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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: How to Effectively Deal with Negative Reviews

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. – Aristotle

Client feedback is essential to the growth and sustainability of any business, including law firms. Today, there are more outlets than ever for clients to provide feedback about their experience with a law firm and its attorneys. Yelp, Google My Business, and Facebook are some of the most well-known platforms and are very accessible to clients to post reviews. But what happens when a client decides to share their negative experience about the firm or its lawyers on one or more of these public forums?

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Ad Spotlight: March Madness

The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, appropriately named March Madness, gets the ball rolling on March 14-15, 2017. According to the International Business Times, 2016’s championship game between North Carolina and Villanova clocked in around 22.3 million viewers.

This year, Turner Networks will continue to share NCAA Tournament coverage with CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV. A total of 43 games will air on cable channels, including exclusive coverage of the Play-In Round and 24 games in the First Round, as well as coverage all the way through the Regional Finals (Elite 8).

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Why Facebook Advertising Is Important for Law Firms and Solo Practitioners

As of the third quarter of 2016, Facebook boasts 1.49 billion monthly active users and, during this time, 1.18 billion active users visited the social media network on a daily basis, according to Statista. Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, which means it should be an integral part of any law firm or solo practitioner’s advertising strategy, as it allows you to connect with clients or prospects in a way not seen with traditional advertising strategies.

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Top 5 Reasons Attorneys Should Blog

1.) Search Engines Love Content

If you want search engines to pay attention to your site, the more quality content, the better. Moz.com — a leading resource on effective search engine optimization (SEO) — consistently found that content quality and quantity are among the highest determinants of search engine rankings.

There’s no real mystery as to why search engines reward more, better and newer content. A search engine thrives by giving its users the best, most relevant information in response to search queries.

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Trust: The Key to PR’s Success or Failure

Trust in MarketingWhat’s the most important part of public relations? You might think that the answer is in the word “public”—in other words, how wide an audience you can reach with information about your organization. However, an equal amount of attention needs to be focused on the “relations” component of PR. PR is less a set of tried-and-true formulas for communicating with customers, and more a discipline of building trust. The relationships you cultivate with audiences will ultimately determine your company’s success or failure.

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“The Times” Is Changing: Study Shows Increasing Role of Social Media in News Delivery

Social Media Is Shifting News SourcesWhere do you get your news? If this question were asked forty or even twenty years ago, the most common responses would have included radio, television and good old-fashioned newspapers. But the Pew Research Center and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation recently released a study on news and social media, and the findings reveal a significant demographic shift over the past few years.

Shifting News Sources

The big statistic revealed from this study is that 44% of American adults get their news via Facebook. Yes, 44% of all adult Americans stay informed through the world’s most popular social networking platform. This number represents two-thirds of all adult Facebook users, up from 47% of Facebook users in 2013.

Some other figures from this study are worth mentioning as well. The total percentage of American adults who get their news from any social media network (including Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr, and more) is 62%, and almost two-thirds of those usually get it from just one social media network. For journalists and marketers alike, this represents a paradigm shift. While news consumers of a previous generation might have read the day’s headlines in the morning paper, heard additional news on the radio during their commute to work and returned home to catch the six o’clock news on TV, today’s consumers are increasingly likely to get their updates from just one source—most often Facebook. Today, information and advertising are still delivered on a screen, but the screen can be found more and more on consumers’ desks or in their hands rather than in their living rooms.

Shifting Attitudes

Another important statistic: Among Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube users who get their news online, about 60% report that they merely see the headlines while they’re doing other things online; only 40% specifically search the web for it. The Internet has made it easier than ever before for information and advertising to reach consumers wherever they are, even if they don’t intentionally seek it out.

It is impossible to predict whether social platforms will ever completely crowd out the “traditional” media of newspapers, radio, and TV. But in regard to marketing and public relations, organizations can gain valuable information about consumers’ shifting news sources from last month’s report. A thoughtful, relationship-driven approach to advertising is essential to navigating the complex avenues of social media successfully.

If you have questions about how best to promote your organization across social media, PR4Lawyers is happy to help. Don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-866-PR4LAWYERS or at johnzaher@pr4lawyers.com.

Advertising with Facebook: An Excellent Way to Boost Your Reach

People are influenced by what they see online. Statistics show that nearly 900 million people log onto Facebook every day. According to one report, one-fifth of all Internet traffic in the United States occurs on Facebook, making it a very valuable method of communication. Traditional advertising doesn’t have the same impact it once did, and the lawyers and law firms who do not utilize social media advertising may be overlooked in favor of more tech-savvy practitioners.

Advertising on Facebook allows you to create a customized audience based on the unique demographics (age, income, relationship, work, job title), interests (“Liked Pages” or “Mentions” regarding specific topics) and behaviors (business purchases, financial purchases, shopping habits, traveling habits) that you want to target your product or service to. Facebook Ads can help you drive online traffic, promote your app, or raise brand awareness by allowing people to get directions to your store, view your video, download your app, or take an action on your website or Facebook page, such as downloading a guidebook or brochure or requesting a consultation. Facebook Ads have different creative options available. You can run your ad as a video, a “static” photo, or as a “carousel,” which contains multiple images that a user has the option to swipe through.

PR4Lawyers has been running several Facebook advertising campaigns for law firm clients, real estate, elder law and estate planning firms. Below, please find a case study for the Emmanuel Jacques Almosnino (EJA) law firm.

EJA Law Firm:

The agency also recently used Facebook Advertising to increase website traffic to an international law firm.

Using Facebook’s targeting capabilities, we were able to reach users between the ages of 21 – 65+ on Facebook who show an interest in the Caribbean island of St. Barth and also expressed behaviors indicating they are involved in travel, leisure, and real estate investments. PR4Lawyers digital advertising and graphics specialists created a static-photo Facebook Ad. Users were then directed to a landing page, which offers more information about the law firm and its services. Users could download a brochure or fill out a contact form in order to reach a representative.

The Facebook Advertising effort enabled the firm to reach more than 275,000 users and resulted in over 16,000 website clicks at an average cost of $0.09 per click. The ad started running in April 2016. Compared to the prior month, the firm saw a 1,235.61% increase in overall website sessions (205 – 2,738) and a 62,125.00% increase in website sessions via social referral (4 – 2,489). It also saw a 129,300% increase in page engagement (1 – 1,294 actions on page) and a 410,933% increase in total reach (4 – 24,662).

If you are interested in exploring a Facebook advertising campaign for your firm contact John Zaher at johnzaher@pr4lawyers.com or call 1-866-PR4LAWYERS.

What Mobile-First Marketing Means for Your Firm

Last month, Google held its Performance Summit in San Francisco, California, where the search engine giant revealed a number of changes to Google’s AdWords and Analytics tools. Some of the highlights of Google’s summit include the development of “Promoted Pins” in Google Maps, changes in ad bidding and a new appearance for ads in search results. All of these developments reveal that Google is moving forward into the mobile-first era while continuing to handle trillions of searches every year.

Google announced that its Maps service will soon include a new generation of localized ads, as well as “promoted pins” featuring local businesses. They note, “Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are related to location,” revealing that “people’s online and offline worlds are colliding.” Since locally-based mobile searches are growing, this is a tremendous opportunity for organizations to integrate their advertisements into the stream of their followers’ lives and to show them that they are located nearby.

The changes to AdWords bidding will allow customization based on the platform of choice —desktop, tablet, or mobile. This alteration is driven by Google’s commitment to pursue a “mobile-first” approach to advertising. The increased customization capabilities for AdWords bidding will allow firms to optimize their marketing for whichever platform drives the greatest response and, ultimately, to reach clients more effectively.

Finally, the “mobile-first” approach to advertising has led Google to reformat the way search results appear to favor mobile platforms. This follows Google’s decision earlier this spring to remove right-hand ads from desktop search results. Expanded-text ads and new responsiveness features in mobile displays further contribute to the versatility and appeal of Google’s world-leading ads program.

Google has published some very helpful information about how mobile searches connect customers to physical businesses. Of course, Google’s search and advertising capabilities have revolutionized the face of marketing in the digital age, and its shift toward a “mobile-first” approach means they are continuing to have influence in this area. The call for professionals in this ever-changing media environment is clear: as Google notes, “accounting for mobile and designing for mobile-first are two very different things.” Mobile advertising and search capabilities offer a promising way to bridge the gap between cyberspace and physical space, as the content users see online pushes them to visit physical locations.

PR4Lawyers is a division of The Public Relations and Marketing Group, a Certified Google Partner dedicated to helping organizations and professionals drive clients to their firms through strategies like mobile-first marketing. If you are interested in any of the services we offer, please contact us at info@PR4Lawyers.com or 1-866-PR4Lawyers for a free consultation.

Bringing Traffic to Your Website: On-page, On-site, and Off-site Optimization Strategies

seo for lawyers and attorneys

These days, it’s not enough to have a beautiful, user-friendly website. It’s also important to consider the site’s existence on, and interaction with, search engines. Search engine optimization is one of the best ways to initiate and funnel traffic to your website, and a well-performing website utilizes the right combination of on-page, on-site and off-site optimization strategies.

On-page optimization ensures the optimal mix and frequency of well-researched keyword phrases.  This typically consists of measuring relevancy across items such as page title tags, meta descriptions, header (h1, h2) tags, image alt tags, link title attributes and paragraph text on a single web page.  On-page optimization also focuses on including keyword phrases in the right locations of a web page.  Search engines will prioritize the importance of a keyword phrase that’s physically higher up on the page and tagged correctly, and give that particular phrase more weight when categorizing and ranking your website in organic search results.

On-site optimization focuses on the importance of relevancy across many pages of a website, or the entire site.   An example of this would be a website for a law firm where all topics (including practice areas, blog pages, articles etc.) focus on law-related issues, or anything relevant to the business.  Typical on-site optimization strategies include a rich link structure that connects keywords or phrases to other related pages that may more clearly define the specified keyword phrase.  Ensuring that the anchor text used in a hyperlink is rich with keywords that clearly define what the subject of the destination page is about gives a search engine a better idea as to what the overall site’s theme and category is.  A good example of this would be avoiding a phrase like “click here” as a means to link to another page.  Other on-site strategies would include having a current XML sitemap to help search engines crawl and identify the location of all of your website pages without missing any, using schema markup to better translate information about your organization to search engines (location, hours, type of business), identifying and removing duplicate content to avoid penalties, and using DRY (don’t repeat yourself), lean, compressed (minified) code so that your site loads quickly, giving visitors an optimal experience.

Off-site optimization techniques primarily focus on aspects that can increase the visibility of a website in organic search results by way of factors that are external to the website itself.  This would include social media strategies set to drive traffic and inbound links, obtaining backlinks by use of credible online directories, and ensuring that URLs, address listings, and phone numbers are precise and accurate across all locations on the web.  Also, writing compelling, original, quality content like press releases or blogs that authoritative sites like news sites and thought-leading blogs may want to link to, can help increase your organic search rankings.

A healthy combination of on-page, on-site and off-site optimization is the best approach to increasing visibility for your website. PR4Lawyers is both knowledgeable and experienced in creating successful optimization strategies for lawyers’ websites. Call now for a consultation at 631-207-1057 or email us at info@pr4lawyers.com.

 

5 Free Tools to Support Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

With the amount of social media programs available on the Web, law firms must be able to efficiently leverage time spent on social media marketing. This article will provide readers with a brief introduction to the social media services Eventbrite, Tweriod, WiseStamp, Disqus and Unfollowr. These five tools are quick to use, helpful, and conveniently free of charge.

  1. Eventbrite — Eventbrite’s mission is to make events as easy to create, find and attend as possible. With this online service, firms can create and promote events online. This tool allows users to customize event pages, integrate with email marketing services, connect with Facebook and offers the ability to scan QR-coded tickets for attendees with smartphones at the door. If your event is free, this service is free to use. For paid events, there is a small fee to sell tickets online.
  1. Tweriod — This tool analyzes both your firm’s tweets and your followers’ tweets to provide you with the best times and days to send tweets. By tweeting during time periods where you’ll receive the most exposure, you will make the most out of your efforts. Firms should run a free monthly Tweriod analysis and use the provided data to schedule posts in programs such as HootSuite or TweetDeck. For more information on scheduling social media posts at the right times, please read our article, “Timing is Everything: When to Blog, Tweet and More.”
  1. WiseStamp — WiseStamp allows users to create unique, branded email signatures through customized apps. For example, you can link your email signature to any social network, share your latest WordPress blog articles, include QR codes and much more. The free version of WiseStamp allows users to create one personal and one corporate email signature.
  1. Disqus — For those who receive an excessive amount of spam in the comment section of their blog, Disqus can be very helpful. This free tool can get rid of spammers by upgrading your comment system so that users must create an account before they can comment. This program is compatible with WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Drupal, HTML and JavaScript. Also, Disqus has been approved by the Google Search Quality team to be organically crawled unlike any other comment platform. 
  1. Unfollowr — If you need to clean up your “following” list on Twitter, this free program will help you keep track of people who have stopped following your account. To join, just follow @unfollowr on Twitter and you will receive digests to your email or direct messages with a list of unfollowers. This is a great tool to remove inactive or unfruitful accounts and ensure that you aren’t losing any important firm contacts or personal connections.

For more information, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at 1-866-PR4Lawyers or johnzaher@pr4lawyers.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

 

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  • Advertisements were created for McGuire Pelaez & Bennet PC, Neil H Greenberg & Associates, Frederick K. Brewington, Sakkas Cahn & Weiss, The Margolis Law Firm and Lauren P. Raysor

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