How to create a YouTube channel for your law firm
YouTube has been around since 2005. This is a staggering fact, given that the site still feels fresh for users in 2020 and its influence has only ever increased. This makes it the perfect social marketing channel for all types of businesses to promote their goods and services; including law firms.
YouTube’s ongoing success is mostly due to its continuous evolution over the years. It started out as a quirky platform for homegrown content creators who didn’t even call themselves content creators. They were just people who wanted to post goofy videos on the internet. Now, a lot of those homegrown content creators have become entrepreneurs who earn astounding amounts of money from the video platform. It’s a website platform that’s created fully-fledged business owners.
Of course, it’s also a platform that’s used by all sorts of businesses. And we’re talking about more than simply paying for adverts on someone else’s YouTube videos.
Your company can create its own YouTube channel to market itself. If you run a law firm, and particularly one that delivers services to the individual, this blog is designed with you in mind. Below we outline the primary points to consider when setting up your own YouTube channel.
Create a Google account
You can’t create a YouTube channel until you have a Google account. We’d hope you’d already have a Google account because you needed that to set up your absolutely necessary ‘Google My Business’ listing.
But just in case your firm is brand new or you missed setting up your GMB listing, make sure you begin by setting up that all-important Google account. We recommend you do not use an individual’s email address but rather, an email address for the firm. You can even create, for free, a new Gmail address for your firm to use for precisely this type of thing.
Pro Tip: if you set up a separate, for example, Gmail address for your firm, you need to remember that you might receive interest from potential clients on your YouTube videos. This may be direct comments or sending you emails after viewing a video. So, it’s important to check your email account regularly. It’ll be a part of your YouTube account (and any other accounts you use it for). The two depend on each other, so make sure you get it set up properly.
Optimise the channel to be found online
You need to focus on optimisation to ensure that your company’s YouTube channel is as successful as it can be. Much like your company’s website, you need to create your content to your target audience.
For example, if your law firm deals with personal injury matters, then you might want to create safety-related videos as a way of targeting potential clients who might have had accidents. Or perhaps ‘how to’ videos like ‘How to lodge your motor vehicle accident claim’.
Channel optimisation is all about knowing your intended audience and creating content that will help you to reach new customers for your law firm and also applying some of your SEO tactics to that; your video title, keywords, tags etc.
Add ‘channel art’ – your channel’s banner
Channel art is another important way to make your law firm stand out on YouTube and to give your firm its own personality online.
Much in the same way as your company’s website does, your channel’s aesthetic has a big effect on its success.
If you want to attract the right kind of clients (those you consider to be your target audience) you need to present your firm in a way that resonates with that audience and what they are looking for.
You could take a look at competing companies in your industry to get some ideas if you’re unsure. It’s also important to make sure your artwork is relatively consistent across your channel.
Add a profile image
This might not seem like an incredibly significant aspect of your channel’s design but your profile image is actually very important.
In some ways, it’s more important than your channel’s artwork. Your profile image will be seen by people all over YouTube and you want visitors to your channel to be able to instantly see who you are.
Also, if you leave a comment on another video, your profile will show up next to the comment you make. You can use a professional image that resonates with your brand or use your brand’s logo. Think about the way in which profile pictures affect your impression of channels. If you see a comment with no profile picture or an uninspiring profile, do you feel motivated to click on the name of the channel and learn more? If you want to compete with other law firms on YouTube, then you need to make your channel appear enticing. A great profile picture will help you with that. So, that’s definitely something to get right.
Channel art and profile image sizes differ on YouTube to other social media platforms. You can check out those sizes in our blog ‘Nobody likes lazy social media profiles – let’s refine a few things’.
Add your other social media sites to your YouTube profile and adding your YouTube channel to your website
You want your YouTube channel to promote your firm in as many ways as possible. Adding your other social media platforms to your channel’s ‘About’ section will help to do this.
You should also add a link to your YouTube channel, somewhere on your firm’s website. You can also embed appropriate videos you’ve uploaded to your channel, directly onto a specific website page.
The goal of your channel is to share your knowledge and expertise, entertain and/or inform your audience and secure potential clients for your business.
You should also include a link to your firm’s website home page and if you have a blog (which, by the way, we really think you should have), place a link to that primary blog site.
Add your first video
Once you’ve created and refined your new channel, you need to create and add videos.
A well-designed YouTube page with no videos won’t do much for you. It can be worthwhile doing some research to get inspiration. Take a look at the things your rivals are doing and how much success they are achieving. Your goal is to post reasonably regular content because, just like other areas of SEO, that’s how successful YouTube channels build the brand. Importantly though, you need to make sure that you post high-quality content.
Your videos are a reflection of your company. If you want potential customers to see that your firm is highly skilled, knowledgeable, approachable and trustworthy, then you need to create professional videos. By using an online YouTube video editor, you can demonstrate your company's skill and expertise with the use of professional videos.
As suggested earlier, you should create optimised content that will reach your target market. It’s also a good idea to copy your script to the platform (in a way that it is legible if someone is not viewing the video) when posting your new video. This way, all the relevant content (including keywords and key phrases) will be searchable.
Finally, your videos don’t have to be 100% business-related. If you offer legal services in the field of family law, for example, then you might want to create videos that deal with relationships and families. Likewise, if you offer services in workers compensation, you may want to create some content around workplace safety. You can also create content that promotes your services to the community or what your team is up to from time to time.
You may find some assistance for creating your videos in our blog ‘Seven tips for creating video content for your law firm’.
Creating your YouTube channel is not difficult. It’s just a matter of going through the various steps and, like most things related to digital marketing, being thorough and consistent in your setup.
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