clients who are searching the web the way real clients search—with long keywords including a location and a specialty practice area.

Making Niche Marketing Work For You

Some attorneys are concerned when they hear the niche marketing definition, because they are worried about putting all their proverbial eggs in one basket.  While it's true that overspecialization can cause a niche marketing effort to backfire, nothing about the niche marketing definition says that you're required to have just one niche.

Try having several niches, which may or may not have significant overlap.  This way, even if one of the niche marketing areas you chose isn't a sustainable practice area, your firm can still thrive as long as the other niches are going strong.

You may want to avoid niche marketing if your advertising and marketing strategies are primarily based in the offline world, unless your niche marketing strategy is very specifically geared to attract people in your immediate area.

Expanding Your Niche Marketing

Maybe you've already known what is niche marketing for a long time, and have even successfully inserted yourself into a local niche.  That's great, but what's wonderful about niche marketing online is that you can actually expand these marketing efforts.

No matter what kind of niches you already have, software exists that can help you find new, similar niches.  Each of these niches can be developed into sections of your website, or even fully separate websites, that are search engine optimized to drive traffic to your website.

When you've begun to expand the niche markets you're working with, you'll want to keep track of which ones are generating more client conversions.  This helps you plan further niche marketing efforts and get rid of the campaigns that are persistently less successful than you had hoped.

What is Niche Marketing for the Future?

Niche marketing trends today include developing niches that take into account the current demographics of the United States.  For example, with a large number of people born during the Baby Boom beginning to retire, attorneys who are learning what is niche marketing may want to begin catering to that demographic.

Another niche marketing trend is marketing toward the increasingly mobile consumer.  In addition to making your website friendly for search engines, you need to have niche marketing landing pages that are easily viewable by mobile consumers.  You'll also want to think about mobile advertising options for your website.

You'll also want to look at hyperlocal niche marketing.  What is niche marketing at the hyperlocal level?  Well, advertising specifically to people who live in very small towns or suburbs that are often overlooked by the large firms can be a great way to do niche marketing online.  This can be a great way to pick up a new client base without even having to slightly alter the kind of law you're practicing.

Social Media Marketing for your Lawfirm

Some law firms today already are engaging with social media and marketing in innovative, fresh ways.  However, many law firms are still left asking the question: “What is social media marketing?”  Over 90 percent of small law firms already use social media in some way—like having Facebook or LinkedIn profiles—but social media and marketing are currently only being combined by about half of firms.  

Social media marketing can project your firm's brand into people's homes in an authentic, participatory way.  This guide will show you how social media marketing can put your firm ahead of your competitors and answer your question of “what is social media marketing?” by familiarizing you with some of the basic social media plaforms available today.

What is Social Media Marketing on Facebook?

What do your 90 year old great aunt, your first crush from high school, your ex-colleague and his cat have in common?  Probably nothing—except that they all have Facebook profiles.  If you've hesitated to get a Facebook account for yourself or your law firm, it's time to realize that resistance is futile: you will be assimilated into the Facebook universe if you want to combine social media and marketing.  So what is social media marketing on Facebook?  What does it look like?

The simple answer is that there is no simple answer.  The presence you build using Facebook will depend completely on the kind of image that you want to project with your social media marketing.  “What is social media marketing?” can be answered for some firms with a steady stream of Facebook posts and occasional comments.  Others use their Facebook walls to link blog content, run polls, and interact with potential clients.

While 83 percent of lawyers today are using blogging, only 57 percent are using Facebook for their social media and marketing efforts.  If you have a blog already, adding a Facebook presence is one of the fastest ways to get people to read the social media marketing content on your blog.

One of the key answers to “what is social media on Facebook?” is this: it's incorporating yourself into a community.  What the nature of that community is depends entirely on your firm, but your social media marketing efforts on Facebook should always focus on participating and listening, not just spewing out content.

What is Social Media Marketing on Twitter?

140 characters may not sound like it's enough to communicate something useful, but maximizing your social media and marketing presence means starting to economize your words.  Short and to the point is the name of the game, and Twitter posts are confined to just a few characters more than a typical text message.

When lawyers ask what is a social media marketing strategy on Twitter that works, they are often surprised to find that the most effective tweets aren't the longest ones.  In order to have the best social media marketing, you'll want to try to keep your tweets under 100 characters.  Think of this aspect of social media and marketing as helping to hone your writing skills—after all, brevity and clarity are great qualities in writing offline as well.

Try to confine your Twitter posts to four or fewer per day.  Lawyers who start by asking “what is social media marketing?” often overextend themselves with social media marketing efforts once they get started.  Too many Twitter posts a day, though, will lead to your firm being followed by fewer people, and your social media and marketing efforts may go unnoticed.

What is Social Media Marketing on Blogs?

To have the best results from social media marketing, you'll need to strategize first.  This requires thinking hard about what your social media and marketing strengths are.  For example, let's say you're a solo practitioner, and also a great writer who can concisely explain legal topics for your clients.  A blog may be one of the best things you can do to drive your web traffic.

If you want to know what is a social media marketing strategy that works, you'll need to know one thing above all: the internet hates a fake.  If your content is perceived as being phony or too sales-oriented, it doesn't matter how great your other social media and marketing efforts are—they'll be doomed to fail.  It's important to make sure that your blog entries seem genuine, and that they're not too dry.  Giving your blog a real voice, a real character, can ensure that you seem different from your competition (a key part of social media marketing).

What is Social Media Marketing Analytics?

Once you've moved beyond asking “what is social media marketing?” you can start asking “how can I make sure my social media and marketing goals are being met?”  Because social media marketing has exploded in recent years, new analytics tools are being developed constantly to help you interpret the new web traffic you receive as a result of your marketing efforts.

A lot of small firms are not well equipped to analyze their social media and marketing results.  If you need help with figuring out what your data means, a number of social media marketing services today specialize in crunching numbers for law firms.

What is Social Media Marketing Reputation Management?

When your firm combines social media and marketing, you'll need to keep an eye on how you're perceived online.  Social media marketing can help you identify potential issues with client satisfaction.  For example, you can maintain consistent monitoring of client review websites, including Yelp, so that you know about any negative reviews you have received.

Many social media marketing firms sell full reputation management services that can help you build a great reputation online and minimize the consequences of negative reviews.  These services are a great alternative if you don't have the ability to hire someone to work full-time at your firm handling social media and marketing issues like reputation management.

Advertising with Facebook is one of the hottest trends in law firm marketing today. Less than ten percent of firms were doing any Facebook advertising whatsoever just 3 years ago (not even having a firm page!). Today, over half of lawyers have a Facebook presence and more are starting to use Facebook advertising every day. Keep reading to find out six different answers to the question “why advertise on Facebook?” that will make you think.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #1: Everybody's Doing It

For many lawyers, advertising with Facebook might have been a waste of money as recently as just a few years ago. The number of Facebook users has been soaring every year since the website began, and only now is it popular enough for it to become an advertising method for marketing to a wide range of demographics.

Today, it's not just college students who are using Facebook. With nearly a billion users looking at Facebook ads worldwide, Facebook advertising is now a way to reach out not only to young people, but to anyone looking to reconnect with old friends or talk to family members and colleagues.

In other words, the answer to the question “why advertise on Facebook?” has changed significantly for most law firms. Almost every forecaster sees Facebook advertising as likely to maintain its relevance for many years to come. As long as advertising with Facebook puts you in front of the biggest B2C audience in the world, you'll want to keep working with it.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #2: Why Facebook Beats Google AdWords

Maybe you already have a pay per click strategy on Google that seems to work. If so, you may be wondering—why advertise on Facebook instead of just continuing with business as usual on Google?

Business owners who are used to doing most of their web advertising with pay per click Google AdWords are often excited by the precision targeting abilities that Facebook advertising has. When you start advertising with Facebook, you don't need to think about what kinds of keywords your target market is looking for—all you have to know is who your target market is.

If you know, for example, that most of your clients come from your zip code and the six zip codes that surround it, you can narrow your focus so that your Facebook advertising is only displayed to people who live in those zip codes. You can also segment your advertising with Facebook by gender, age, and location.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #3: Your Advertising Generates Extra Buzz

When you start running direct ads with another advertising service, like Google AdWords, it's pretty unlikely that anyone is going to show their friends your ad. But with Facebook advertising, this kind of thing happens all the time. Advertising with Facebook gives you the ability to have your ads seen not only by their initial viewers, but also by the people those viewers are connected with.

If your Facebook advertising starts generating “likes” and comments, its visibility will increase substantially. After you have been advertising with Facebook for some time, you'll be able to figure out which ads work best for generating the kind of buzz that your law firm needs in this competitive economic climate.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #4: Mobile Advertising Results

When you do Facebook advertising today, you have more options than ever. Because mobile traffic to Facebook doesn't look at sidebar ads, you can now start advertising with Facebook directly to mobile customers with organic-looking “sponsored stories.”

Why advertise on Facebook Mobile? When you pay for a sponsored story, your advertising with Facebook will get click through rates that are more than ten times better than rates for browser ads. What's more, when you design your landing pages to be conversion friendly, you can take people from Facebook advertising to consulting over the phone in just seconds.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #5: Easy Results Tracking

Not all Facebook advertising works. Why advertise on Facebook if you're not keeping track of the results that you're getting? As soon as you start advertising with Facebook, you need to start testing your ads and applying what you've learned.

The great part about Facebook advertising is that Facebook has simplified results tracking and is great at showing you the information you need to know. Not only can you easily track your key performance indicators when you start advertising with Facebook, you can also ask Facebook to do a lot of the work for you.

Facebook advertising even allows you to decide what your objective is, and can automate a great deal of your bidding if you don't want to outsource but don't have the time to babysit clicks and bids all day long. While this may not be the most cost effective method of advertising with Facebook, it takes a lot of the guesswork out and lets you get back to practicing law.

Why Advertise on Facebook, Reason #6: Beating Your Competition

Let's face it: most consumers only have room to “like” one or two law firms at most. That means that the best way to make sure your firm is liked better than your competitor is simple: get there first. Start advertising with Facebook sooner than your competition does, and you'll be the only game in town. If you delay your Facebook advertising campaign, your competitors will get to those potential clients first.

If your competition is already advertising with Facebook, you have a tougher road ahead of you but it's not impossible. Try to identify the weaknesses in your competitor's marketing strategy. Remember that just having a Facebook page isn't enough to really be strong marketing: is your competition doing all they can do in terms of creating new content, using polls, and asking open ended questions to fans and friends?

If not, there's still room for you to do something different. Different is what the internet notices, and you're better off trying to pick up where your competition left off than going head to head with similar marketing efforts.