“People tell us who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.”
Donald Draper
I have boiled it down to Six Rules for SEO/Social Media Marketing Success:
- Listen
- Consummate
- Curate
- Mediate
- Facilitate
- Initiate
These are in order of importance. You are probably doing it backwards and poorly nonetheless. I look at a lot of Facebook pages and see very few effective ones. You need to stop initiating new content and start listening.
Listening is the most critical thing you can do in your job as an attorney. As a personal injury attorney, you have learned to “listen between the lines” and find opportunities to truly help someone.
Same thing goes online with prospects. Learn to listen through social media and analytics, and ask proper questions of prospects.
Why Listen?
Listening uncovers questions that can provide you mountains of leads at a much smaller cost of time and marketing dollars. In almost every website I have worked on over the years, simply paying attention to keywords, listening to what people were really asking, has lead to steady stream of cases in a place that was not expected. You know that when you walk into any legal case with an open mind, you perform your best. The same goes here.
Listening is an art form. One of the simplest places to get started is social media. If you listen with your ideal clients in mind, you will start to see patterns in the conversation. You will see opportunities.
Listening will make you more endearing. I have discussed Todd Kashdan’s book, Curious? One of the biggest things I took out of it was that people are hardwired to like people that ask questions of them more. Listening with intent can also make you happier! It’s science.
Not Just a Short Term Solution
Listening can be tough for you to do on a continuous basis. You often see a solution and want to proceed. However if you step back and listen to what some is truly asking, you will be able to uncover many other questions. Many times, people just want to be listened to first. This is also good relationship advice.
The coolest part of all of this is that with everyone spending time on Search and Social Media, there are many questions being asked that you might never know were real questions because potential clients may never ask them of you.
“Who else among my friends has been in an accident?”
“Is it wrong to sue for a car accident?”
“What will my family think about this lawsuit?”
“How much is the average settlement?”
You see, we don’t want to admit what we don’t know. We also think people know things we don’t and feel a different way. This is called pluralistic ignorance. No one ever wants to be the one that does not know.
Now, if you can uncover unanswered questions, you will win.
This subject of Listening is evolving rapidly when it comes to Internet marketing. There are more tools than ever. More information awaits you, and more possibility lies literally at your fingertips.
To really get effective at listening, pay attention to your ideal clients. It will cut through some of the noise. Take some time everyday to listen, really listen.
It will improve every aspect of your marketing and your business.