The Data on Why Law Firms Need To Share Video Content in 2024
- Brent Harkins
Did you know that by 2025, video content is projected to make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic? We’ve experienced an increase of video content across all digital platforms, with a 232.6% increase in data volume of global internet video from 2016 to 2021. While these statistics are across a variety of industries, we can look at a case study for one of our own law firms, New Mexico Legal Group, and let the engagement numbers speak for themselves supporting why law firms need to share video content in 2024.
Investing in Video Content for Law Firms
Attorneys, if you are hesitant to invest the resources into creating video content for your law firm, please keep these three points in mind while we explore the past three months of social media performance data for New Mexico Legal Group:
- You don’t need to budget to create video content: Video content does not always need to be recorded professionally. With modern technology and the majority of video content shared online being created by typical users on their smart phone, a quick, casual, and laidback video can fit right in.
- You don’t need to dedicate extensive time resources to video content: For attorneys, time is money and it can be daunting to carve out the time in a busy work schedule to film a short clip for social media. However, personalized content continues to reign supreme on social media, and often five minutes can be enough time to record an informational and engaging video for your law firm. Consider those on your team who can help out with creating video content relevant to their areas of work at the law firm. Receptionists, operations specialists, legal assistants, paralegals, and attorneys alike can contribute to your law firm’s digital footprint and social media presence.
- You don’t need unique footage for all video content: While the data will show videos of people talking to the audience perform the best for law firms, don’t forget that the algorithm still favors video content utilizing stock images and animated graphics, especially when optimized with in-app edits, captions, and trending audio.
Video content has become a powerful tool in digital marketing, capturing the attention of audiences more effectively than text or images alone. With its ability to convey complex information in an engaging and easily digestible format, video content is revolutionizing the way businesses connect with their audience. This trend is especially relevant for law firms and divorce attorneys, where building trust and demonstrating expertise is crucial.
Engagement By the Numbers: Video Vs. Image Content
For the case study of New Mexico Legal Group, a divorce, family law, and criminal defense law with office locations in Albuquerque and Las Cruces, let’s look at the comparative data on Instagram and Facebook for March, April and May of 2024.
During the selected time frame, there were 19 videos and 29 image posts shared to both the Instagram and Facebook accounts for New Mexico Legal Group. Because user behavior and account followings vary across Instagram and Facebook, each platform was evaluated individually for engagement statistics on impressions, reach, and likes. Across the board on average, video content outperformed image content significantly in terms of impressions, accounts reached, and likes received. While there can often be exceptions for select pieces of content, Meta’s algorithms clearly prioritize video content and allow it to earn more impressions, reach and likes on average than image posts from the same account.
What Category of Video Content Performs Best for Law Firms?
All video content is not created equally, and there are many factors at play when it comes to what categories of video content a law firm is able to produce and share with their audience. As we know, social media is always changing and user behavior and preferences can vary based on location, income, culture, and consumer behavior. The answer to what category of video content performs best will differ from firm to firm. In New Mexico, video content created by the faces of the firm and animated graphics that are about the people with the firm reign supreme on their social feeds.
If a firm is unable to provide unique video content on a consistent basis for social media, they may have to lean more on graphic or animated videos to grow the law firm’s awareness and authority in the digital space. For New Mexico Legal Group, they shared video content across March, April, and May that falls into one of the following two video style categories with varying content:
- Faces of the Firm: Informational and engaging videos utilizing the people who make the law firm function – from receptionists to managing attorneys, social media loves learning from those who will actually be handling their sensitive legal matters.
- Animated Graphics: All other video styles fall into this second category and can utilize a variety of specific and stock elements. Stock images, videos and the law firm’s professional photography can transform into informative and engaging video content without anyone having to be on camera for the specific piece of content.
Examples of Faces of the Firm Video Style
Lifestyle/ Day to Day
In this example, a media day for the law firm with Cardinal Concepts was already scheduled with the main goal of updating website content, photography, and videography. People love seeing people on social media and building a human connection. Highlighting the law firm in a more natural setting is a great opportunity to easily get video content. Take advantage of opportunities where the firm is already planning an event, like team lunches, holiday parties, and team offsite meetings to make it simple to share additional video content on social media.
Educational Video
When attorneys have the time and opportunity to sit down and share their legal expertise, educational content typically performs well with social media algorithms, especially as platforms like TikTok rise in the ranks of go-to search engines. It is important to be able to answer hot topics in your service areas to publish relevant content to boost social SEO and show algorithms you’re staying up to date with trends.
Examples of Animated Graphics Video Content
Attorney Highlight
Repurposing existing content from law firm websites, like attorney biography pages can be an excellent way to share video content relevant to the law firm and attorneys as well. While getting an attorney in front of the camera is always ideal, this is a solid alternative option.
Client Review
Animating and adding a trending background song to reviews left by clients for your law firm is another way to increase the visibility of the strong performance of your team and communicate the value of working with your firm.
New Blog
Part of your SEO marketing strategy should also include website content creation, updating and optimizing. Creating a social media post directing viewers to learn more by visiting an expanded or new page can be a piece of the greater divorce attorney SEO puzzle.
Ready to Jump on the Video Content Benefits for Your Law Firm?
Now that you’ve had the chance to learn about how different video content can perform well for your law firm, the next step is to embrace video as a significant part of your law firm’s marketing and social media strategies. Whether you start off with animated graphic style videos using your firm photography and stock images or are ready to turn on the camera and share your legal expertise with the world, the best thing you can do is decide to start somewhere. Exploring how your audience reacts and engages with your law firm’s video content is not a perfect science, but industry data and this case study highlight the statistical significance of sharing video content for your law firm in the ever growing connected world.
Cardinal Concepts is a full service legal marketing company with the tools and expertise to help sustainably build and grow your law firm. For assistance with your law firm’s marketing strategy, video content opportunities and more, rreach out to Cardinal Concepts today.
