Media & Communication: Four Ways Online Video Can Benefit Your Web Presence

Several decades ago, marketers realized that motion pictures were a powerful medium to convey branded messages to their audiences. For a long time, film production was only accessible to large consumer-products companies with massive advertising budgets. This is no longer the case. Nearly two decades after the advent of the Internet, the playing field has finally been leveled. Today, increasingly abundant broadband capacity and video equipment technology have transformed online video to an economically feasible reality for businesses of every size, including law firms.

The Online Video Market

Online video is now a booming marketing platform. According to a Video Metrix study by ComScore, Inc., online video consumption in the U.S. more than doubled over the last four years. The amount of unique viewers per month has grown from 73 million in 2010 to more than 158 million per month in 2013. According to the B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey for 2013 compiled by Eloqua, CMO.com and Software Advice, web video is one of the top content platforms used for demand generation. It is preferred over white papers and case studies. This is an indication that businesses are adapting their marketing tactics to communicate with audiences in their new preferred media formats.

According to the 2012 Avvo Lex Blog Legal Marketing Report, “Print media has declined dramatically to where it no longer makes business sense for lawyers to spend money on those channels.” Despite the significant changes in our technological landscape and consumer behavior, many law firms are still reluctant to embrace video. In comparison with other industries, law firms seem to be behind the curve in terms of leveraging web video to support market awareness and revenue growth.

The reasons below show why 2014 should be the year to add web video to your marketing budgets, and to make video an integral part of your law firm brand.

1. Video Is More Compelling Than Text'

Human faces are more interesting to a consumer than blocks of text. Susan Weinschenk, PhD, also known as the “Brain Lady,” is a psychologist, writer and speaker who studies brain science research to understand how people think, work and behave.

In her video blog, Weinschenk points out that one of the reasons video is more appealing than text is because of a part of the brain called the fusiform facial area. “It's a part of our brain that makes us pay special attention to human faces. When we watch a talking head in a video, we process information in a deeper way,” she explains.

In addition, there is a dynamic aspect of our body language that only moving pictures convey. “We are programmed from years of evolution to pay attention to any movement in our peripheral line of vision. Movement continually grabs attention,” Weinschenk adds. Weinschenk explains that human voices convey emotion, and emotions are contagious. “There's a richness of information that is conveyed from the audio portion of the video,” she says.'

Video empowers lawyers to provide prospective clients with richer content experiences. If you still haven't adopted video as a platform for content marketing, the scientific reasons provided by the “Brain Lady” may suggest that your law firm is leaving opportunities on the table.

2. Video Supports a Thought Leader Strategy

While some law firms still publish company news that offers no valuable advice to the reader on their company blogs, many legal marketing professionals are slowly embracing content creation as a resource for providing valuable information to prospective clients. With the rise of inbound marketing, legal marketers struggle with how to implement a law firm publishing strategy that will increase brand awarenes and drive new client generation.

Law practice is fundamentally a relationship-based profession ' it's a business of helping others solve their legal matters. With that being said, a law firm's most valuable assets are its lawyers and their respective talents. Yet, many firms fail at showcasing their lawyers as subject matter authorities.

An online video library can be an incredibly valuable asset for building thought leadership. Producing videos in which your lawyers talk about client-focused topics and current industry issues will transform them into mini-celebrities in their specialized legal niches. Moreover, online video is the perfect medium to minimize non-billable hours of your internal contributors. As opposed to spending time and resources managing writers and editors, expert lawyers can simplify complex legal topics into short, three-to-five-minute videos.'

As your body of videos focus on audience success, your firm's online publishing platform becomes a hub of valuable information for potential clients, transforming your lawyers into trusted advisers in their legal niches.

3. Video Improves User Experience (Which Leads to Better SEO Results)

From time to time, Matt Cutts, head of the Google Webspam team, talks about the importance of user experience: “As long as you're working hard for the user, we're working hard to show your high quality content to users as well.”

Google knows that sites with great content receive longer average visit times. As SEO tactics get devalued over time and user experience becomes central in terms of search engine rankings, there's a huge opportunity that lies behind creating video content.

The fact is, we surf the web skimming text for the information we want. This is how video content can contribute to your web presence. If a visitor sees a video on your site, he or she will most likely click on it and watch it. On average, websites with video are navigated two minutes longer than sites with plain text. Create compelling video content and you will keep your visitors on your site for longer periods of time. From Google's perspective, the time spent on a website correlates directly to quality signals.

4. Explore Untapped Search Engine Ranking Opportunities

More evidence that Google is dedicated to building the best search engine for its users was its latest algorithm update, Hummingbird, which rolled out in August, 2013. Hummingbird has confirmed that Google is gradually moving away from keyword-based searches to query-based searches.

With the recent advancement of voice recognition technology, voice-based searching is becoming increasingly popular as users speak whole phrases into search engines in a more conversational fashion. For example, instead of typing “Empire State Building Hours,” a user can speak into the search engine, “What time does the Empire State Building open?”

Businesses in general, law firms included, have a huge opportunity for building an online presence through YouTube videos optimized with whole phrases such as, “What is ' ,” “How to ' ,” “Where is ' ,” etc. To increase your chances of success, it is critical to optimize the videos based on specific phrases your prospects are typing in the search bar. To get legal question ideas for your videos, simply go to Google search, type a legal question, and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You'll see a list of popular questions associated with your original key phrase.

For example, a firm seeking to get more online visibility to its Intellectual Property practice could go about creating FAQ style videos using the following titles:

Can I use my patent in other countries? What's the difference between a patent attorney and a patent agent? What if word gets out about my invention before I file my patent application?

The common denominator of those titles is that they do a great job at telling the user and Google that their content is informational. Therefore, they are more likely to get highly ranked. Another way to increase your odds of getting ranked in highly competitive niches is by adding your geographic location at the end of your video title. In addition, the firm would be attracting more qualified leads based on its geographic area. For example, a bankruptcy lawyer from Illinois could create a video with the following title: “What Happens When You File for Bankruptcy in Illinois?”

The requirement for this strategy is to create videos that are considered valuable to your prospective clients, and to optimize it accurately with specific query phrases. By following this tactic, you'll be tapping into an incredible opportunity to get ranked on Google for lower volume (but highly targeted) queries. Even better, your videos will keep generating new leads for your firm on an ongoing basis at virtually no cost.'

Conclusion

Marketing professionals are constantly faced with the challenge of grabbing the attention of audiences. Having an understanding of which media formats are more appealing to your prospective clients is of paramount importance to your business' goals. Video is more appealing to the average adult. It can improve website user experience. And, if employed properly, it can improve your SEO results as well. But most importantly, video empowers lawyers to display their legal expertise in a more personal way, and to connect with viewers at a deeper level. Building a comprehensive video library through which your lawyers answer frequently asked questions and share industry specific insights can be of instrumental importance in supporting your firm's long-term growth.

Fernando Ziemer is the business director of Law Firm Video Solutions, a boutique video marketing company for law firms. With background in SEO and Film Production, Ziemer helps lawyers boost their online presence with web videos. E-mail:[email protected].

Several decades ago, marketers realized that motion pictures were a powerful medium to convey branded messages to their audiences. For a long time, film production was only accessible to large consumer-products companies with massive advertising budgets. This is no longer the case. Nearly two decades after the advent of the Internet, the playing field has finally been leveled. Today, increasingly abundant broadband capacity and video equipment technology have transformed online video to an economically feasible reality for businesses of every size, including law firms.

The Online Video Market

Online video is now a booming marketing platform. According to a Video Metrix study by ComScore, Inc., online video consumption in the U.S. more than doubled over the last four years. The amount of unique viewers per month has grown from 73 million in 2010 to more than 158 million per month in 2013. According to the B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey for 2013 compiled by Eloqua, CMO.com and Software Advice, web video is one of the top content platforms used for demand generation. It is preferred over white papers and case studies. This is an indication that businesses are adapting their marketing tactics to communicate with audiences in their new preferred media formats.

According to the 2012 Avvo Lex Blog Legal Marketing Report, “Print media has declined dramatically to where it no longer makes business sense for lawyers to spend money on those channels.” Despite the significant changes in our technological landscape and consumer behavior, many law firms are still reluctant to embrace video. In comparison with other industries, law firms seem to be behind the curve in terms of leveraging web video to support market awareness and revenue growth.

The reasons below show why 2014 should be the year to add web video to your marketing budgets, and to make video an integral part of your law firm brand.

1. Video Is More Compelling Than Text'

Human faces are more interesting to a consumer than blocks of text. Susan Weinschenk, PhD, also known as the “Brain Lady,” is a psychologist, writer and speaker who studies brain science research to understand how people think, work and behave.

In her video blog, Weinschenk points out that one of the reasons video is more appealing than text is because of a part of the brain called the fusiform facial area. “It's a part of our brain that makes us pay special attention to human faces. When we watch a talking head in a video, we process information in a deeper way,” she explains.

In addition, there is a dynamic aspect of our body language that only moving pictures convey. “We are programmed from years of evolution to pay attention to any movement in our peripheral line of vision. Movement continually grabs attention,” Weinschenk adds. Weinschenk explains that human voices convey emotion, and emotions are contagious. “There's a richness of information that is conveyed from the audio portion of the video,” she says.'

Video empowers lawyers to provide prospective clients with richer content experiences. If you still haven't adopted video as a platform for content marketing, the scientific reasons provided by the “Brain Lady” may suggest that your law firm is leaving opportunities on the table.

2. Video Supports a Thought Leader Strategy

While some law firms still publish company news that offers no valuable advice to the reader on their company blogs, many legal marketing professionals are slowly embracing content creation as a resource for providing valuable information to prospective clients. With the rise of inbound marketing, legal marketers struggle with how to implement a law firm publishing strategy that will increase brand awarenes and drive new client generation.

Law practice is fundamentally a relationship-based profession ' it's a business of helping others solve their legal matters. With that being said, a law firm's most valuable assets are its lawyers and their respective talents. Yet, many firms fail at showcasing their lawyers as subject matter authorities.

An online video library can be an incredibly valuable asset for building thought leadership. Producing videos in which your lawyers talk about client-focused topics and current industry issues will transform them into mini-celebrities in their specialized legal niches. Moreover, online video is the perfect medium to minimize non-billable hours of your internal contributors. As opposed to spending time and resources managing writers and editors, expert lawyers can simplify complex legal topics into short, three-to-five-minute videos.'

As your body of videos focus on audience success, your firm's online publishing platform becomes a hub of valuable information for potential clients, transforming your lawyers into trusted advisers in their legal niches.

3. Video Improves User Experience (Which Leads to Better SEO Results)

From time to time, Matt Cutts, head of the Google Webspam team, talks about the importance of user experience: “As long as you're working hard for the user, we're working hard to show your high quality content to users as well.”

Google knows that sites with great content receive longer average visit times. As SEO tactics get devalued over time and user experience becomes central in terms of search engine rankings, there's a huge opportunity that lies behind creating video content.

The fact is, we surf the web skimming text for the information we want. This is how video content can contribute to your web presence. If a visitor sees a video on your site, he or she will most likely click on it and watch it. On average, websites with video are navigated two minutes longer than sites with plain text. Create compelling video content and you will keep your visitors on your site for longer periods of time. From Google's perspective, the time spent on a website correlates directly to quality signals.

4. Explore Untapped Search Engine Ranking Opportunities

More evidence that Google is dedicated to building the best search engine for its users was its latest algorithm update, Hummingbird, which rolled out in August, 2013. Hummingbird has confirmed that Google is gradually moving away from keyword-based searches to query-based searches.

With the recent advancement of voice recognition technology, voice-based searching is becoming increasingly popular as users speak whole phrases into search engines in a more conversational fashion. For example, instead of typing “Empire State Building Hours,” a user can speak into the search engine, “What time does the Empire State Building open?”

Businesses in general, law firms included, have a huge opportunity for building an online presence through YouTube videos optimized with whole phrases such as, “What is ' ,” “How to ' ,” “Where is ' ,” etc. To increase your chances of success, it is critical to optimize the videos based on specific phrases your prospects are typing in the search bar. To get legal question ideas for your videos, simply go to Google search, type a legal question, and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You'll see a list of popular questions associated with your original key phrase.

For example, a firm seeking to get more online visibility to its Intellectual Property practice could go about creating FAQ style videos using the following titles:

Can I use my patent in other countries? What's the difference between a patent attorney and a patent agent? What if word gets out about my invention before I file my patent application?

The common denominator of those titles is that they do a great job at telling the user and Google that their content is informational. Therefore, they are more likely to get highly ranked. Another way to increase your odds of getting ranked in highly competitive niches is by adding your geographic location at the end of your video title. In addition, the firm would be attracting more qualified leads based on its geographic area. For example, a bankruptcy lawyer from Illinois could create a video with the following title: “What Happens When You File for Bankruptcy in Illinois?”

The requirement for this strategy is to create videos that are considered valuable to your prospective clients, and to optimize it accurately with specific query phrases. By following this tactic, you'll be tapping into an incredible opportunity to get ranked on Google for lower volume (but highly targeted) queries. Even better, your videos will keep generating new leads for your firm on an ongoing basis at virtually no cost.'

Conclusion

Marketing professionals are constantly faced with the challenge of grabbing the attention of audiences. Having an understanding of which media formats are more appealing to your prospective clients is of paramount importance to your business' goals. Video is more appealing to the average adult. It can improve website user experience. And, if employed properly, it can improve your SEO results as well. But most importantly, video empowers lawyers to display their legal expertise in a more personal way, and to connect with viewers at a deeper level. Building a comprehensive video library through which your lawyers answer frequently asked questions and share industry specific insights can be of instrumental importance in supporting your firm's long-term growth.

Fernando Ziemer is the business director of Law Firm Video Solutions, a boutique video marketing company for law firms. With background in SEO and Film Production, Ziemer helps lawyers boost their online presence with web videos. E-mail:[email protected].