LMME 033 : The Latest Facebook Redesign and what it means for your Law Practice

Today we are going to dig into the latest Facebook redesign and how you can put it to work for you on your law firm Facebook page. In addition, I’m proud to announce that the Legal Marketing Made Easy Academy is now in full-blown pre-launch mode.  In the next several days I will be releasing a FREE, three-part video series that will dig deep into some of the most important ways to build and grow your law firm.  I’ve really enjoyed putting this content together and I think you are really going to love it.  To make sure you don’t miss this free video training, head on over to the Academy pre-launch page and enter your name and email address.

In addition, by getting on this list, you will receive notification when the enrollment opens for the Academy.

Enjoy!

Right click here to download the mp3

Items Mentioned in the Podcast

• The Hart Law Firm Facebook Page
• The Legal Marketing Made Easy Facebook Page
• Podcast interview with Jacob Sapochnick
• Jacob Sapochnick’s Law Firm Facebook Page

Things to consider with your Header Image

Facebook has a lot going on in their header space now.  The biggest issue here is making sure that the text in your header image is not covered up by the default text from your Facebook page.

Stats to the right of your header

As you can see in the image above, in the latest Facebook redesign, your statistics for the past week are shown to the right of your header image.  Included in this sidebar are the following:

• New Page Likes
• Total post reach
• Unread messages and notifications (notifications includes clicks, likes, shares and comments for each of your posts)

Some Facebook experts say that you should track this information in an excel spreadsheet or Google Docs page.  I think this is a good idea if you are making a significant effort to increase the reach of your law firm’s Facebook page.  However, if you are like me and just a “casual” Facebook user – I just like to check my stats once a week.

How to manage your Facebook Tabs

Beneath your header image you will see a list of tabs.  Mine includes my Timeline, an About page, Photos, Reviews, and the “More”.  In the old layout, these were a series of boxes that went across the top of your page previously.  When you click on these tabs, you will be redirected to any number of custom apps within your Facebook Page. You can change the order of your tabs to reposition them if you would like.  Simply click on the “More” button, then click on “manage tabs” as shown below.

Most Facebook coaches do not spend too much time on tabs, in part because not too many Facebook users will ever even see your Facebook pages.  Instead, the majority of your fans and Facebook users in general, will interact with your content through their news feed.

Where to find your Scheduled Posts

One of my favorite things about Facebook, (as compared to Google+), is the ability to schedule your posts in advance.  However, I always had a hard time finding my posts after I had scheduled them for publication. Not anymore. In the new Facebook layout, there is a notification box directly below the box for you to enter a status update that tells you how many scheduled posts you have, and when the next post is scheduled to go live.  In addition, you can use this box to go into each scheduled post and edit, delete or modify the post as necessary.

The About Section

A little known secret about the new Facebook redesign is that you can use the “About” section, which falls in the left hand sidebar of your page, to highlight a lead generation magnet that you use in your law practice.  So for example, you can use this section to highlight a free webinar, e-book, or even a free video series as I have done with Legal Marketing Made Easy.  See below:

You can also include a link to your law firm’s website.  However, if you set up your Facebook page as a local business, this option will not be available.  (It took me awhile to figure that out).

Other Pages to Watch

I’m really excited about this cool new feature in Facebook.  It’s found within the insights tab at the top of your page and is called “Pages to Watch.”  This tool gives you the opportunity to see what tools and strategies are working for other Facebook Pages that may also attract your idea client.  So, for example, if you have a law firm in your market that is really killing it with their Facebook page (lots of likes and interaction from their fans), then you may want to “watch” that page to get some ideas about different things you can do to increase likes and engagement on your own law firm’s page. To add a page that you want to watch, simply click on Insights > Overview > Pages to Watch and click the big “Add Pages” button to manually add the pages you want to watch.

After you have decided on some pages to watch, you can then click on Insights > Posts > Top Posts from Pages You Watch to see which posts from the previous week were the most engaging. So for example, if you look below, you will see that Jacob Sapochnick did a Facebook “chat” this week where he answered immigration questions on his law firm’s Facebook page this past week.  This one post engaged with 835 people when I took the screenshot (now up to 1.2K people), with 33 comments!  This is a great example of a takeaway that you can use in your own law practice to really engage with your “fans” on Facebook.

When you add a Page to watch, the admin of that page will be notified that their page has been added, but they won’t be able to see who added it (just an FYI in case you were wondering).

Action Items

1. Sign up for the FREE, three-part Video Training on building a better law practice.
2. Follow Legal Marketing Made Easy on Twitter
3. Post a review of the Legal Marketing Made Easy Podcast on iTunes and if you like what you heard today, then share with your friends on Twitter using this link.