Leadership In Law Podcast

43 Using Social Media to Build a Referral Network with Jessica White

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 43

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Jessica White, a distinguished immigration lawyer, graces our Leadership in Law podcast to share her expertise on mastering law firm marketing. Ever wondered how a seasoned attorney leverages social media to expand her practice? Jessica spills the beans on using LinkedIn to build relationships with corporate clients and human resources departments, emphasizing reputation management and the goldmine that is attorney referrals. She candidly discusses her approach to platforms like Instagram and MailChimp for engaging individual clients while drawing a clear line against the pitfalls of DIY legal solutions. Jessica's insights don't just stop at strategy; they offer a compelling case for professional guidance in the intricate world of immigration law.

Social media is more than just a buzzword—it's a powerful tool for legal professionals. Our conversation expands to explore how platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram can serve as both branding and educational avenues. YouTube emerges as a favorite for delivering detailed legal content, while TikTok offers unique branding potentials. We touch on the delicate balance of managing client expectations and staying within bar regulations. Moreover, the episode underscores the strength of community among law firm owners, reminding us to stay connected, informed, and supportive of one another. Subscribe to our podcast and visit lawmarketingzone.com to become part of a network that's with you every step of your legal journey.

Reach Jessica here:

https://www.jessicawhitelaw.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/attorneywhite1/
https://www.facebook.com/AttorneyWhite/
https://www.instagram.com/ebvisalawyer

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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. Join me in welcoming my guest, jessica White, to the show today. Jessica received her Juris Doctorate from Villanova University School of Law in 2012. She comes from a family of Scotch, irish and Colombian immigrants. She began working as an immigration lawyer in Houston in 2013, where she represented individuals in immigration court. She worked as an associate lawyer in Houston in 2013, where she represented individuals in immigration court. She worked as an associate for Monty and Ramirez LLP, a minority-owned immigration and employment law firm in Houston. She later served as an associate attorney at Fragglin, delray, burson and Lowy LLP, a global immigration law firm, where she assisted corporate clients with a range of business immigration matters. In 2019, she launched her own immigration practice, where she represents both businesses and individuals. In her spare time, she enjoys quilting, going on picnics with her young son and attending theater performances. I'm excited to have you here, jessica Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, Marilyn. It's great to be here.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. You've been working quite a bit in immigration in different levels and different areas.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sometimes it seems like just yesterday when I started, but then I start to add up all the years and I age myself. So it's been a good ride.

Speaker 2:

Nice, very nice. I love the experience. So tell us a little bit about how you get clients for your firm, and I know we're talking about social media, social media and that sort of thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I mean a lot of what our practice involves is reputation based. Like you hear about reputation management, Certainly people are kind of afraid of the internet because there are downsides, Like I know there's colleagues who get that one bad Google review and they think it's going to tank them. But then there's also success stories and using it to your advantage. So what I wanted to say about reputation is actually a lot of my business comes from referrals from other attorneys.

Speaker 2:

Really.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So in order to keep that up, I have to make sure that I'm attending, you know, events with other attorneys, keeping track of the latest immigration updates and kind of offering a service to the broader scope not just clients, but also letting other attorneys know what kind of work I do, because as immigration attorneys, we're all a bit overloaded these days. So you have people who you know they have a lot of business and they want a niche area to represent, so they're getting kinds of cases that maybe they don't want to handle or it's just too much of a headache, so then they'll send them my way and I'm more than happy to take them on. So I know last time we had talked about using LinkedIn as a platform. That's been good for me because I have the premium function where I could connect with people.

Speaker 3:

And in business immigration at least, a lot of our clients are actually companies with human resources departments, or maybe they're small business owners and they're interested in bringing people from abroad that maybe work at a foreign company that's related, or they might know someone who's a good job candidate that's here on a student visa. So it's it's a good way of posting kind of what I do and like giving them updates and letting them know what's going on in the immigration world, so they'll connect with that and read a post and then maybe message me and say, oh hey, I really like giving them updates and letting them know what's going on in the immigration world, so they'll connect with that and read a post and then maybe message me and say, oh hey, I really had a question about this. Could we schedule a call?

Speaker 2:

Nice. Okay, so you're using LinkedIn for the B2B thing, and okay, that's fantastic and I love that. Are you using other social media for like the B2C part? I love that. Are you using other social media for like the?

Speaker 3:

B2C part. So I do a little of that as well, but, truth be told, I haven't fully implemented a lot of the plans that I have. So I have Instagram, have an Instagram account for the business. I also use MailChimp.

Speaker 3:

So, whenever someone goes onto my website and they sign up for more information, they can connect and check a box to get onto our newsletter. So that means that I have imported contacts directly from my website into the MailChimp account and that way I can figure out if there are some potential customers or clients that want more information. And we always have tiers of people who need immigration help. So there's people who are ready to hire, there's people who perhaps they want more information about a particular area of law because they're thinking about something, but they're not yet in the process, they're not yet in the mindset to hire an attorney, right? And then there are your casual shoppers that we try to discourage. And then there are your casual shoppers that we try to discourage. You know I love a good DIY, like you saw in my bio that I like to quilt.

Speaker 3:

I also do a little bit of woodworking. I'm all for DIY. I love it so much Like. I'm up late at night watching those videos about how someone made a concrete bench or something.

Speaker 1:

But with immigration.

Speaker 3:

I had to discourage people from doing things on their own a lot, because I just find that there's different, there's undesirable outcomes and it sometimes seems like a really simple like the thing about immigration is it seems very simple when someone goes on the USC website, that's US Citizenship and Immigration Services. They kind of make it seem like you could just fill out the forms yourself and then send in the filing fee. But then if you make a misrepresentation, sometimes that could prevent someone from getting an immigration benefit. They could be barred for life.

Speaker 3:

Oh, no you know, maybe they put in some information that wasn't entirely correct and then they just have their application rejected.

Speaker 2:

Could be an innocent mistake, but just a mistake, nevertheless, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So there's things that definitely people could probably do on their own, but then there's always that worst case scenario. So what I was going back to with the MailChimp is like you have a variety of prospective clients that you want to target and so I actually have it filtered so that I have one list that is only for business immigration clients and then another list for the family based cases, because I actually deal with two very different populations of clients. Populations of clients there's some that mostly are marriage-based cases, like someone, a US citizen, wants to marry someone from abroad and they want to figure out how to get them here, either on a fiancé visa or they want to do a consular process for them, and they have to iron out all the details. I'm actually a product of one of those family-based marriages, so I know a lot about it. My dad is a US citizen and my mom was from Bogota, colombia, and they came here, in the early, like the late, seventies.

Speaker 3:

So immigration is very near and dear to me.

Speaker 2:

Nice. So that is that is interesting. That is two completely different messaging systems, and I love that you're using MailChimp, because so many attorneys that I talk to don't have a you know what is called database reactivation, your monthly email newsletter, any of that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

They're not doing a lot of that to provide value and hopefully, you know, nurture the leads into becoming a client or you know, moving forward in the process and but the way you're filtering them, you're also taking in into consideration the buyer's pyramid, so the people that are ready to go forward and those who just need nurturing.

Speaker 3:

so, yeah, very very good we definitely get the calls from window shoppers who want everything for free and unfortunately I just can't do it because I have bills to pay, just like everyone else yeah.

Speaker 2:

And the people wanting the free advice no, no, no, Gotta you know, move forward.

Speaker 3:

We kind of say in immigration law like would you want your doctor to do some kind of surgery on you, and just like not really give you a full consultation or read your vitals. Like sometimes, we have to make sure we do our due diligence and get a full intake and understand what the client's issues are so that we don't make a mistake that hurts them in the long run.

Speaker 2:

Good point, Very good point. So then you're using LinkedIn for your B2B. What are you? Are you doing anything? We talked a little bit about TikTok back in October. Are you doing anything there at all and if so, what kind of pros and cons are you looking at there?

Speaker 3:

So, marilyn, I have a confession. I haven't yet dived into the TikTok world, but I know last time we spoke and we talked about some concerns, because a lot of my colleagues kind of look down upon the colleagues- that are using TikTok because it's just, it's a, it's a great tool.

Speaker 3:

I'm not going to say it's not because you can reach a wide audience and I think, like as a millennial, the generations after me are completely absorbed in TikTok and it's a way to get across a punchy message. We just have to be cautious that the people who are reaching out because of TikTok don't have unrealistic expectations of the attorneys.

Speaker 3:

Like sometimes some attorney will post a message like if you're a victim of a crime, you'll definitely be able to qualify for a u-visa or something, not mentioning that this process could take over five years and that you have to have cooperated with police and be able to get a certification from government officials that some crime qualifying crime happened to them and that they cooperated.

Speaker 3:

So it's like a lot of flash. There's, you know, a very attractive quality to it, because people say, oh my goodness, this attorney I saw on TikTok is going to solve my problem, then legalize my status, but maybe their case is a little more complicated so I'm hesitant to use it. But I think I'm going to strategize a little bit more about what kind of messages you could get across in TikTok that aren't going to be unethical or, you know, promoting something that can't be done in some kind of flashy way, but just to provide a message about how we might you know further, you know, triage, some area that's important to a client. But I think YouTube is a good platform, for instance because you have a little bit of a longer video and then people are more informed when they come to the consultations and so they ask better questions.

Speaker 3:

I know I often look at YouTube lectures for different fields that I don't quite understand, and immigration can be complex. So I've seen like I work with an attorney now as a consultant as well. So I'm doing contract work for her and she uses a lot of YouTube to deliver complicated messages and explained detailed areas of law, which is great, because then if we have a client who comes in and wants an investor visa or something, we can just forward the video of her talking about investor visas and then you have, like this way of communicating detailed information without having to use like valuable time in the office where we could be managing clients or, you know, reviewing forms and getting the applications out the door and you can use that as those videos, as video blog content on your website as well.

Speaker 2:

Now about about tiktok. What's interesting is, as we've done some research and and some traction on there and found that a lot of the time services don't. If you're selling something you know, like the TikTok shops, then that makes sense. But as far as TikTok for a service-based business, what we've noticed in our experience is it's really great for branding and for educating your audience. So I agree with you, You've got to be careful. You can't say we're going to solve your problem in 30 days and you're happy or lucky, because that's just not going to happen. But as far as branding or education, that is not a bad idea to do that and just stay within. Of course, you know the bar regulations of your stay. Are you? Do you do anything on Facebook? I know you said you have an Instagram account. What type of content are you putting there and are you also doing it on your Facebook account?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I do have a Facebook account as well and I post government announcements there, kind of explain a little bit about new things that are going on in immigration law. And it's nice on Facebook because you just like Instagram, you have followers, so you have your kind of like confined audience of people who are looking at the new messages you're sending out. And I also find that there's quite a few groups on Facebook where people are asking for attorney referrals.

Speaker 3:

So, I try to get on there and offer up my services to people who are looking. This has had mixed success because, like I tell you, there's always the DIY people who say, oh, you know this attorney, you don't really need her help, she's just trying to overtard you.

Speaker 2:

But it's so funny we get that in the agency space as well. I can do my own ads.

Speaker 3:

Well, you can, it's just a question of quality and you know, like the time and effort you put into doing things yourself versus getting the professional expertise, because things that would take someone hours and hours to do I could probably do in a couple hours because of the expertise. Like people always complain, you know they're. What do they say? Like their roofer came in to fix something and all he did was like make a small adjustment. Or a plumber does the same thing and they say how come you charged me $500 to make that small adjustment? And they say, well, it's because of my professional expertise, you know.

Speaker 2:

In 20 years, I've learned how to do this in 10 minutes Exactly.

Speaker 3:

Exactly so. That's kind of where we get off to. So I think putting the name out there and getting good referrals from colleagues honestly has been great for reputation building, and in the new year I also want to get on some additional websites paid advertising and things like that so it can boost my reputation. But as far as I'm concerned, right now I have enough work to go around, so I'm also cautious of building out before I can scale up the service as well.

Speaker 2:

Excellent Now thinking of Facebook groups and stuff like that. Have you you're in Tucson, yes, okay, so is there like there's? A lot of cities will have a geographical community, whether it's a not maybe the city is large, but a group that is business owners in the group introducing each other. Is there something like that, or have you looked into that for Tucson?

Speaker 3:

Business owners. I haven't done that with Tucson's Facebook groups. I'm part of a lot of them. There's one called I think it's Mujeres Latinas de Arizona. It's like Latin women in Arizona and it's all. It's great. It's all Spanish speaking women like looking for mutual aid and help. So there's everything on there, from people looking for housing and jobs to people looking for attorneys for wills and immigration help and all sorts of things.

Speaker 4:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

I do that, and then recently I went to this Arizona Tech Council symposium, and so I was there giving information to potential clients that are in the tech space, and I'm always trying to think of new ideas about how to meet the people that I want to reach. So they had people from like universities there and different tech companies, and so I was able to interact with them. But there's like a lot of what do you call it? There's a lot of chambers of commerce in the area that I'm also reaching out to, so it's good to be a part of the business community too, because, like, for instance, you get different connections, like with your realtor and your banker, and sometimes those can be referral sources as well, like yes sometimes you have to be a little creative, because if I'm just talking to other lawyers I get into a little echo chamber and maybe I'm not reaching the right people.

Speaker 3:

So yeah you definitely have to be a bit of a social butterfly to keep up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and if you're members of all these chambers, you want to make sure that you get a link to your website from the chamber's website. That's going to give you a lot more local visibility, as well.

Speaker 2:

That's a good point. With, I think, 350, 400 women in the San Luis Obispo area, that particular center coast, central coast, was very good for getting to know more people and the network is just incredible. But excellent. Awesome, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

But checking in, you know, finding local groups and what brought that to mind is a few years ago, during COVID, a friend of mine in North Carolina she's in real estate and covers three specific cities and it's called the Triad is that region and she started a Facebook group to support and connect, to try it. And so it's just hit a business owners referring other business owners, whether it's a new restaurant, a coffee shop, whatever, and it's just it's. It blew up during COVID and it's still incredibly active today and it's just you just get to know and someone just goes and say I'm looking to go somewhere this weekend to have a nice getaway who, what would you recommend? Boom, boom, boom, and here's like three or four people referring other business owners in there. So I love, I think you're right about getting out there and you know being a little guerrilla marketing to find places to get more business.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think the power of the internet is awesome because we have so much connectivity that we can reach people with anything that we need. Like I definitely have friends from diverse backgrounds Like one of my good friends runs a tech business and my other good friend is a realtor so it's nice to have that network and be able to help your fellow small business owners. Sometimes we can also kind of cross pollinate ideas and they give me ideas about what they're doing to advertise that I might not have thought of as an attorney, Because attorneys are very slow to adopt new technologies and things. I think you'll find we're very cautious usually.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I agree, but I love that learning from other people. That's not necessarily in your industry, Because you know, when it comes to a service-based business, marketing is marketing. You still need to get your name out there and caution.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I get that, but you just kind of got to go with it sometimes to grow Marilyn, I'm still considering a wrap on my car, but I haven't done that yet. You know, I just I'm going to think about that one. I always think every year when I do my taxes whether the vehicle should be a business write-off. And I can just imagine, you know, my logo plastered on the vehicle. It'll be a great tax write-off. I haven't jumped the gun yet.

Speaker 2:

Start small. Do magnetic size Start small.

Speaker 3:

There's always more that can be done.

Speaker 2:

That is true, there's always more that can be done right. Yeah, sure, there's always more that can be done right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. Well, I love that. I think this has been excellent, I think. What do you think?

Speaker 3:

one of the biggest takeaways you hope our listeners get from this Be creative, don't limit yourself and think about your target audience. Who do you really want to reach out to? Because I think sometimes we get into an idea that we have to pay more and more to different online service companies that are going to post an ad. But it's like the lawyer websites sometimes will pay us or we'll have to pay them to advertise at the top of their page and it becomes a competition of constantly, you know, giving them more money, but if you get creative, your marketing plan might not have to cost that much, but it's actually more effective because you're getting the clients that you need. Like me, reaching out to other business owners directly on LinkedIn has been very effective and I don't pay a lot of overhead to do that.

Speaker 2:

Right, nice, and you can automate your posting on LinkedIn and outreach to LinkedIn as well. So I agree, get creative. Marketing doesn't have to cost a lot. But you also want to balance that with time. Yeah, it's the 20 cash, 22 thing. You do all this networking to get cases. Then you spend all your time on cases and you slow down on your networking. But yeah, get creative and the referrals will come. Well, jessica, this has been excellent. I really appreciate your time. I know my listeners may want to reach out and connect with you and talk about what you're doing. Where's the best place that they can reach you?

Speaker 3:

They can reach me on my website, jessicawhitelawcom, or they can reach out to Jessica at JessicaWhiteLawcom and send me a question, or just say hello and let me know what they're doing in their businesses.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, that's fantastic. Thank you so much. This has been enlightening. I am excited to see where you go with your TikTok and your LinkedIn in the future.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you very much, marilyn, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 4:

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.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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