1. Where Do I Start?
How to Launch Your Firm's
Facebook Presence
Kelli S. Burns, Ph.D.

2. Topics for Today
• Getting on Board
– Why have a Facebook page?
• Building your Boat
– Setting up your page
• Navigating a Sea of Content
– Managing your content and the secrets of the News
Feed
• Finding a Treasure Chest of Data
– Admin Panel Basics
• Advertising
• Joining Groups/Pages

3. Building your Business
• The legal practice is still very much a word
of mouth business built through solid
relationships with clients.
– But social media help increase the speed of
word of mouth.

4. Why Have a Facebook Presence?
• Raises brand awareness
• Potential clients might be checking Facebook
for more information about your firm
• Improves Google’s search engine ranking
• Establishes your firm/attorneys as thought
leaders
• Allows clients to share experiences through
reviews

5. Page, Group or Profile?
• Profiles are for individual/personal use.
– Can only have one Facebook profile.
• Groups
– Better for small organizations/clubs that need to
communicate with members
• Pages
– Best choice for your law practice
– Most customizable and no limits on # of fans

6. Setting up your Page
• Create your page
– https://www.facebook.co
m/pages/create.php
• Are you a local
business/place or a
company/org/institution?
• Choose either Lawyer the
Legal/Law category
• Continue setup with
website URL and page
description

7. • Get a custom URL when your page reaches 25
fans
– https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67
0888052953
• Add a cover image and profile image
• The About section permits 155 characters of
text that are visible on your profile.

8. Buying fans?
• Look at a page’s likes to see
where fans live and age
group.
• How many will really be
“talking about this”?
– Your “irrelevant” content will
be shown to fewer people.
• Instead:
– Promote the page to your
clients (email)
– Promote online and offline
– Run ads
Recommended video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=oVfHeWTKjag

9. Add Social Media Links on the Top of your
Website Homepage

10. Keep Your Content Fresh
• Don’t limit your content to ad/marketing
messages.
• Think of yourself as a news source for your
clients/fans.
– Post links to recent news stories and legal decisions.
– Write opinion pieces
• Include content that is visual (photos) and
interactive (questions).
– Text only posts on Pages will get limited distribution
• Use link share instead of embedding links.
• Highlight your community involvement.

11. The Reality of Facebook
• The average number of pages liked by the
typical Facebook user increased 50% in 2013.
• The average user might have 1,500 posts that
could appear their feed each day. For others
with lots of friends and pages liked, that
number could be 15,000.
• Not all of your fans will even be online when
you post.
• Even if they are, Facebook curates the news
feed for users.

12. Are your fans seeing your posts?
• Organic reach of
pages is diminished.
• Facebook explained
decreased organic
reach is impacted by
increased sharing.
• Many contend that
Facebook is selling
more exposure in
news feeds.

14. Performance Impacts Reach
• If you publish interesting posts that get
likes, comments, and shares, your reach
increases.
– If not, your reach decreases.
• More competition = more work for you

15. Reach is more important than fans
Here are two pages, one with
1M fans and the other with
500k fans. This screenshot
from our Facebook Page
Performance Barometer
shows the average number of
fans reached by each post of
the page for the last 50 posts.
But, even if the second one
reaches half the fans of the
first one, it still reaches 8
times more people each time
it publishes something. Don’t
you think you need to be
aware of that?
(Emeric Ernoult of AgoraPulse)

16. Admin Panel Basics
• Build Audience
– Invite Email Contacts
– Invite Friends
– Share Page (on your personal page)
– Promote Page ($)
• See Insights
– https://www.facebook.com/business/news/pagei
nsights
– Ads Manager

17. Promote Your Page
• From Admin Panel, click Build Audience and
then Promote Page.

18. Boost a Post
• Boost a post directly
from the post on your
news feed or from the
admin panel.
• Can select fans/friends
of fans or target your
audience through
demos.

21. Content Strategy
• Don’t calculate engagement by dividing those who
liked, shared, commented by total number of fans.
• Instead divide those who liked, shared, commented
AND clicked by reached users.
• What patterns do you see with the most engaging
content? Is it a certain type of content? Is it shared on
a specific day of the week or time of day?

22. Posting on Facebook
• Best times: Weekdays 6:00-8:00am and
2:00-5:00pm
• Worst times: Weekends 10:00pm-4:00am

26. Facebook Ads
• Placement
– News Feed
– Sidebar
– Search results

27. Ads Manager

29. Facebook Pages/Groups
• Join a page/group that would contain good
prospects for your law firm
– Can use Facebook ads to target people who liked or
joined pages/groups that are relevant to your business
• Start your own page
– Can use Google keyword advertising to direct people
to Facebook group
– Should disclose that your law firm sponsors the page
– Create contact form on page

30. Final Thoughts
• If you can’t keep the page fresh with new
content, it’s better for you to delete it.
• Instead of having a Facebook page for your
firm, you could use your personal page to
promote your brand.
• Be mindful of solicitation rules when using
electronic media.