Okay, so not every law office has a social media pro on staff.  If you're part of one of the 45 percent of law firms that doesn't yet have a Facebook page, you may need to hire a Facebook marketing service to get your social media marketing efforts off the ground.  Keep reading to find out why Facebook marketing services are often an attractive alternative to DIY social media campaigns for lawyers.

Why Not Do It Yourself?

If you're considering doing your own Facebook marketing without the help of any Facebook marketing service, you should ask yourself a few questions.  How comfortable are you with social media platforms?  Are you already comfortable with maintaining Facebook pages, including fan pages and groups?  Do you know how to get the most out of your Facebook page even though recent site redesigns have changed what works?

If you're unsure, it's okay to get professionals to help you out.  Facebook marketing services can help firms regardless of their level of social media expertise.  Whether you're brand new to the social media world or have been tweeting and redditing for years, a Facebook marketing service can help you create a new brand srategy to get the most out of your Facebook presence.

When law firms start to use Facebook marketing services, they often express concern about how much control they'll be able to keep over their Facebook pages.  You can discuss your needs with your Facebook marketing service, which can help you to learn how to control your own page or take the work completely out of your hands.

Using Facebook Marketing Services for Direct Ads

Direct advertising is one way to market your law firm on Facebook.  Much like Google AdWords, this type of Facebook advertising involves bidding on clicks.  Often, small law firms are intimidated by click bidding and cost per click advertising, so you may want to contact Facebook marketing services for help.

Using a Facebook marketing service for these ads can help you use current best practices and keep your bids as low as possible.  Working together, you and Facebook marketing services can figure out the best way to talk to Facebook fans so that you don't have to do all the research on your own about bidding and targeting.

As you continue to work with a Facebook marketing service, their analysts will work to find ways to understand the visitor data you're obtaining.  Facebook marketing services can then tailor their services to match your company's needs and what your customers want.

Using Facebook Marketing Services for Content Creation

When using a Facebook marketing service, you may want them to help you to create your initial design or you may want them to create a great deal of custom content as well.  Make sure that you obtain custom content samples from any Facebook marketing services that you use, because there can be big differences to the quality levels offered by different companies.

While a Facebook marketing service can certainly do a great deal of custom content work for your firm, it's also important to create some original content yourself, about local topics you have a high level of expertise with.  Authority counts in today's web world, and you'll get much further if you're able to give real legal advice and offer tips, not just content that may appear generic.

Using Facebook Marketing Services for Analytics

A lot of people at law offices would like to leave the tough math back in the classroom.  If this is the case at your firm, you may not want to do your own analytics.  In fact, you may even be asking what analytics are.

Analytics basically refers to looking at the results of your firm's marketing efforts and guiding new advertising based on the results of the analysis.  If you're not using analytics yet, Facebook marketing services can help you work out the details.  Your Facebook marketing service can put analytics research into plain English so that you can start to design your social media presence based on real world data from your own clients.

Using Facebook Marketing Services for Redesign

What do you do if you've already got a Facebook page, but it's not generating many fans or much traffic?  Hiring a Facebook marketing service can help you identify what's working and what's not, so that you can do a complete overhaul.

With Facebook's new interface, Timeline, now implemented sitewide, you can use a Facebook marketing service to help you craft a brand narrative based on the history of actual events in your firm's history.  You can now make Timeline work for you, especially if you're part of an established law firm that has some big wins to its name.

Your Facebook marketing service can also work on your presentation with images and video.  Many of these services will offer video packages that help you create potentially viral videos for your law firm.  If you're going the viral video route, remember: funny works, but only if you don't look unprofessional.

Using Facebook Marketing Services for Social Media Integration

While you may want to use a specialized Facebook marketing service for exclusively B2B marketing, you may also want to integrate LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media platforms.  Maintaining a consistent brand image across platforms with very different cultures and norms can be tricky—Facebook marketing services can take the guesswork out.

When you're redesigning your Facebook pages, you can look at options for marketing your firm including use of video and blogs.  These can lead to your content being shared and linked, which is a great way to get better search engine results for your firm.

Although some kinds of social media integration can seem like they'd lead to less work for your firm, be careful when mixing Facebook and Twitter.  Although Facebook can display tweets as soon as you've written them, these kinds of posts are often regarded as spammy and oversaturated by Facebook aficionados.

Everything About Local SEO Blog

According to Google, over 20 percent of searches today are for local services.  This number is even higher when it comes to attorneys.  Most clients want a lawyer who is local, so when you start your blog, you should make sure it's a local search engine optimization blog.

Local search results act a little bit differently from other types of search results, and your blogging strategies for a local SEO blog should change accordingly.  Keep reading to find out ways that you can make sure you're creating a true local search engine optimization blog.

How Local SEO Is Different

Let's face it: results for a fantastic law firm in New York City aren't going to be all that useful for most people who just need basic legal services in Albany.  To combat the problem of non-local search results appearing in people's search queries, a number of search engines have now made it possible to search by location.  The most popular of these is Google Places.

Google Places results now appear as the top page of results when you make a local search.  Since most search users pick a link from the first page, it's very important to have your firm represented on Google Places.  It's very easy to set up your Google Places page, and to buy additional tags for your website if you want for more searches to be directed to your firm.

How does Google Places tie in with a local search engine optimization blog?  Well, your local SEO blog should at least sometimes link back to your Google Places page.  This kind of inbound linking from your local search engine optimization blog can elevate your Google Places results in searches.

Picking a Topic for Your Local SEO Blog

Once you've decided to specialize your blog as a local search engine optimization blog, you can start to think about the specific topic areas you're interested in writing about.  The topics for your local SEO blog should always play to your firm's greatest strengths.  If your firm handles several very different types of cases, you may consider developing a different local search engine optimization blog for each of the main categories you practice in.

When you've decided on your topic, start to think of some real questions you've gotten, or common misconceptions you'd like to clear up, about that area of law.  If it's something that is interesting to clients you've had in the past, odds are it will be interesting to others as well when you include it on your local SEO blog.

Because you're trying to maintain a local search engine optimization blog, you'll want to keep your topics locally focused.  If a national issue is critical, your local SEO blog can still talk about it, but try to confine the vast majority of your discussions to issues with local and state laws or notable figures in law.

Linking and Comments

If you're talking about something in your local search engine optimization blog that you'd already referenced in an earlier post, you should link to the old post in your new one.  The more links and connections that are in your blog, the more likely it will be to appear early in search results.

Don't just link to yourself, though.  Who wants to be the person at the party who can only talk about himself?  Open up the conversation by linking to other blogs or websites with your local SEO blog.  A good local search engine optimization blog will link to local resources and help for people who are having legal issues.  

For instance, if you're a divorce lawyer, you may want to include a blog entry on your local SEO blog about domestic violence shelters and resources for abuse victims.  Someone who works a lot with landlord and tenant law can link to the state's Uniform Landlord and Tenant Act or similar law on their local search engine optimization blog.

Headlines: First Impressions Mean Everything

When you write your local SEO blog, it may be tempting to give some of your articles a headline that makes your readers scratch their heads and keep reading.  That kind of headline, though, won't play well with Google's search algorithms, which look at headlines to figure out what your article is about.

If you want your local search engine optimization blog to show up early in search results, you'll need to make your headlines crystal clear and very direct.  A subtitle or later section titles can be more creative, but your title needs to include an exact phrase match for the keywords you want to search engine optimize for.

Link Building For Lawyers

Making your local search engine optimization blog appear relevant to search indexers requires building inbound links on other websites.  You can start by posting some of the best articles from your local SEO blog to an online article submission site, including links to several of your blog entries.  Press release websites can also be a great way to get more inbound links.

What If It Doesn't Work?

There's always the chance that even if you work very hard on your local search engine optimization blog, you won't get the visitors you want.  Or you'll get visitors, but you won't see an uptick in your actual new business.  These are two different problems, and they need two different solutions.

If your local SEO blog just isn't getting any web traffic, you need to work harder on your search engine optimization skills.  Figure out better keywords and link to your blog from social media websites in order to get more eyes on your content.

When plenty of people are seeing what you have to say, but they're not responding the way you had hoped, you need to change your content.  This can often be an indicator that people find your local SEO blog to be too generic or not relevant enough to the keywords they were searching for.  With a few conversion-friendly modifications, you should be able to increase your conversion rate.

Everything About Facebook Advertising Revenue

Facebook advertising revenues have been steadily increasing ever since the website began implementing ads in 2006.  Today Facebook has over 845 million users, and those users have created an advertising behemoth: currently, Facebook advertising revenue figures are around $3.15 billion per year.  Keep reading to find out more staggering figures about Facebook advertising revenues and how you can make your ads work for you without costing an arm and a leg.

Recent Controversies and Their Effect on Facebook Advertising Revenue

Earlier in 2012, Facebook advertising revenues suffered something of a setback when the company settled a class action civil suit.  The suit pertained to “sponsored stories” appearing in people's news feeds and using photographs of people who had not given explicit permission for their photo to be commercialized in this way.

In spite of having to pay millions of dollars because of the class action suit, overall Facebook advertising revenues are up.  The site currently takes in about $10 of Facebook advertising revenue per user in the United States and Canada, and slightly less than that in other regions globally.

Although some big players have withdrawn their support for Facebook advertising after seeing less than ideal results, this has had little impact on overall Facebook advertising revenues.  Overall, Facebook advertising revenue has actually gone up even as click through rates (CTRs) have declined by about 8 percent over the last year.

Is Facebook Advertising Revenue Really Worth the Time?

Since you now have to pay more to get less, are the Facebook advertising revenues your firm could get really worth it?  You have to ask yourself these questions more and more, particularly if you're not able to see a direct stream of Facebook advertising revenue for your company in the current economy.

Remember that your Facebook advertising revenues may not all be obvious.  Not every client who researches your firm using your Facebook page or by looking at who “likes” you will let you know during their consultation visit.  

The effects of Facebook can be very subtle, and it's best to try to track Facebook advertising revenue from all sources, even if some of that revenue comes from clients who didn't click your direct ads.  Visibility and reach are key to expanding your practice, and you can't necessarily put an easy price tag on building an engaging web presence.

What Law Firms Will See the Biggest Facebook Advertising Revenues?

Before you decide on an advertising budget for your new campaign, you need to ask yourself how much Facebook is really worth to your law firm.  For some types of firms that market primarily to other professionals, Facebook advertising revenues may be minimal compared to what you could bring in using LinkedIn for more professional networking.

If, on the other hand, your law firm's advertising strategies usually rely on B2C marketing, you'll be much more at home on Facebook.  Firms that fulfill the needs of very specific demographics and know what their niche markets look like can do better on Facebook than general practitioners.  If you think that you do most of your business with a particular age group or people with some shared interest, you can make that work for effective, targeted ads that will deliver the best value per click and make your Facebook advertising revenues grow steadily.

How Can I Increase My Facebook Advertising Revenue?

Facebook advertising revenue is likely to be highest for firms that can leverage sponsored stories to their advantage and use landing pages.  Just making these two changes can vastly increase your conversions and overall Facebook advertising revenues.

Landing pages work for any kind of direct pay per click ad, but if you want to have real Facebook advertising revenue with your campaigns, you'll definitely need them to grab social media traffic.  People today want to be able to get through websites and find the information they want quickly.  

If you don't direct visitors to a relevant landing page, you'll be losing out on a lot of traffic and it won't matter what you bid for your clicks—people won't stay long enough to find out that you're a great law firm with great things to offer.  People decide whether they want to talk to you within the first ten seconds of reading the first page they're directed to on your website.  Without landing pages, that first ten seconds will be confusing and potentially frustrating.

The Future of Facebook Advertising Revenues: Mobile Advertising

As of summer 2012, only about half of advertisers are adding to their Facebook advertising revenue by running sponsored stories.  These stories appear in a person's news feed, in the same place where a status update from a friend or a link shared by a colleague might be.  This high-visibility placement is especially effective for generating higher Facebook advertising revenues when you're posting frequently to a blog and can turn those entries into a constant stream of fresh sponsored stories.

If you're not currently optimizing your Facebook ads for mobile marketing, you're missing out on the most lucrative source of Facebook advertising revenue.  Studies have shown that these ads can be up to 11 times more likely to generate click throughs than ads in a desktop browser.

How Can I Tell If I'm Getting a Good Return on Investment?

One of the best ways to tell if your Facebook marketing efforts have really been turning into Facebook advertising revenues is to ask clients to fill out comment cards.  On these comment cards, you can ask where someone researched your firm before deciding to use you as a lawyer.  This way, you'll find out about clients who saw your professional presence on Facebook and used it in their decision-making process.

You may want to ask an outside analytics company to analyze your results if you want to maximize your return on investment and have already tried all of these strategies to increase your Facebook advertising revenues.  The problem with your Facebook advertising revenue stream may be something unusual, and a professional web traffic analyst can help you get your revenues back where you want them from your Facebook pages.

Everything About Facebook Advertising Rates

The most recent Facebook advertising statistics are astonishing: over $5 billion is projected to be spent by businesses on Facebook advertising this year alone.  Perhaps more exciting than this figure is the change from Facebook advertising rates just a few years ago: today's revenues are six times greater than in 2009.  Keep reading this guide to find out more Facebook advertising statistics that can help you evaluate Facebook advertising effectiveness for your firm.

Why Would I Want to Advertise on Facebook?

According to Facebook advertising statistics, the reason that 61 percent of companies buy Facebook advertising is to increase awareness of their brand.  53 percent of companies pay Facebook advertising rates because they want to grow their audience, while just under half—44 percent—use it for direct conversions.

What these Facebook advertising statistics mean is that you don't necessarily need to get direct client referrals from social media in order to measure your Facebook advertising effectiveness.  Even if your Facebook presence is just great for increasing your number of inbound links and helping your search engine optimization, it's doing something great for your firm and you may still want to pay Facebook advertising rates.

One reason to advertise on Facebook, in particular, is that it gives you great tools for targeting your ads.  It's easy to increase Facebook advertising effectiveness by changing the hyper focused demographics that can see your ad copy.

Unlike Google AdWords, you won't have to pay different Facebook advertising rates depending on which keywords you want to advertise.  Instead, you can choose to increase your Facebook advertising effectiveness by picking the exact groups of people most likely to need your legal services.  

Facebook advertising statistics show that the most common criteria for targeting ads are age, location, interests, and connections.  It may surprise you to learn that for most advertisers, Facebook advertising effectiveness is not impacted by gender targeting.  Some attorneys may want to target a specific gender (for instance, child custody attorneys who specialize in father's rights issues), but most have better luck talking to men and women equally.

Some Facebook Advertising Statistics You Need to Know

You can improve your Facebook advertising effectiveness by doing things your competition hasn't yet picked up on.  For example, Facebook advertising rates for targeting specific zip codes can sometimes be significantly cheaper than targeting a broader geographic area, according to recent Facebook advertising statistics.  If your firm works primarily with people from just a few local zip codes, this level of hyper local targeting is statistically likely to be more effective for your advertising.

One place that many advertisers are now falling short is targeting based on connections.  Facebook advertising effectiveness actually increases when you target it toward your fans or the friends of your fans.  It's much more likely that paying Facebook advertising rates will be worth your firm's budget if you are targeting this group—but Facebook advertising statistics show that only about a third of advertisers are even bothering.  Get ahead of the competition by being the first in your area to use this kind of marketing.

Getting Help: Software That Can Make Targeting Easier

According to 2012 Facebook advertising statistics, today only about 15 percent of professionals paying Facebook advertising rates are actually using outside software to help them improve their Facebook advertising effectiveness.  You can install several different tools that will let you take a closer look at how you can generate more narrow audiences based on locations, connections, and demographic features.

Because it's unlikely that your competition is also using this kind of software, you can improve your chances of Facebook advertising effectiveness really simply this way.  You'll usually find that it takes much less time to set up a new split test or otherwise measure the performance of your ads when you're able to use automated targeting to take some of the guesswork out.

Agencies can also help you design split tests and figure out the answers to targeting dilemmas.  While 2/3 of advertisers currently report looking at split tests to decide which ads to run, most are only analyzing their targeting or their ad copy.  Few are even looking at their landing pages to determine whether a particular landing page is impacting how people interact with their website.

A Word About Facebook Advertising Effectiveness

If it isn't new, it's not trending on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.  Facebook advertising statistics show that Facebook advertising effectiveness is highest during the first 72 hours you're running a new ad.  That means that you should be constantly cycling through new images and text, and targeting your advertisements at different demographics.

If you're waiting for a week or longer to change your ad copy, you're paying Facebook advertising rates for nothing.  Changing your copy can have a near-immediate impact on your Facebook advertising effectiveness, and because ad headlines on Facebook are so short it doesn't need to take a long time to make new effective copy.   

Because the life cycle of a Facebook ad can be a matter of just days, you should also feel free to pull underperforming ads quickly rather than seeing if they'll pick up speed—Facebook advertising statistics show that you're better off just using something new.

Should I Be Afraid of Rising Facebook Advertising Rates?

Facebook advertising statistics definitely show that as of now, Facebook advertising rates are increasing.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, because new types of targeted ads are actually making Facebook advertising effectiveness increase too.

Today's Facebook advertising statistics indicate that while it may cost about 50 percent more on a per-impression basis to use mobile sponsored stories than to get an ad into someone's sidebar, they're over 11 times more likely to be clicked on.  11 times—that's a huge increase in Facebook advertising effectiveness, and all for making a relatively small change.

To capitalize on these trends, you'll need to make your landing pages mobile friendly.  If you make your telephone number easily accessible, the easiest way to see your Facebook ads paying off may be watching your lines light up as new clients start calling your office based on mobile advertising.

Web Analytics Tools for Social Networking

Do I need a Web Analytics Tool for Social Media?

If you’re an attorney and you haven’t marketed your services through social networking, it’s likely that you’re behind your competitors in your area.  Some web analytics tools offered by Google and Yahoo can indirectly measure the results social media had on visitors to your main website, but you should consider a web analytics tool that measures your social media sites directly. 

Free Web Analytics Tools for Social Networking and Law Firms

1. Social Mention

This web analytics tool allows you to search results in real-time for social media websites.  The web analytic tools allow you to establish alerts for keywords or your firm’s name and then receive daily emails telling you the number of people tracking you through social media.  You can also download a widget to receive alerts in real-time, but the website recommends that you rely on email alerts to track your results over a period of time. 

2. Twazzup

 This web analytics tool is easy to use and is much simpler to use compared to most web analytics tools.  You do not have to download any software to your computer, and you can type in keywords (such as your firm’s name) to see what people are saying about your services on Twitter.  The web analytic tools offered by Twazzup also allow you to search for what people are saying about your services on other websites and blogs. 

3. Addict-o-matic

The web analytics tools offered by this service are considered some of the best for monitoring social media websites.  This web analytics tool allows you to monitor results on Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Google Blog Search, WordPress, YouTube, and many more.  The web analytic tools are easy to use and you can see what social media websites are talking about the services of your firm.

4. HowSociable

The web analytics tools offered by this service allow you to measure results on some of the most popular social networking websites available today.  The web analytics tool allows you to measure results on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, and numerous other websites.  The web analytic tools give you a visibility score that allows you to measure your firm’s performance and brand awareness.  The results are sent through email alerts.

As mentioned above, a large percentage of social networking websites offer their own unique web analytics tools.  Some of these web analytic tools are easy to use and can measure multiple results, but by using any web analytics tool above or below, you can measure results from multiple websites at a time. 

Web Analytics Tools for Social Networking with a Price

1. Scout Labs

This web analytics tool offers a free 14 day trial before you officially sign up.  The web analytics tools offered by this service allow you to easily track your advertising campaigns and those of your competition throughout several different social media websites. 

2. HootSuite

 The web analytic tools offered by this service are offered in a free version and a paid version, and you can try the paid version for a whole month before deciding which version is best for your firm.  The web analytics tool allows you to evaluate the performance of your advertising campaign through multiple social media websites, and you can also monitor comments about your services with the web analytics tools as well. 

3. Trackur

The web analytic tools offered by this service also come in a free and paid version.  The web analytics tool only charges about $18 per month and—according to a large percentage of reviews across the internet—stands as one of the best web analytics tools for monitoring social media websites.  You only have to pay for the web analytic tools you choose to use with the service, and the company prides itself with its simple design and user-friendly tools. 

4. BrandsEye

The web analytic tools offered by BrandsEye offer starting packages as low as $1 per month for legal bloggers and increases prices for packages that are offered to businesses and firms.  The web analytics tool is considered one of the best on the internet for monitoring the reputation of your brand, which can prove extremely beneficial to your firm if you’re advertising across several different social media websites. 

The web analytics tools offered by this service allow you to search various websites on the internet and the service provides an overall score determined by what people are saying about your brand and services.  By using the score and web analytic tools, you can make adjustments to your advertising campaign and measure the results with your score over a period of time.

5. Radian6

Even though this web analytics tool is one of the more expensive social media tracking services offered on the internet, it’s also considered one of the best.  The web analytics tools provide a dashboard for you to track multiple websites at one time and there are also professional web analytics tools. 

For example, you can use Radian6 to examine multiple case studies across several different social networking websites, and you can also review e-books and other services to help your advertising campaign. 

Conclusion

You should check out several different web analytics tools before you decide what service is best for your firm.  You might consider choosing a free web analytics tool before pursuing options that require a monthly fee so you can get adjusted.  Many firms hire outside help to manage an advertising campaign across social media websites, but you’ll have to decide whether you have the time and motivation to pursue such a campaign by yourself. 

Comprehensive Guide to CPM Rates, SEO, and Social Media

What is a CPM Rate?

CPM rates can work in two different ways.  For one, a website that hosts advertisements for other websites can calculate an average CPM to see how much revenue the entire website is making from advertisements compared to the amount of visitors to the website. 

Additionally, an attorney or firm can conduct an average CPM (cost per 100 impressions) for the amount they spent on the advertisement compared to how many customers the advertisements have brought in and added profit to the firm. 

Clickthroughs and a CPM Rate

An attorney or firm can use two different equations to figure out an average CPM.  A website that posts advertisements for the attorney or firm only needs to use one equation because they do not need to adjust their ROI (return on investment) before figuring out a CPM rates.  If an attorney or firm wants to figure out a CPM rate, they first need to figure out the ROI for the advertising campaign.  This is simply done by subtracting the costs from the revenue generated by the website. 

Then, the firm can calculate their own CPM rates using the following equation:

Total site revenue / total site page views X 1,000= Average CPM

Just like a website that provides advertisements, a firm will also want a low CPM rate so they can spend a low amount on advertising but yield a high profit margin from the advertisements.  There are certain ways that a firm can lower their average CPM, and suggestions are provided in the following sections:

Ways to Decrease a CPM Rate

A CPM advertisement is usually used for brand exposure, but there are ways to use a CPM advertisement and increase web traffic to an attorney’s website.  The most important factors include the structure marketing of the advertisement and the information located on the website as well as other SEO techniques.  According to a survey performed by MarketingSherpa in April of 2011, the following initiatives were proven effective or ineffective for SEO:

As indicated from the graph above, the best way to decrease your average CPM and bring more consumers to  your website through a CPM advertisement is by offering great content, title tags, landing pages, and the URL structure.  The graph also indicates that CPM rates can be reduced through social media, but a large percentage of the social media category only states the initiative can somewhat decrease a CPM rate. 

The rest of this article will argue how the right advertisement on social networking websites like Facebook can increase SEO and reduce your average CPM over a period of time. 

Lowering your CPM Rates with Social Media

By using the right types of advertisements on Facebook and social media, your CPM rate can drop and you can bring more traffic to your website.  The following considerations can help with your average CPM:

1.       Ad copy: test how consumers are responding to your ad by asking them to “Like” the ad if they believe it is working well.

2.       Image: try out several different images to see which advertisement will work the best.  You might find that different images work better

for certain demographics that could potentially improve your CPM rate.

3.       Interest groups: see what types of interest groups are liking your advertisement and thus helping your CPM rates.  You shouldn’t try to target interest groups that do not respond regularly.

4.       Groups within groups: once you’ve found which types of interest groups like the advertisement and helping your average CPM, try splitting the group up into different categories so you can adjust your ad or create several ads.

Select the Option for the CPM Campaign

Facebook allows you to select a CPC or a CPM for your advertising campaign, and you can indicate how much you’re willing to pay per 1000 impressions.  After you’ve set up your campaign, you’ll have to monitor your click through rates and adjust your advertisement for the best CPM rates. 

Your CTR will undoubtedly decrease over time, and you’ll be required to adjust your advertisement to help your CPM rate. 

Calculate a Cost per Fan Figure

In order to calculate a cost per fan rate, you’ll calculate like you do for your average CPM.  Once you see how the cost per fan number compares to your actual CPM rate, it’s likely that you have more fans that actual customers so the number for the cost per fan will likely be lower than the your actual CPM rates.  If this is the case, you should take steps to close the gap between the fan number and your average CPM. 

Bidding Higher will Get your Ads Approved Faster

The technique may seem obvious to help your average CPM, but Facebook knows which attorneys are willing to pay more for an advertisement.  The trick to getting your advertisement approved more quickly is setting your bidding rate high at first.  Once your advertisement is approved, you can lower your bidding rate to a lower price.  The faster you have an advertisement up, the faster you can check your CPM rate and make any necessary changes to help your average CPM. 

Conclusion for CPM Rates

Many of the tips provided in this article for CPM rates apply to advertisements outside of social networking as well.  The trick is getting your advertisement to appear as a useful piece of information that relates to a large group of the public.  If you need more information on your CPM rate, you should consider the article on this website titled, “Essential Information on Cost per Impression Rates.” 

Tips, Formats, and Statistics on Mobile Display Advertising

Statistics Relating to Mobile Display Advertising

According to Yahoo, advertising displays on mobile phones is expected to increase by 25% in 2012 alone.  Additionally, the following statistics released by Google reflect the increasing need for attorneys to adjust their advertising display for mobile devices:

·         81% of smartphone users use the internet on their mobile device

·         59% of smartphone users access the internet when they are waiting

·         72% use their smartphones while using other types of media such as television, music, books, etc.

Law Firms and Local Content

Local content is extremely important in mobile display advertising.  For example, the following graph shows actions that consumers took after looking up a local content on their smartphone:

Different Types of Advertising Display Advertisements for Mobile Devices

The following types of mobile display advertising are offered by Google Mobile Ads:

1. Interactive Video Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is displayed to users when they launch apps and click on certain banners.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because you can mix video and audio content in order to draw in more clients.  Legal interactive video ads appear mainly on Android and iOS apps.

2. Interstitials Ads

These types of ads appear within an app and occur when there are breaks within the app.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display for the following reasons:

·         this type of mobile display advertising attract more customers than text or image ads

·         the places are eye-catching and offer great results to for websites

3. Canvas and Expandable Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is started by the user, and once they click on the ad, it expands to cover the entire screen.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because rich media displays like this type are much attractive to potential clients.

4. Tablet Image Banners

This type of mobile display advertising is used exclusively on tablets.  Google recommends this type of advertising display for the following reasons:

·         those using tablets engage more in graphical and image ads rather than text ads

·         research shows that in 2010, twice as many users clicked on image ads on an iPad than on standard ads

5. Static and Multi-Panel Banners

These types of mobile display advertising are available on smartphones, simple phones, tablets, and more.  Google recommends using these types of advertising display platforms because banners are cost effective and can often increase brand awareness for your firm. 

6. Click-to-Download App Ads

This type of mobile display advertising is a text or banner ad that provides a link to the app store for your app.  Google recommends using this type of advertising display because it provides consumers an easy way to travel to the App Store and download the app for your legal services.

7. InStream Video Ads (YouTube)

Google recommends this type of mobile display advertising for Android users.  The InStream video will run when the Android users play a video.  Google recommends this type of advertising display because it can increase brand awareness. 

8. Brand Channels (YouTube)

Google recommends this type of mobile display advertising for both Android and iOS users.  You can run your advertisements on a certain channel, and Google recommends this type of advertising display to increase brand awareness to consumers on varying degrees of mobile devices. 

Tips for your Mobile Display Advertising Campaign

Google recommends a several tips that can increase sales, improve results, make keyword lists more relevant to your services, and get you more leads.  Consider the following tips for your advertising display:

Tip # 1 Build a Mobile Site to Increase Business through Mobile Devices

If clients arrive at your firm’s website and it’s adapted for mobile devices, they are much more likely to engage with the website on their phone.  According to research release by Google, 57% of consumers wouldn’t recommend a business that had a poor mobile site. 

A good mobile website for mobile display advertising allows users to navigate without pinching or zooming, and the text should be visible at arm’s length.  Google recommends that you visit www.howtogomo.com to test your firm’s website and advertising display.  You will receive recommendations on how to improve the site, and you can find developers to build the website and the advertising display. 

Tip #2 Create Separate Mobile Campaigns

Google recommends that you create several different mobile display advertising campaigns that will only target mobile devices.  Google also recommends that you create an AdWords campaign along with your mobile display advertising campaign.  Google states that a mobile display advertising campaign can do the following:

·         create a mobile call-to-action that can help your services appeal to more mobile users

·         find the keywords that work best on mobile devices compared to those on desktop computers

Tip #3 Build User Friendly Keyword Lists

Google recommends that you create keyword lists that are shorter than normal for your mobile display advertising campaign.  For example, while searching on a smart phone, clients may be much more likely to type in a short keyword phrase like “divorce attorney Vegas NV” instead of “divorce attorneys in Las Vegas Nevada”. 

Tip #4 Use Click-to-Call Ads

Perhaps one of the most important recommendations for your mobile display advertising campaign from Google is to use Click-to-call ads in order to receive more leads.  If a consumer can speak with someone before receiving services, they are much more likely to use your services.  Google offers the following benefits of using click-to-call ads in mobile advertising:

·         click-to-call advertising display is responsible in a 6-8% increase in click through rates

·         a click-to-call costs the same a click ad to the website

·         these ads allow the firm to see how many calls they’ve received from each keyword

Conclusion

By using the tips and different types of mobile display advertising listed above, you can begin to launch a successful campaign.  You should also consider combining different types of search ads into your campaign.