Leadership In Law Podcast

20 Using Social Media to Grow Your Law Firm with Kelli Jones

• Season 1 • Episode 20

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Curious about how to elevate your legal practice using social media? Discover the journey of Kelli Jones, a pioneering virtual lawyer who has transformed her career by harnessing the power of Instagram and Threads. You'll gain exclusive insights into her innovative marketing techniques, from capturing the attention of her target audience to seamlessly transitioning them from followers to clients through strategic lead magnets. Kelli's story from nonprofit and commercial litigation to founding her own firm in 2020 is a masterclass in adapting to the digital age, offering both inspiration and practical advice for legal professionals and entrepreneurs alike.

Ever wondered how to harness social media to grow your business in the fitness and service industries? This episode reveals the secrets of effective platform use, focusing on tailored strategies to connect with niche audiences. Whether it's the nuanced art of selecting ideal hashtags or the confidence-boosting power of Instagram Stories, you'll walk away equipped to engage with your audience more purposefully. The discussion moves beyond just tools, spotlighting the significant presence of service-based and beauty businesses and how they thrive using online marketing. Get ready to realign your approach and reach your potential clients where they are.

Navigating the world of social media advertising can seem daunting, but this episode breaks it down with clarity and confidence. Explore the strategic nuances of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and learn how to use Instagram's ads manager to target a lookalike audience effectively. Kelli shares her evolving journey with ads, from boosting high-performing posts to the challenges of repurposing content on LinkedIn. Community support is vital, and we emphasize the importance of staying connected with fellow law firm owners through resources like lawmarketingzone.com. Prepare to lead with vision and transform your firm's online presence.

Kelli Jones is a lawyer for small business owners and entrepreneurs, helping them legally protect their businesses, mainly through federal trademark registration and contracts. Kelli has been practicing law for over 9 years and opened her law firm during COVID. Her goal is to help make the legal side a little less boring and to encourage proactive legal protection to save time, money, and stress.

Reach Kelli here:
https://www.instagram.com/lawyerkelli_
https://www.kellijoneslaw.com
https://www.tiktok.com/@lawyerkelli


Get a FREE copy of "The Ultimate Online Marketing Checklist for Law Firms" at
https://lawmarketingzone.com/ultimate-checklist

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, kelly Jones, to the show today. Kelly is a virtual lawyer for entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to legally protect their business, mainly through federal trademark registration and contracts. Kelly's goal is to help make the legal side a little less boring and to encourage proactive legal protection to save time, money and stress. I'm excited to have you here, kelly. Welcome Me too. Thanks so much for having me Absolutely Tell us a bit about how you got started.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I've been a lawyer for almost 10 years now, but I didn't start my own firm until summer of 2020. So before that I worked for a couple of nonprofits and then I worked in a private firm doing mostly commercial litigation, going to court every day. So summer of 2020, courts were already closed for a while at that point. So that's kind of when I ended up pivoting and opening my own firm instead and working with small businesses and helping them with mostly trademarks, contracts and things that do not really involve going to court instead.

Speaker 2:

Okay, excellent. So you're talking trademark research and filing and then helping make sure they've got their contracts under control and do you help like renegotiate not renegotiate, but double check their contracts and fix them if there's problems as well.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so either creating the contracts for them or just if they got one from someone else or they had an old one that they're using themselves to review, revise that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Cool. Now the one thing I'm really excited about is the trademark registration and that sort of thing about how and how you market your business, so that's what we really want to focus on today. I'm excited to talk about this because I know that you use social media. So can you, and a lot of attorneys don't want to do that. They shy away from it. So let's dive into that. How do you use social media? How do you grow your business?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I use social media in a few ways. I use Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok now Thread that's been around for about maybe a little over a year.

Speaker 3:

At this point, instagram is definitely my, like, primary focus and it's also where I get the majority of my clients from, but I do use the other platforms as well, just to try to diversify that. I'm not as consistent on any other platform aside from Instagram, and now also really pretty consistent on threads as well, but just because that's a kind of like an extension of Instagram or I see. So, yeah, I'm on a bunch of platforms, but Instagram is definitely my main focus as far as social media goes.

Speaker 2:

OK, I want to get into what you're doing and on that platform, but let me ask you a quick question. As far as owning your traffic or renting your traffic, we were obviously doing the posts and getting DMs. Are you pulling people to a link tree to your website so you can capture them offsite?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so I do have like my own on my website. I have link pages set up that I have for Instagram, for TikTok, with various links. So you know, one obviously is if they like schedule a call with me, a consultation or something, then I, you know, collect their information that way. But I do also have free offers that they can go to, or also just low, lower ticket offers for them to try to capture leads that way and move at least some of those people off social media and onto my email list as well.

Speaker 2:

Okay, excellent, so you're doing lead magnets.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So what type of lead magnet do you find works well in the trademark space?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's a little different. I would say my biggest lead magnet that I've had is I just called it a free legal cheat sheet and that I kind of broke down a couple of legal topics not just trademarks but also, you know, llc versus corporation, trademarks and contracts is not very many page thing, just a couple of different like checklists and things like that. I found that was pretty successful, just because I think also a lot of business owners have no idea what they even need when it comes to the legal. So I feel like those have been a little bit more successful than my ones that have been focused more on trademarks, just because a lot of business owners don't know that they even need a trademark.

Speaker 3:

So it really has to be something more like broad that you know is applicable to them.

Speaker 2:

I think checklists and cheat sheets are are kind of in any niche, some of the best lead magnets you can put out there, so I think it's great information to use. So in your, your Instagram, are you doing video, are you doing images? What's your, what's your process there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I definitely do a mix of both. I do reels. I would say it's probably almost like half and half between reels and then either static posts or carousel posts. So carousel posts I usually go more in depth about something you know, like if it's like three things that you need to do or like four things to do after you get an LLC or something like that. But also sometimes I do. My static posts are more sometimes screenshots of something that I wrote on threads and that those seem to work pretty well too. So it's kind of half and half between video and not video posts.

Speaker 2:

Okay, when you send, when you do a screenshot of your threads, are you in essence sending them to your threads, which would then send them to your link tree?

Speaker 3:

Or your website. So no, because they can't click on the threads. So they're still just seeing my Instagram posts. So they could still go to my Instagram link and, you know, sign up through something that way.

Speaker 2:

And is threads the one that and I've got to say this is showing I don't use threads. It expires in 24 hours, right, no?

Speaker 3:

So that's stories, so that's it on my.

Speaker 3:

Instagram. So threads is kind of like Twitter, it's just Meta's alternative. Oh right, Right, Twitter, yeah, so it's just all text space. So that's why sometimes you know, if I did have a thread that was performing well over there, just you know, like one or two sentences, that's when I'll screenshot that thread. Essentially, like, people screenshot the Twitter posts and repost everywhere, so I'll just screenshot that and that'll be my post. You know, I'll just move it on to like. I post it on my brand color background and post it on my Instagram and you know see if, okay, my audience on Breads liked it. So you know, maybe that'll transfer over.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Great. Now, thinking about and just to explain to our listeners who's not, who are not familiar with social media. We all know image ads. We all know video ads. I think carousel ads are one that are posts are one of the things that that people don't really look at. Often we may be more on LinkedIn, because people do that, you know, especially content creators on LinkedIn, but carousel posts are, in essence, a slideshow. Yes, yeah, and you're doing it in steps and showing things along the slideshow.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So you know, I think also, you know, I don't know Now I don't feel like I get as much engagement on my carousel posts like that the way that I used to. I think also it's just Instagram is changing, the algorithm's changing. People do tend to like video more, but historically, like over the last few years, my most successful posts have been carousel posts because those are what people have like, saved or shared.

Speaker 3:

A lot of you know, maybe it's like what to do when you have a copycat on Instagram and I go. The steps of this is how you do, like an infringement notice, you know, file the report with Instagram to get them taken down. So, yeah, it kind of varies, but sometimes I still do have carousel posts that do really, really well. It just has to be something that is very beneficial for your audience to either need to save or that they want to share with someone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Okay, that's absolutely. You're doing exactly what I coach our clients to do, and that's provide value. Yes, so you're educating your value. Now do you do like the 80-20 type rule, where you do 80% education, 20% sales, or do you strictly stay with the education type side?

Speaker 3:

of it depends on what I'm doing in my business also and what kind of is going on. You know, I think there are times where I do probably focus for sure closer to 100% on just more educational. You know, maybe I will like put at the bottom of my passion, like start by scheduling a consultation or something like that. But I don't do a lot of hard selling, I guess, and except like unless I'm like planning to launch something or having a sale, or you know something specific or have some specific goal that I'm like working on at that moment, so you know, or like a workshop coming up or something. So I think it really depends on what I'm doing in my business, but I definitely try to steer at least heavy majority of it is always just educational and like value-based.

Speaker 2:

And I don't. I honestly don't consider the call to action. You know, dm me or you know I don't consider that salesy. If you've got, if the post is valuable you know, educational but if it's straight up like sales, you know we have a new offer. So, yes, I'm doing posts for that, but still, we've got all of these, you know variety of educational posts that go out all the time as well. Yeah, so, and so how many people do you have following you on? Well, instagram is your main one, so what's your following count?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so on Instagram I have just over 9,500 right now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, 9,500 right now. Okay, and it's working to grow your business. That's awesome, yes, yes, tell me a bit about. We talked about your transition and the statistics and stuff, so tell us where you started your.

Speaker 3:

Instagram journey and where you are now. Yeah, so actually I started using Instagram I mean, for you know, personal before I before I was even a lawyer and then, probably when I a little bit maybe during law school, I started using Instagram more for fitness related things. I got very big into fitness. I was certified spin instructor, boot camp instructor, very heavily in fitness even though I was still in law school, and then, you know, starting working at firms and things. So I was using my Instagram to post about fitness and also connect with other people in the fitness world, like other fitness entrepreneurs, things like that, and so I grew that Instagram to about 3000 followers and then that was in summer of 2020.

Speaker 3:

I just pivoted my fitness Instagram to. I changed it, I think I think at the time my handle was like Kelly Jones fit or Kelly Jones fit, new York, or you know something like that, and I changed it to lawyer Kelly and I was like Hi, so I'm pivoting from fitness to law. So now you know, you know I'm a lawyer already because I've talked about it on Instagram, but now this is what I do primarily on Instagram. So I just pivoted and my followers rolled with it at the time and it went well for me and it was good because I had already had such a background of using Instagram and you know I was already so consistent with posting, so that was definitely helpful.

Speaker 2:

And you know I was already so consistent with posting, so that was definitely helpful. And you said that your followers also were business owners. They were fitness business owners.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So a lot of them were because either they, you know, ended up they were also fitness, you know, and like fitness coaches or trainers, things like that. And you know some of them had then started their own like fitness, selling their own fitness plans or things like that. Or at that point, because now it had been a couple of years that I had been, you know, working on that fitness Instagram, some of them had transitioned into being a social media coach or social media manager or you know, other types of business or business coach, other kind of things, where they were doing some type of service-based business. So it kind of worked out that a lot of my audience were some type of entrepreneurs in some way. So it was kind of just like I was connecting with you already on like a entrepreneur to entrepreneur, like fitness level, but now I can help you actually in your business in this way as a lawyer.

Speaker 2:

Nice. That was a great transition.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Now do you find? Are you reaching for specific I'm assuming hashtags to reach business owners or influencers, that sort of thing? What's your strategy with the hashtag?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I definitely do put hashtags on all my posts.

Speaker 3:

I try to use ones that are relevant to me and relevant to whatever topic I'm talking about, if it's geared more towards, like, a certain type of business owner or a certain topic, like trademarks versus, you know, copyright or contracts or something, and then maybe also some like location-based ones. You know, like if I'm in New York, I'm from New York but now I live in Nashville, but you know it'd be like NY small businesses, you know something that's related to the location also. To be honest, I don't I don't really know how beneficial or like helpful that is. Sometimes my like, because I do look at my Instagram insights.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes I do get some reach from the hashtags and sometimes, even if it's the same exact hashtags, I get no reach from it. Sometimes I do get some reach from the hashtag. I feel like maybe they sometimes work if they're, you know, related to you know they're just not completely like unrelated and just something that you're typing in for like some type of thinking. You're going to get some type of growth from it or something. I do try to be detailed to what I'm doing, but I don't really know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think. I think hashtags are one of those mystery clouds. You know, at one point what was it about four or five years ago? There was like oh, this is exactly how you use hashtags and you do this and you always put the top 10 and the first comment don't put them on your post, and it's like you know. So I don't think anybody really knows how hashtags are are at work or how they bring traffic or don't. So it's interesting to watch that in your insights to see how it's changing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so use them, hope for the best.

Speaker 2:

You know Well, if you're thinking about the people that are listening, that are shy about using social media. What would be your advice to get them kind of to loosen up about social media and just start sharing?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think really, just practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you'll get. I, before having my fitness Instagram before my, you know, legal Instagram now I was the type of person that would be like scared to talk in front of people. I remember in law school, you know, I had to do a presentation and I hated it. I'd be like shaky, couldn't do it. Now I can get on the stage and talk in front of people and I think social media has been a huge help with that because it's you know, the more you do something, the more comfortable you'll get with it.

Speaker 3:

So sure, your first I don't know maybe even 100 videos. You might look back and be like, oh, that's so cringy or awkward or whatever, and I'm sure mine for sure are, but that's how you get better. So you just have to kind of keep doing it. Also, you know, stories is a good place to start. Those are the ones that do expire on Instagram after 24 hours, so you're not necessarily putting it out there to your entire audience and just start talking on it. Delete them if you have to. And then, you know, just keep doing it. The more you do something, the better you'll get at it, and the more, the easier it'll become for you and the less time it'll take you eventually.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think we self-censor too much. Yes, you know, because if you're, if you're teaching, and the one thing I like to think about is when you're looking in the camera and all you need is your smartphone, you don't need any fancy equipment. Right, when you're looking at the camera, don't think that I'm talking to Instagram, which is three billion people. Right, think about talking to that one customer, that one client that may need the information you're sharing Definitely Makes it much better.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly so I love the fact, I love what you're doing and I love the way you're sharing a lot of how-to information.

Speaker 3:

What types of clients are you finding on Instagram? I mean, is there a specific industry that's more receptive to what you're doing? How's that go? I would say I definitely find more service-based businesses than product-based. I do have a lot of product-based clients, but I think a lot of them had a service-based business first or everything's businesses, so a lot of them also are online businesses. I think also that just comes when people that have an online business are online more to find me, so that's definitely a big portion.

Speaker 3:

I do also have a large like subsection of clients that are in the beauty industry, and I think also that comes with them needing to be online to market their you know, in person businesses. So, yeah, I think that's definitely the biggest like online businesses online coaches, service providers, copywriters, you know things like that and then that, and then also podcast hosts are definitely a big one too, but also again, because they're online posting about their podcast episodes. So right, yeah, so that's definitely the biggest. Yeah, and what are you doing on TikTok? Yeah, so TikTok is actually where I have my largest audience, but I don't get the majority of my business from there, so I do post videos. This year, I actually have not been quite as consistent as I have been in the past with TikTok, just because I find you have to like be so much more consistent to maintain growth or get growth there than.

Speaker 3:

Instagram, Like I feel, like on TikTok at least for me and my experience like for me to grow the account I have to absolutely post every single day, at least once a day, Whereas Instagram I don't necessarily always have to do it every day, so sometimes that can just be a lot.

Speaker 2:

Overwhelming. Exactly.

Speaker 3:

So I haven't been as consistent, but yeah, I do like TikTok also because I feel like people show up on TikTok in any capacity, like you do not need to be produced, you do not have to have your makeup on and your hair perfect. Like people show up on TikTok as themselves. And that is one thing I do really like about TikTok Like you can just show up and talk.

Speaker 2:

And you see the transition. A lot of people that have large followings on Instagram are on TikTok as well. Yes, yeah. And it is. I always felt like it's changed. Tiktok used to be if you're selling a product, that's the thing that you know. That would be very good, but I've seen the transition of services and service providers going there and that's starting to make some changes. Do you do ads on TikTok or Instagram? So I don't do.

Speaker 3:

I've never done ads on TikTok. I would definitely consider it at some point, I think, I think once I started to like look into it and then I got distracted or something. But Instagram, I have done ads at various times, both with agencies and then also just like myself trying to do them. So yeah, it kind of varies.

Speaker 2:

OK, just wonder if you had any successes. I know that we've done some ads and dabbled in ads on TikTok and again that's where we're seeing a little bit of change towards service-based businesses, but it's just not the payoff yet for service-based. But I wasn't sure if you had any experience with that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, for TikTok, I'm not sure For Instagram. I know other people that have been successful with Instagram ads. For me, every time I've tried, I've either lost money or broken even pretty much. Now I do occasionally and that's with like pull ads through, like the ads manager. Now I do occasionally boost my Instagram posts, which a lot of ads people are like oh, that's a no, no.

Speaker 3:

But if I sometimes, if a post has already organically done really well, I will put like one to five dollars behind it on boosting it. And like I did have a recent video that I talked about something, something related to something in pop culture that was already my reel, was already doing pretty well and I boosted it and I did gain like a couple hundred followers from boosting it. I think maybe I did like three to five dollars a day in it for like two weeks or something. So not like tons of money into it, but it got me a couple hundred followers, people on my email list, a couple of trademark consultations and things like that. So I think if you know and I have seen some ads people disagree with that the majority of ads people that are like boosting is a no-no. Some people are like, yeah, it might work. So I think if your post is already doing well, then it can help add to that. I think probably, if your post is not doing well, boosting is probably. I'd probably agree it's probably a waste of money.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm glad you explained the way that you boost, because I'm in the camp of don't boost. It's a waste of money. Yeah, Because what happens is you do a post and immediately Facebook gives you that little blue button make it bigger reach. Well, if you've got no reach on a post to start with and in the past the blue button gave you no control, yeah, it just took your money Right, Right. So now they have kind of can we call it ads manager light? Yeah, you know, it's like it's a little bit of ads manager on that button now. So you have a little bit of control.

Speaker 2:

But I absolutely agree If you've got something with traction that shows you've already got an audience. So Facebook or Instagram knows who's looked at it Right Now. What they're going to do is when you boost it, they're going to boost it to a lookalike audience, Right, as opposed to taking something with no traction, boosting it and they're just throwing it like spaghetti on the wall. Yes, and you're wasting your money, yeah. So I like to hear the way you're doing it. It's the way that we would. That Law Marketing Zone would suggest that you do it.

Speaker 3:

Yes, because most, yeah, most posts I won't boost unless it's already doing really well, and I also I don't know if this has changed, but I know like sometimes, like I've never boosted directly from my phone, from Instagram, I feel like I've often done it from the computer, you know, from like the, because I I think that's a better way to do it, you have more control, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, if you look at ads manager on your phone, just directly into ads manager, you can see everything, but you can't see everything.

Speaker 2:

Right, I mean, you can see the highlights, but you can't see a lot of the inner working. I think there's. There's certain times you really need to go to your website, to your computer to do it. Yeah, and you're not doing a whole lot of LinkedIn though, right?

Speaker 3:

I try to. I post probably like every I try to do once a week, but sometimes it might be like every other week or so. I'm getting better about it this year and I've actually gotten some clients this year from LinkedIn. So I'm like, oh, I post and it works, but I just maybe I should post some more. So my goal is for sure to be more consistent on LinkedIn and actually the funny thing is, all of my LinkedIn posts are things that I've previously posted on Instagram.

Speaker 3:

I might like change the caption a little bit to be maybe like a slightly, a slightly higher professional tone than Instagram. But I also take a lot of times I'll take one of the images from a carousel, like I had one that was like the strength of a trademark and it was like a, you know, like a image that I had created about it. So I put just that one picture and then my caption and those seem to do well on LinkedIn and it's already stuff that I've it. So I put just that one picture and then my caption and those seem to do well on LinkedIn and it's already stuff that I've done. So I'm just repurposing it a little bit. So that's definitely my goal, but I get so many cold messages on LinkedIn that it makes me not want to go on the platform, but I do need my goal is to be more consistent there, but I do need my goal is to be more consistent there.

Speaker 2:

Well, linkedin has loosened its tie a little bit. You know it's not, as you know, stiff as it used to be. They're also doing more video and that sort of thing. So, yes, there's a lot of cold messaging, because any B2B customer business is trying to reach out to you. I get a tremendous I'm on LinkedIn all the time and I get a tremendous amount of spam. So you know you got to weed through it, but I think LinkedIn is definitely worth doing it. I'm. It's interesting that you, even inconsistently, you've seen traction and and revenue from it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, so definitely would like to continue there and I think also, you know, the clients that I've gotten from there are a little bit different. They're not as much they're not online business owners. They're, you know, startups or product based companies, which I think obviously you know because a lot of founders and stuff use LinkedIn. I mean, I'm sure a lot of the online business owners also use LinkedIn, but it's just you know more people that I can or a wider type of audience that I could get on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly, cast your net in a wider audience, exactly. Well, this has been super exciting. I've been, I've just really enjoyed talking with you because, like I said, we try to get our clients to give us, like, intro videos and just, you know, value-based. You know, like every, every attorney has FAQs, right, and you know each client has this many questions, so we suggest doing a video for each one, because 30 seconds is all you need. You say a lot in 30 seconds, right? So I appreciate your advice to attorneys that are listening and your experience of of transitioning and growing your business, and that's your marketing platform is the social media. Yes, thanks so much. Great, well, thank you for being here and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about and, if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.