This month Ian Bardorf steps into the interview chair as part of our ongoing series of interviewing people who are doing interesting things in the social media marketing space.

Ian runs a search marketing company called Bardorf Marketing. What I find interesting about Ian is thta he is having success using social media marketing sites like YouTube to help attorneys generate new clients.

Ian, you run a search marketing company Bardorf Legal Marketing. Can you tell me about your company?

Bardorf Legal marketing is a full-service online marketing agency that helps attorneys and law firms succeed in a changing world. My team is dedicated to implementing the best approach for an attorney’s specific area of expertise and location. We believe the most effective Internet marketing is local and we design campaigns that are targeted to a particular region and practice area to give maximum visibility.

Your company focuses on the legal market. Can you tell me what you are doing to help Attorneys?

The Internet is quickly replacing yellow pages, television, and radio as the preferred source for people in need of a lawyer, yet many attorneys simply don’t have the time or the expertise to reach new clients online. We help them effectively present their experience and credentials using all the tools available online to gain new clients and grow their business so that they can get back to practicing law.

Is there a difference between what small firms and larger firms are doing online?

There’s no difference between what small and large firms can do online. Technology levels the playing field and enables bigger and smaller players to compete online in ways they can’t offline. It’s not like if you spend more money online you’ll get different results. It’s just doing the right things.

The difference lies between the firms that understand the value of online marketing and those that don’t — some firms of all sizes “get it.” The only difference is that large firms might have an in-house marketing team focused on it. But smaller firms can easily hire someone to help them produce a video, get blog content, create a Facebook page, etc. You don’t need a dedicated team in-house to be successful, you just have to be in the game.

Are you seeing attorneys embrace the Internet, and specifically social media marketing?

Within the last few years more attorneys are embracing the Internet and the ones that do are receiving the early benefits of being trailblazers. The yellow pages are dinosaurs; TV commercials are expensive and may not reach their geographic target audience. Internet marketing is more cost-effective and connects attorneys with prospects who are actively searching for a solution.

The challenge is how to use the Internet effectively and how to get results sooner rather than later. The other issue attorneys face is weeding through the noise to determine what’s a good marketing investment and what’s not. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Some marketing firms claim they can guarantee an attorney will appear on the first page of the search engine results. Some charge $200 to $400 a month to set up a service that’s actually free on Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Blogs and social media are marketing channels that cannot be ignored in today’s competitive marketplace. Attorneys realize this is where they need to be and they also acknowledge that it can be very overwhelming to get there. In general they are smart, highly educated and savvy individuals who are now getting up to speed in a new arena.

Part 2: How Bardorf Legal Marketing clients are using social media tactics

One of your social media tactics has been the use video. Why did you decide to focus on that tactic?

Online video is one of the most effective and efficient ways to communicate your marketing message to your audience. This visual and dynamic format gives clients another way to interact with a firm and is a great opportunity for attorneys to introduce themselves to a new audience. The right campaign can quickly generate referrals, friends, fans, and followers. With little or no media expense, depending on where it’s posted, video can drive action, generating qualified leads with a lower cost for client acquisition and higher ROI.

The specific benefits for attorneys are that when someone has a legal issue and is searching for representation it can be intimidating to pick up the phone when you don’t know the lawyer or may not even know exactly what your issue is. It’s much easier to watch a short clip and develop a good feeling about that attorney before calling. A 20 to 30 second introduction can make a positive impression. My clients tell me people say, “I saw your video and I thought you were the right person to call.”

I see that you created a YouTube channel. How important is that for companies to do?

Just over five years old, YouTube now has approximately 2 million searches daily, and it is a great place for marketers in all areas to reach their target market by using video assets to increase awareness.

I post all the video I shoot of my clients on my YouTube channel for two reasons. First, by having YouTube host and serve the videos there is less resource drain on my clients’ servers and sites. It’s also designed to allow easy sharing, which means the video can be embedded in all sorts of online properties without having to host it.

The second reason is for search engine optimization. By creating an optimal channel for attorneys in all different geographic and practice areas I’m generating traffic and quality links back to their sites.

In addition to YouTube, what other video sites do your videos appear on?

I also post to the video hosting sites Yahoo video, Metacafe and Vimeo. There are several legal directories that also allow video like Avvo and Justia.

What are some of your key learnings in developing video for your clients?

I’ve learned that there is a very positive response to video from potential clients – both my clients and the attorneys’ clients. Video makes a site more engaging. It’s an affordable way to get the attorney in front of a qualified prospect.

Additionally, as search engines continue to advance in their ability to serve all types of media in search results, video is key to building the digital arsenal, advancing beyond text and web pages, which will keep my clients competitive.

Another lesson is to keep the message simple. Good lighting and good sound will take you a long way but you don’t need high end production. When people see high production values they think of commercial TV and it can make the attorney seem too expensive and out of reach. We’re trying to reach a local audience and the more authentic our video, the better our chances of making a connection. I’ve found that our target audience is more inclined to relate to this type of video than an expensive, high production video.

One of the things that seems to stump people who want to do video is the technical piece – how do I shoot, edit it, etc. What do you advise?

Keep it simple. Do short (30 second) clips. Use good lighting. I’ve invested in good lights and a tripod that I use at every shoot. One of my clients got a great Logitech HD desktop camera and shoots directly from his desk. The video has great resolution and good audio. He’ll do a two-minute discussion of an issue and post it to his site from his YouTube channel. It looks and sounds great. It’s authentic.

Poor video quality, audio, lighting, and delivery can hurt you. If you choose to do video, it’s worth the time to explore, test, and do it correctly. Remember, once your video is on the web, it’s out there for all to see.

Attorneys are really knowledgeable about their subject matter. How do you plan out the content so that the layperson can understand the topic on the video?

The purpose of a video is not to answer people’s questions in their entirety, to resolve an issue or solve a complex problem. The purpose is to establish credibility. The attorney needs to let people know they are knowledgeable, that they’ve handled this sort of case before, and invite the prospect to call with questions.

Prior to shooting video I send each attorney an email with a list of questions to prepare them. For example, if we’re talking about divorce in a two-minute piece I recommend that they start off with a grabber like, “If you’re contemplating divorce in Massachusetts, here are three things you need to know.”

I help them script the video. I also closely direct during the shoot. If an attorney gets into the technical jargon or starts to wander I pull them in and we reshoot.

What are some of the opportunities in video that marketers are not taking advantage of?

I advise marketers to look for ways to repurpose their video assets. Don’t just use your video in one place, one time. There are lots of opportunities to leverage it in different areas. For example, on a Google places account. In the legal community there are sites like Avvo and Justia. Don’t just let it sit on your site waiting — proactively look for ways to make the most of it.

Last week I wrote about the Top 15 National Retailers by Facebook Fans. The data was part of a report issued by fMedia Logic. Click here to receive a full copy of the report from Media Logic.

Yesterday I received a follow up email from David Schultz, President of Media Logic letting me know that they had just released some really interesting data about Black Friday and how Black Friday impacted the number of Facebook fans that a retailer had.

You can read Media Logic’s new post here, but here are some of the highlights:

• In the 10 days leading up to Black Friday, the biggest retailers on Facebook grew their fan bases by an average of 10%
• The more aggressive retailers on Facebook grew their fan bases by an average of 20%
• Some of the tactics that the more aggressive retailers used included a combination of Black Friday and other seasonal offers, discounts, contests, games and simple “Like us” requests

Success Stories
In the 10 days leading up to Black Friday look at the growth that some of these retailers had:

• Macy’s added 172,261 Likers (a 25.6% increase)
• Target added 426,401 Likers (a 17% increase)
• Toys ‘R’ Us add 244,612 Likers (a 30.6% increase, pushing the brand past the magic million Liker mark).
• A 40% off coupon helped Justice grow its base a whopping 62.7%.

By contrast, the bottom 10 retailers, 7 out of 10 of which offered no Facebook promotion of any sort, averaged only 1.8% growth.

Takeaway
So what is the secret to attracting fans on Facebook? Just ask them. That is what the successful retail brands are doing.

Those that said “Like us” during the 10-day run up to Black Friday saw their fan bases grow by an average of almost 14%. Retailers that combined a seasonal promotion with a “Like us” saw their fan bases grow by an average of over 17.5%. In contrast, retailers that just dropped visitors to their Facebook wall averaged only 4.1% growth.

Great stuff. You can read Media Logic complete blog post here.

Conan O’Brien’s new talk show debuted in TBS earlier this week and it was a ratings success. According to lostremote.com, Monday nights show pulled in 4,155,000 viewers overall — beating both Leno and Letterman — with 2,451,000 (over half!) between the ages of 18-34. In fact, TBS said the median viewer age was just 30 years old.

“Conan’s audience has been very vocal online, and he clearly made a smooth transition from Twitter to TBS,” said Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks.

So how did Conan O’Brien crush Leno and Letterman? One reason is Twitter. When Conan left NBC, he started a Twitter account, posting his first few public statements since leaving the network. It since exploded into a promotion machine and has 1.8 million followers. Leading up to the premier, O’Brien ran a Twitter campaign where fans got to vote on who his first guest should be.

O’Brien is after a much younger demographic than Leno or Letterman and it is really interesting to see how Team Coco has embraced social media as a way to reach out and connect with his target demographic. In addition to Twitter, Team Coco has also launched a blog, and been very active on Facebook and YouTube.

Leading up to the premiere, the show is also using Facebook (it created an event for the premiere) and YouTube (a big ad on the home page today that’s tied into American Express, and an “internet version” of the show, sponsored by Diet Coke), as well as an embeddable countdown widget:

The social media efforts obviously worked as the ratings for his premier we terrific. It will be interesting to watch Team Coco’s social media tactics in the coming months as he tries to win the ratings battle with the networks.

Really interesting interview with Seth Greenberg, Vice President of Global Media and Digital Marketing, Intuit Consumer Group—TurboTax on eMarketer.

The interview is about how Intuit uses customer-generated reviews to increase sales (You can read the whole interview here), but the part I found most interesting was how Intuit uses Facebook to promote its products via customer reviews.

eMarketer: How are you incorporating social media tools into customer reviews?

Greenberg: We enable customers to post reviews into their Facebook news feeds so their friends can see them. We know that 50% of our 21 million customers are pretty active on Facebook and our TurboTax active customers have 150 friends.

Any time we can get them to talk about our brand, they’re actually doing what I call “friendcasting.” Friendcasting is a new and very powerful channel since consumers are now using their networks as earned media, and that’s like the Holy Grail because the influence is so much greater. The clickthroughs and sales are higher. We give customers the tools to easily share reviews with their social networks. Through friendcasting, we’re able to hyper-segment reviews for relevancy and social networks. It’s about enabling those customers who are ready to share their reviews with us to share them with their network, if they choose to.

eMarketer: Do you have any metrics that prove that customer reviews are helping business?

Greenberg: When people talk about our products on Facebook with their friends—and I mentioned that 50% of our customers are on Facebook—people are four times more likely to click on the link in the news feed. So if you talk about TurboTax and I’m a friend of yours, I’m four times more likely to click on that link vs. seeing a banner ad for the product. We found that 79% of those who clicked on the link and purchased TurboTax were brand-new customers. That showed me that friendcasting, talking about us on Facebook, is much more effective than most of our other marketing communications channels.

My takeaway from this is that by making customer reviews easy to share on Facebook, Intuit is able to leverage the relationship that their Facebook users have with their friends, to reach out to new customers.

The stat that people are four times more likely to click on a link in a friends news feed vs. seeing a banner ad for the product is simply amazing. And there is no advertising cost for Intuit as the marketing message is being written and delivered by its users.

A recent eMarketer post highlighted the success of Mars’ Pedigree brand dog food Facebook campaign to promote its annual Pedigree Adoption Drive. The campaign invited Facebook members to “Become a fan, help a dog.” For each new fan of the drive on Facebook, Pedigree donated a bowl of food to rescue groups and shelters.

The clear goal of this campaign was to increase the number of Facebook fans that Pedigree has, and is a goal that can be easily measured.

Strategy

On Facebook, fans clicked on the “Help Dogs” tab to tell friends about the campaign, find adoptable dogs and volunteer.

“We didn’t just support this online. We had offline media such as TV, in-store and video PSAs,” Lisa Foley, manager of interactive marketing at Mars Petcare U.S.said.

Singer Carrie Underwood promoted the program in a PSA video on Facebook, YouTube and other online outlets.

I love that the Facebook campaign was not a stand-alone effort, but was an integrated part of their marketing efforts, both on and off line

Results

“When we started out we had 55,000 fans,” Foley said. “Now we have more than a million.”

The Facebook page has more than 6,000 photos, 50 videos and thousands of comments. As of August 12, nearly 1.1 million bowls of food had been donated.

That is a huge increase in the number of fans that Pedigree has and made the campaign a resounding success.

Key Takeaways

“We’ve learned that if you’re talking about something people are emotionally connected to, they’ll be more compelled to act,” Foley explained. “These people are not just ‘liking’ the page and then leaving. They’re incredibly active and return to it.”

Google Adwords has dominated the online advertising space for the last three or four years but Facebook I believe is positioned to really challenge Google for some of those advertising dollars.

We recently ran a series of campaigns for local events on Facebook and I was really impressed with the ROI that we got. It was much higher than anything that we have gotten using Adwords. So how did we do it?

Demographic Targeting
Unlike Adwords, Facebook users are not actively searching for your product or service. But by using Facebook’s demographics and location data we were able to really focus on our target audience.

Since our campaign was specific to a location we were able to target just the people who liked the brand we were promoting and who lived within 50 miles of the event.

This ended up being a really small group, but that was ok because the conversion event and CPC was really good.

Use Pictures
We tested ads with pictures and ads without. The ads with pictures all performed substantially better than those without.

Test Multiple Ads
When we run a paid campaign we always use multiple ad text, but it really is useful on Facebook. We tested new ad content every day until we were sure we had the most optimized copy. Then we let that as run until the end of the campaign.