That’s the total number of views that my videos have received as of today, February 16, 2010. That’s not a misprint. That’s not my mother-in-law clicking on the same video 10,000 times either.
Just imagine if that number of viewers saw your videos. Would you have more callers to your office?
When you do a YouTube search, they now offer ‘promoted’ videos in the yellow space at the very top, very bottom and right side of the page. To get those spots, you must pay to advertise your videos there. How much you pay depends on what you’re willing to pay, similar to Google’s pay-per-click campaigns.
Anytime I see a video being ‘promoted’ it tells me:
It’s true. 99% of attorney video truly stinks. It’s boring. It’s unimaginative. It lacks useful information. It’s stuffy. It continues to personify lawyers as inaccessible and unapproachable. Many lawyer videos do nothing but talk about themselves.
Guess what? In case you haven’t noticed, viewers don’t care about you. They only care about themselves. Until lawyers and their video producers recognize this, lawyers will continue to make video that stinks.
Ever hear of Blip.tv or Dailymotion.com? You should have.
These are free video sharing sites. Naturally, I upload my videos there, among many others. I only post original content. I only post useful and educational material in my videos. I never violate terms of service. I respect others, and expect others to respect me. I always respond to comments on my videos. I’m always considerate of someone else’s comments even though I may not agree with them. Well, guess what?
Do you?
You know how to press “Record” on your flip camera, right? You know not to shoot in low-level light, right? You know not to use your on-board microphone, right? You know how to set your white balance, even on your little handy video camera like your Kodak Zi8, right?
Excellent. Then why aren’t you creating video to market your law practice? If you are, why aren’t those viewers calling your office? What are they waiting for, a personal invitation? Are your viewers really expecting you to reach through the computer screen and physically pull them into your office? Get real.
I opened up my e-mail today and noticed an interesting headline in my Google alerts. The headline read “When Black Ice Strikes, Who’s to Blame?”
I was even more curious because it had my name and website listed under the headline. I knew that I didn’t write a blog post with that name or a video with that title. I was intrigued.
The website URL was the New York Times online blog. I clicked on the link which took me to the New York Times online site. The blog post was all about black ice and how dangerous it is in New York City. Further into the article the writer mentioned a video I made titled “Slip and fall on snow and ice-who is at fault?” and some of the comments I made in my video.
Scott Drake discusses video marketing with New York Medical Malpractice & Personal Injury Trial attorney Gerry Oginski.
Oginski produces his own video and distributes the content to his website and other 3rd party sites. He uses video as his primary marketing tool.
It wasn’t that long ago that I considered myself a trial attorney focused solely on handling my client’s cases.
As I learned how important it was to get new business, there was always the requisite get-to-know other lawyer meetings in order to expand my referral base. I also tried all the traditional forms of advertising including Yellow Pages, TV commercials, display ads, classified ads, 1-800 number campaigns, free recorded messages and on and on.
“What did you say?”
“You sound like you’re in a tunnel.”
“You sound like you’re in the toilet.”
“You sound tinny.”
“Your audio seems like it was made with a child’s toy microphone.”
In this video I give a “State of Affairs” commentary about online attorney marketing from 2009. In the next series of Fireside chats you’ll see more commentary about how attorneys need to engage their viewers more and leave behind the old ways of ‘marketing’ themselves with traditional forms of advertising.
