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Take advantage of YouTube
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: July 17, 2015
What if you could start your own television channel, and use it to promote your law business?
Well, you can. You can join the millions of people who post videos on YouTube, and create a channel that can drive business to your office, and for free (other than the time that it will take).
YouTube can be used in conjunction with all social media, as well as with your website.
Start by establishing a YouTube business account. You will need a Google account to do this, so make one if you don’t already have one.
If you have a Google+ page, you can do that through that page. Otherwise, go to YouTube.com, and click on your Google icon in the upper right corner of the page. Click on the gear icon, click on “create a new channel,” pick out a name, and choose a category. Then take the tutorial that follows.
Make sure that your icon, which is controlled on your Google account page, is the proper one. You can also edit the art within the channel.
After the visuals are in place, hit the “About” tab, and set up your channel for a description, links, and connections to other channels (like to other lawyers in the firm, etc.).
Once the techie stuff is done, you can move on to the business development stuff.
Create your content through the “YouTube Creator Studio.”
Start with an introductory video. Then create content that helps people solve problems, and end each video with a call to action. Keep the videos relatively short, although I have seen good videos that consisted of a CLE lecture by the attorney. If you do that, break it up into 3- to 5-minute segments.
Another tip is to add/ link to other helpful videos. This can be done almost daily, and will help keep people interested, and can be done in three ways: sharing videos, commenting on videos, and through the search engine (Google can search videos).
Link your new YouTube channel to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and website. Then send out a newsletter to your email list announcing the channel. And you are now an international television star, like Madonna.
Thanks to the EnchantingLawyer for the idea for this column.