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The Personal Brand Trap: Why Lawyers Chase Viral Videos and Lose Everything · The Jon and Marc Podcast

• 0:00
  I've had some people pitch me on like, oh, we can just replicate
• 0:03
  you first of all. No, you can't.
• 0:06
  You. Can't I feel a lack of
• 0:08
  connection when it's AII think if you were trying to educate
• 0:13
  people on what it's like to connect with human beings as a
• 0:16
  trial lawyer, and then for efficiency you replace it with
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  the computer. We are doing a disservice to the
• 0:22
  people. Welcome to the John and Mark
• 0:34
  podcast. We are live at Masked Horse Made
• 0:37
  Perfect. I am jazzed up for our guest.
• 0:40
  I would introduce you but I would not do yourself justice.
• 0:44
  Welcome to the podcast. Who do we have today?
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  Sarah Williams. Sarah Williams, as I am called.
• 0:53
  Which is so awkward. It's so awkward.
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  You might be the first guest we have that has their own personal
• 0:58
  stylist, their own personal social media manager.
• 1:01
  I don't know where your posse is at this point.
• 1:04
  They're not in the room with us, but we're very excited about
• 1:07
  having you on. And what are you looking forward
• 1:09
  to here at Mass towards Made Perfect?
• 1:10
  I enjoy so I used to come to mass towards Made Perfect every
• 1:15
  April and October. I haven't been in a couple
• 1:17
  years, so I have looked forward to reconnecting with people.
• 1:22
  There are a lot of lawyers I haven't seen because I feel like
• 1:25
  on the conference circuit there are people who do certain
• 1:27
  conferences and then don't do others.
• 1:29
  So that's been good. But I'm in and out.
• 1:31
  Like I flew in last night, I had a dinner, I spoke this morning.
• 1:35
  I'm doing this podcast, I've got some meetings and I'm flying.
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  I'm taking the red eye. When you get old, you start
• 1:41
  doing conferences. It's a different thing.
• 1:43
  I agree. Well, we really appreciate you
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  fitting us in into your very busy schedule for sure.
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  The first time I I came upon your presence was at the first
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  Business of Law event in Arizona.
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  OK, you did a phenomenal talk. I remember because I had to
• 2:01
  speak right after you. I'm sorry.
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  So sorry it's. A bad slot to have.
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  It is. That was probably three years.
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  Ago did she like throw you the mic?
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  Be like. Good luck.
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  No, I just have to get on stage after like OK, so usually, and
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  you know this having attended many of these conferences,
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  usually what happens at these events is the talks are either
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  extremely self promotional or are so surface level that you
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  can take nothing away from them. Right.
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  And from Sarah's talk, I remember walking away and seeing
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  people swarm her afterwards to ask her questions and actually
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  making me think about what she said because at the time, I
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  think that the talk was about, like, personal branding as you
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  remember this. Yeah.
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  OK, I'm. I'm going back now.
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  It was about personal branding. And like, all these attorneys
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  were, like, trying to understand the dynamic of social media at
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  the time and how it was evolving.
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  There was no ChatGPT or any of that yet.
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  And you were still with Shunara? And also a personal brand within
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  a larger brand like that I feel like was at that time mind
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  blowing. Even still now people think it
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  was a failed experiment but. I think that the way that you
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  approach your personal brand as an attorney is the way that
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  other attorneys should think about their brand.
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  Not that they should emulate you, right?
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  But you are. You are yourself.
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  You are not getting in front of a camera and trying to put on
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  any type of act. There's no mask that gets put on
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  when you go in front of a camera, right?
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  There's no persona that gets. It's Sarah and you go.
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  Sarah, listen, this is what you you.
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  Get I can confirm from the conversations we had before we
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  were recording, this is exactly how she is.
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  And that that type of mentality for someone in this space,
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  especially when you're talking more about personal injure
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  lawyers who are used to like, you know, being the namesake of
• 4:04
  the firm, being on all the commercials and having to be,
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  you know, I'm going to, you know, pound on top of the truck
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  with the hammer or I am going to talk about like.
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  What's the term we say? Some lawyers are like a
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  caricature of themselves. Right.
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  And they're on. And then you meet them and
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  you're like, oh, you're nothing like.
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  And so for me, it's the opposite.
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  Like I love when my clients come in to meet in person and they're
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  like, you're exactly like you are.
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  That's all I get, you know? But I think that that goes a
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  long way in creating trust between you and your.
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  Of course, right, You're on Instagram and you're talking
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  about like, what is it like to be a lawyer and a mom, right?
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  And there's that is that is what people, I guess, wander here,
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  right? You have a big following, right?
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  I mean, it could, it could be bigger.
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  No, it is a, it's a loyal following.
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  And so the thing that has been important for me, I think the
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  mistake a lot of lawyers make is they're like, how do I go viral?
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  And then how do I just have like a huge number of followers?
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  The metric that we focus on me and my team is who's staying, do
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  you know what I mean? And who's engaging?
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  Like when I finished speaking this morning, I had like 3 or 4
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  ladies come up to me and they're like, hey, I follow you on
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  TikTok or I follow you on Instagram.
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  Haven't had a chance to meet you.
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  And so it is for an introvert, which no one ever believes like
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  I am. I don't believe you.
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  You're a liar. No, I like to earn a living, and
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  I realized that to do it in this space, you cannot, like, I can't
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  be an introvert, you know what I mean?
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  You're a service based business that deals directly with
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  clients. You got to do it or do something
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  else, right? But it helps because I can show
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  up places and people are like, I already know you.
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  So it helps with like that awkward Hello, my name is Sarah
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  Williams stage of like networking because people are
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  like, Hey, I already know you and how's your daughter?
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  And and I love that aspect of it.
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  I I think that sometimes I get frustrated and I'm like, this
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  dude just jumped on a truck and has 50,000 followers.
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  But it's a real community versus just a bunch of people who are
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  looking to be entertained. We had this conversation two
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  weeks ago. Like we when we come to these
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  conferences, that's when we really find out like who's
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  watching this stuff, right? Lawyers don't tend to comment on
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  things. They try to like just stay in
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  the background and get their knowledge and share with their
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  inner circles. And we come here and people are
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  like, hey, like love the newsletter.
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  Hey, love the podcast, Hey, Tort talk.
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  Fantastic. Like that is like, it doesn't
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  matter how big your audience is, as long as it's the right
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  audience. That's right.
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  Engagement to me is worth more than likes or the number of
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  followers. And so the thing that's been
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  important for us like I, I get a quarterly report in terms of you
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  know, what my metrics were for the quarter is like who stayed
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  like we don't have a lot of drop off.
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  Also before we move on, everyone who's watching, please like,
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  comment and subscribe if you haven't RT would appreciate it.
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  As well as to Sarah. I guess I know, I know.
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  That the. Two big The two big cohorts of
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  people who watch this are either attorneys themselves or
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  marketers at law or. Yeah, or a lot of vendors in the
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  space. And if if you want to actually
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  see like the right way to do social media as an attorney in
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  this space, definitely follow Sarah on Instagram, TikTok.
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  And where else are you active LinkedIn.
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  I've not been as active. I've been building a new firm.
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  So that's been like one of my really not even Q2.
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  My Q3 goal is to get back into LinkedIn like Q1Q2.
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  I'm just like focus on Instagram.
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  TikTok is a little different from me.
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  Like that's where I experiment with content.
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  And so you it's not the same exact content as you'll see on
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  Instagram. Like sometimes I will, if I have
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  an idea, I'll like record a talking head video in the car
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  and I'm like, let me see how this how this goes on Tiktok.
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  And then I may at my next like formal shoot, do a video for
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  Instagram based on because the metrics on Tiktok are a lot
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  better. Like you can tell, you know
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  where people engaging with the content.
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  And so then sometimes I'll revise like, OK, this is my
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  hook. I thought this was the hook, but
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  this is really the hook. So I use Tiktok much more for
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  like research and to do some of the things like that I don't do
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  on Instagram, like when I wear to this conference and you know,
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  you can, you can show up on TikTok without makeup on which
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  I, I get so much more relaxed space and people feel like they
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  know you on TikTok. It's very odd.
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  Like the DMS I get, Hey, girl, I'm going to tell you what
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  happened to my brother. You think you can find someone?
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  It's, it's wild to me, but it's always good for, I think for
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  like research in terms of the more polished content.
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  I would love to dive into this more.
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  I know you're kind of looting like what your social strategy.
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  Can you like explain how you look at social media, like where
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  you focus your attention, how you think about it, how your
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  team thinks about it? Because this is like for a lot
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  of people listening, this is a, a wild concept.
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  They just think, I'll just post on my company's or the firm's
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  Instagram. That's me doing social media.
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  I'll take a picture. Hey there, maybe there's some
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  funny trending song or dance going.
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  I'll do that. Like explain them how you look
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  at social media as a strategy. So the one big thing that I tell
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  folks including like my firm is my content.
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  I tried to not be self-serving, right?
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  Like I, I want to add value. And so like, that's the
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  overarching, that's my overarching foundational belief.
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  Like if, if what I'm posting does not somehow add value to
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  people, I don't want to post it, right.
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  And so ideally for me, initially when I started, it was, you
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  know, everyone was content pillars, content pillars, right?
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  So like, what were my pillars? And I think that when you're
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  just getting started, having 3 or 4 foundational content
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  pillars helps from an organizational standpoint
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  because it's very overwhelming. Yeah, yeah, like what do I, what
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  do I post? And so for me, those pillars
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  were empowering women. Trial advocacy because I'm an
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  educator. Trucking litigation and then
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  just I just kind of just generally I'm funny, I think.
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  And so I like to have like we have a Wednesday hump day humor,
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  which I will say what drives me nuts is that those videos do so
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  much better. Like I will stress, I'm like, I
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  got to talk about trucking and bad weather cases.
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  And like, while those videos will get me a referral, like in
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  terms of spreading the message and, and, and really getting me
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  in front of audiences, it's still like 2 to 6 seconds hump
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  day humor. That's just something, you know,
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  like an experience that lawyers have that people can relate to
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  that like drives new followers. And so what's important to me
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  for my content is that it reflects who I am, right?
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  Like I am an educator, you know, what are the cases that I'm
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  passionate about? But then what about my
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  personality? Like I like to empower people.
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  Like I love when people say come up to me at conferences and say
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  like I go to your page every morning because I know I'm going
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  to find something on there that will motivate or inspire me.
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  Or I go to your page when I'm not in a good place or I'm
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  feeling like this industry is kind of beat me down.
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  Like I know I can go there and it's like a it's an inviting
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  environment. And so that's intentional for
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  me. Like I don't do what I call
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  trauma porn. I don't do reactions to Rex.
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  I don't like you won't see, you know, sometimes you'll have
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  lawyers and it's like they'll they'll talking about something
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  and then they'll have B roll. That's like a crash.
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  And we're dealing with people who have experienced A trauma.
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  And what I don't want is for this space.
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  That is my space to be, to be a place where you go to be re
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  traumatized or like that's not the pool for me.
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  And a lot of lawyers, you know, it's a draw, right?
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  People like to people have a fascination with trauma and with
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  crashes and it keeps people's attention And it's just, it's
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  not who I am. And so, which probably sometimes
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  frustrates like my social media manager and my video editors
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  because they're like, oh, so and so is doing these things.
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  And I think it's important to stay true to who you are.
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  That's not who I am, and that's not the environment that I want
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  to create. I've heard with the official
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  term, but it's like the creator of the influencer dilemma where
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  you get on this cycle where you create a piece of content that's
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  not really 100% on brand, but it does really well.
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  And then you're like chasing that result again.
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  So you make more content like that, and then before you know
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  it, you've been building an audience for all this content
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  that's not associated with anything you care about.
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  And you're kind of trapped or you're like, oh, I'm doing so
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  well, but now all the stuff I actually cared about, it's over
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  there that I don't make anymore because it doesn't get great
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  engagement. But I have this huge audience
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  that is not related to any of the stuff that I really want to
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  talk about. Obsession with vanity metrics
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  and, and I was like that very early on where it's like, yeah,
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  15 likes was like, yeah, but you had a referral from it, right?
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  Like this one referral paid for, you know, your marketing
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  expenses for like 2 years. And, and I love having shout out
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  to Chelsea. Like my social media manager
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  really does a good job of keeping me grounded.
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  And like she's like, you told me this was the mission.
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  So this is what we're focused on now.
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  If, if you're saying the mission has changed and these are some
• 13:45
  things we can do differently, but if this is truly the goal,
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  we're good, right? And you just, you can't focus on
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  on the vanity. We like to give like golden
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  Nuggets to the audience. So people that want to get
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  started, like how do they start like framing of what how they
• 14:00
  want to tackle social media, What advice do you have for them
• 14:03
  to like get started going in the right direction?
• 14:06
  Now you've kind of you're seasoned that.
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  Yeah, I think the first thing is you got to get real about who
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  you are, right? Like who are you and what is
• 14:15
  important to you? So some of the questions I think
• 14:17
  it's important to ask yourself or like one, what is my goal,
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  right? Like what, what is the ultimate
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  goal? Am I looking for case referrals
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  or am I like, is it B to B or is or is it B to C, right?
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  Am I looking to attract other businesses, other lawyers or am
• 14:35
  I looking to track to attract clients?
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  Because the way you market is going to be different.
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  For me, it's a mixture of both, but ideally I'm looking for case
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  referrals because traditionally I just found that the higher
• 14:51
  quality cases for me traditionally came from case
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  referrals. But what happens, and I, I think
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  AI has played a, a part in this is when you create the content
• 15:02
  that is adding value and answering questions, people are
• 15:05
  looking to find the expert. And I think there's so much
• 15:08
  noise out there now with commercials and build like
• 15:11
  there's so much noise. They're like, OK, who sounds
• 15:14
  like they really know what they're doing.
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  And so I end up getting, you know, direct referrals or direct
• 15:21
  clients from social media. One of my best cases last year
• 15:25
  was a lady who's one of her tenants had a mad Mao situation
• 15:29
  that happened and she sent me Adm and she said, I've watched
• 15:31
  your content on being a lawyer mom and, and teaching trial
• 15:36
  skills, even though I'm not a trial lawyer.
• 15:38
  And I feel like you would be the best person to help her with
• 15:41
  this case. So it can be a mixture, but but
• 15:44
  my ultimate goal is referrals. And so I think you got that.
• 15:49
  Step one, define what your goal. What is your goal Step 2 Who are
• 15:53
  you? Because a lot of people don't do
• 15:56
  like very. Difficult.
• 15:58
  Figuring out like, who are you and what do you want and not
• 16:01
  what the industry tells you you should want, right?
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  What do you actually want? And it is a much more difficult
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  question to ask to answer than I think people think.
• 16:13
  Because you have to peel back all the things like what your
• 16:16
  Mama told you you should be doing, what your professors told
• 16:19
  you you should be doing, what other people tell you should be
• 16:22
  doing. Like when I focused on trucking
• 16:25
  during that time period, like I knew I wanted to ultimately
• 16:29
  become top of mind for those cases, right?
• 16:31
  That takes time. Branding takes time, right?
• 16:34
  It's not like a media. It's like, what's the ROI?
• 16:37
  It's it's a long game, right? But you got to decide what you
• 16:41
  want. And I remember when I was like,
• 16:42
  that's what I'm going to focus on when it comes to marketing.
• 16:45
  Folks were like, yeah, but what if, what if you miss out on a
• 16:49
  motorcycle case? And what if you miss out on a
• 16:51
  mad Mal case? And I think a lot of lawyers
• 16:54
  operate in scarcity mindset. And it's like, that's not who I
• 16:57
  am. Can I handle of those cases?
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  Yes, but this is ideally the case I want.
• 17:02
  And so that's what I'm going to market for.
• 17:04
  But it takes really peeling back like all the other voices that
• 17:09
  have influenced who you think you are and deciding.
• 17:12
  And the other thing is like, again, who am I?
• 17:14
  I'm an educator. I am someone who likes to
• 17:17
  motivate and empower and inspire people.
• 17:19
  Like those are things that are important to me.
• 17:21
  People told me you are making a mistake talking about issues
• 17:26
  dealing with women in the law and motherhood.
• 17:29
  Like nobody wants to hear their trial lawyer talking about
• 17:31
  what's going on with their kids and women are my #1 referring
• 17:36
  source, right? And women trial lawyers are very
• 17:40
  ignored market in terms of like people who are looking for
• 17:45
  referrals going and and and selling themselves or pitching
• 17:49
  themselves. Don't ignore the issues, right
• 17:51
  And so. But I'm being true.
• 17:53
  To me, that is who I am. I'm a lawyer.
• 17:55
  Mom, right? It's something, it's who you
• 17:57
  are. It's something you're passionate
• 17:58
  about. It's not like you're talking
• 17:59
  about the subjects. You think it's like a good
• 18:01
  subject to talk about. It's something you actually care
• 18:02
  about is why you're resident. And that takes highly recommend
• 18:07
  therapy, but also getting in. I like to read, you know, can I
• 18:13
  cuss? You can cuss.
• 18:14
  So while my partners, Brett Schreiber likes to say, like I
• 18:18
  like to read books that asshole read assholes read on planes,
• 18:21
  you know, but like I love Cy Wakeman and I love Ryan Holiday
• 18:25
  and like Courage is calling is a fantastic book, but like you've
• 18:29
  got to get in tune with yourself because it's industry will tell
• 18:32
  you who it thinks you are or who it thinks you should be.
• 18:35
  You've got to decide. And then you've just got to be
• 18:38
  laser focused. I think that's the starting
• 18:41
  point from a philosophical standpoint, right?
• 18:43
  Like the foundation and then you got to figure out the apps.
• 18:50
  So a lot of people will hire folks to do.
• 18:54
  I did it myself for a little bit.
• 18:56
  I don't want you to tell me something's going well and then
• 18:59
  and you sell me on something and I don't understand it myself.
• 19:02
  So it was important for me like to understand the tech myself
• 19:06
  and to understand like I can shoot my own videos, I can edit
• 19:11
  my own videos. Like I know when you're BS ING
• 19:14
  me on a price for editing or, or you know, when the editing is
• 19:17
  not high quality, like if I can go on cap cut and make it
• 19:20
  myself, you know. So I think that people get taken
• 19:26
  advantage of a lot by vendors because they don't understand,
• 19:31
  like they don't understand the metrics and they don't
• 19:33
  understand their analytics. And so you have to understand
• 19:36
  the space and then you have to be dedicated to to creating the
• 19:41
  assets. Like you can't say you want to
• 19:43
  market on social media, but you're not going to carve out
• 19:47
  the time to have a content day or you're not going to carve out
• 19:50
  time during your week to shoot B roll or you're not going to
• 19:53
  carve. Like if you're not going to
• 19:54
  dedicate the time to it, don't do it.
• 19:56
  So it is. I mean, I schedule every
• 19:58
  quarter, I schedule a time to to do a shoot.
• 20:02
  And and luckily I have someone who kind of keeps me like we
• 20:06
  plan a month in advance. So like we've just planned May,
• 20:10
  we'll plan June in a couple of weeks, but it takes effort.
• 20:13
  But it is marketing like anything, any other type of
• 20:16
  marketing. And I just lawyers have to think
• 20:19
  of themselves as a business, like marketing is a part of the
• 20:21
  business if you don't have cases to work on.
• 20:24
  How long should someone be at it before they expect to see any
• 20:30
  type of return? You know, I've been doing it six
• 20:32
  years now and. It's a loaded question, I know
• 20:36
  the answer. But it's tough because it
• 20:39
  depends on what you consider a return.
• 20:42
  So I feel like it's not like a six month investment.
• 20:46
  And that's what happens, right? People are like I did, I dropped
• 20:49
  10 videos and and I I think like I wouldn't, I was, I would give
• 20:54
  it like 2 years before I I said to myself, this has failed.
• 20:59
  I would give it two years of dedicated analysis and you're
• 21:04
  like actually in it. I think at least two years.
• 21:07
  For me, I feel like it was the two 2 1/2 year mark where it
• 21:12
  really I felt started taking off.
• 21:15
  Oh, it's funny, we actually, John posted posts on LinkedIn
• 21:20
  this week talking about like the podcast, like we started in
• 21:22
  August. It's been growing.
• 21:24
  And then I commented like, here's the original story of
• 21:27
  like how it started. I was like, hey, John, I really
• 21:29
  think we should build like a content team.
• 21:31
  We should start a podcast. This is my vision for you.
• 21:33
  Like how much is it going to cost?
• 21:34
  Like it's going to cost a ton of money.
• 21:36
  He's like, how are we going to know it's working?
• 21:38
  Like we won't. And like how he's like, how long
• 21:41
  am I committing to do this? I was like minimum 18 months,
• 21:45
  honestly, probably forever. He was like, OK, let's do it.
• 21:48
  But it was like that was the commitment.
• 21:49
  I was like, you need to be going to this project to expect
• 21:52
  nothing to come from it for 18 months of hard work before we
• 21:56
  like start looking at what's going to.
• 21:58
  I'm not saying waste your time, but this isn't like a you
• 22:01
  started and immediately get results.
• 22:03
  Even going viral, even if you do get that pop some for some
• 22:07
  reason or another, because the way that the algorithms are
• 22:10
  working now, like something can go viral and it's like from an
• 22:13
  account that just has no prior visibility, but that doesn't
• 22:16
  mean you're hitting the audience you want to hit.
• 22:18
  Right. And and I think, you know, AI is
• 22:21
  so much like it makes it so much easier.
• 22:24
  Like I remember like fretting over hooks and captions and you
• 22:31
  know, but now there are so many tools even to, to create your
• 22:36
  content, to edit your videos that if you don't have the
• 22:40
  budget, because I think that's what a lot of people think
• 22:42
  they're like, oh, well, you have a social media manager, right?
• 22:44
  And so it's different for you. It's like, I didn't always.
• 22:47
  This is I think we're 2 1/2 years in with me being managed
• 22:52
  by someone. Other than that, it was me,
• 22:54
  right? Like it was, I had, you know, I
• 22:56
  hire videographer, photographer, and then they'd send me the
• 22:59
  stuff and then I'd have to sit on Sundays and edit my content
• 23:02
  for the week and schedule my content for the week, right?
• 23:05
  Because, but then it got to the point where there were returns
• 23:08
  on it and I can invest back in it and help, you know what I
• 23:11
  mean? So I, I just, I think that
• 23:13
  people, if you really want to do it, you're going to have to
• 23:17
  invest on the front end your time.
• 23:20
  And if you're not willing to invest your time and that you
• 23:23
  can't say that you're I'm the busiest person ever, right?
• 23:27
  Like you can't be too busy for it.
• 23:29
  That's like saying like you're too busy to draft policies for
• 23:32
  your law firm or to review discovery in your case.
• 23:35
  Like marketing is a part of being in business.
• 23:39
  And if you, if you are thinking of yourself, even if you're in a
• 23:43
  firm as a business, you have to take the time to do it.
• 23:47
  How do you look at the the prioritization of a firm's
• 23:54
  branded social media and then an individual attorney or partner's
• 23:59
  social media profile? I think that not like not every
• 24:03
  partner needs to have a personal brand.
• 24:06
  I will agree with that one. You know what I mean, There are
• 24:10
  there are certain personalities that lend themselves to having a
• 24:13
  personal brand. And I think that firms, our firm
• 24:18
  is going through this process of identifying who should be the
• 24:22
  personal brand. My humble opinion, I think if
• 24:24
  you found a firm, you should have a personal brand.
• 24:27
  I just. Some firms there's a lot of
• 24:29
  names on the firm header. That is true.
• 24:33
  If there are a lot of names on the firm header, then I think
• 24:36
  you got to figure out like who are the personalities that lend
• 24:40
  themselves to people are being engaging, right.
• 24:43
  But I don't think everyone in a firm should have a personal
• 24:46
  brand. You got to kind of figure out
• 24:49
  who has the personality to do it and who does it make sense for
• 24:53
  us, We're at my former firm. It was we were very, two very
• 24:58
  different people. There's a demographic and a
• 25:00
  group of people who would refer me cases that they wouldn't send
• 25:04
  to him. Like even now when I left, there
• 25:06
  are people who are like, OK, now that you're gone, I'm going to
• 25:08
  send you cases. Like what?
• 25:10
  So that was kind of the impetus to me starting my personal brand
• 25:15
  at that firm. And it worked out well.
• 25:17
  He captures his there, his set of people who are his people.
• 25:20
  And then there's my people. And then there's some overlap.
• 25:22
  And so I think that's the the analysis you have to do.
• 25:25
  Like, does this person have a distinct personality that needs
• 25:29
  to stand out from the firm's brand?
• 25:32
  And will there be, you know, do they have an Audi, a potential
• 25:36
  audience? Not everyone does well, maybe
• 25:39
  that's sometimes a hard conversation to have with
• 25:41
  people. Did you get any pushback when
• 25:43
  you started your own personal brand?
• 25:45
  While you're inside, you know your past firms.
• 25:47
  So it was his idea, it was Alex's idea and, and it took me
• 25:53
  a while to buy in, but it's we got pushed back from the
• 25:59
  outside. Like people, when it first
• 26:01
  launched, we were at NTL in Miami and people came up to him
• 26:06
  and they were like, hey, did you see what, Sarah?
• 26:08
  'S doing. She's making moves on your.
• 26:10
  Brother. Yeah, yeah.
• 26:11
  He was like, isn't it amazing? And so what's funny now that
• 26:15
  I've left the firm is now the conversation is, see, we told
• 26:19
  you, we told you she was going to leave.
• 26:22
  We told you that this would allow her to create the type of
• 26:26
  business that would allow her to leave.
• 26:29
  And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:31
  Like. And I told y'all.
• 26:33
  But I got rich off her while she was here.
• 26:37
  Like I she brought in cases that I never would have gotten right.
• 26:40
  And so that's the thing. And so I've had some
• 26:42
  conversations where people are like, ha, ha, ha.
• 26:45
  You know, we told him that you would do this.
• 26:47
  I'm like, you realize you don't own people, right?
• 26:49
  Like if you have someone who was itching to create.
• 26:55
  And it's like the type of personality like me and you
• 26:58
  stifle them, you're going to lose them anyway.
• 27:01
  You know what I mean? You're going to lose them
• 27:02
  anyway. And so then transitioning to to
• 27:06
  my new firm, Singleton Schreiber, that, I mean, it was
• 27:09
  a conversation. I was like, hey, this is what I
• 27:12
  do and not going to stop doing it, you know, So is it
• 27:16
  compatible? And then their conversations
• 27:19
  within their marketing team. And I actually think it has
• 27:22
  worked well in terms of expanding their audience, right?
• 27:25
  And so I think that it's necessary to have personal
• 27:28
  brands, especially the direction that digital marketing is going.
• 27:32
  Like you can't, a law firm can't pretend that they have a Sarah,
• 27:36
  Sarah Williams at their firm, right?
• 27:38
  Sometimes what we were seeing at my Old Firm was, you know,
• 27:43
  people would click, they'd search Alexander Shinara, call a
• 27:47
  firm, the first firm that popped up or, you know, people were
• 27:51
  creating landing pages. And then they call and they say,
• 27:53
  oh, yeah, yeah, we work with them.
• 27:55
  They send us cases. And you don't you think of him
• 27:58
  as like this huge person. And so it's like, yeah, maybe
• 28:01
  this firm is taking their cases. But if you call the firm and
• 28:04
  say, yeah, I'm, I'm trying, I want to hire Sarah Williams and
• 28:09
  they can't transfer your call to Sarah Williams, right, then
• 28:13
  you're less likely to lose those cases.
• 28:15
  Like you want people, in my opinion, asking for certain
• 28:18
  lawyers by name. I want people asking for me by
• 28:22
  name. That's why I think is necessary
• 28:24
  with the direction of digital marketing is going.
• 28:27
  I think every farm should have somebody who is a personal
• 28:32
  brand. This, this has taken a direction
• 28:37
  that I, I, I want to dig into a bit.
• 28:40
  We say this all the time. People do business with people
• 28:43
  who they know like and trust, OK?
• 28:45
  They don't do business with AI, they don't do business with with
• 28:51
  a faceless brand for the most part right there.
• 28:53
  So if they do, it's because that's the only option that they
• 28:56
  have available to them. As we move more towards an an
• 29:00
  I'll just call an AI heavy era of digital marketing where
• 29:04
  people can create social media content without a real human
• 29:08
  right. How can an attorney say I should
• 29:15
  be investing my time, my resources and doing it the way
• 29:19
  that Sarah's doing it versus I am being sold this like bag of
• 29:24
  goods that is someone creating something for me using AI or
• 29:30
  like meshing together different things to try and create
• 29:33
  something that isn't actually what you've done?
• 29:36
  I've been trying to stay on top of where that's going and it's
• 29:40
  it seems to me that where at least meta is going to go is to
• 29:46
  deprioritize the more polished content because that content is
• 29:52
  more Cape like you're more capable of replicating that with
• 29:55
  AI. And so like next month I'm
• 29:58
  experimenting with like the sitting in my car talking head
• 30:02
  videos, right That yeah, like it's like clearly I'm in my car.
• 30:09
  You know what I mean? It's not like it's me like y'all
• 30:12
  know this is my car because you've also seen B roll of me
• 30:15
  like taking my like picking my dog up right?
• 30:17
  I don't know how that I don't know kind of where the
• 30:21
  algorithms going to go, but I have a feeling that it's going
• 30:25
  to become more like TikTok. Like on TikTok, the polished
• 30:28
  videos don't, they don't get as much engagement.
• 30:31
  Like I have gotten more engagement.
• 30:33
  Like the video. I've had one video go viral on
• 30:36
  Cardi B. It ended her trial, ended up on
• 30:39
  CNN. And it was I saw a video clip.
• 30:43
  I was standing at my standing desk at work and I like put my
• 30:47
  phone on my tripod. Every lawyer should have a
• 30:49
  tripod in their office just in case you want to say something
• 30:53
  and just record a video real quick of like how I really felt
• 30:56
  about like the trial and it millions of views, right?
• 30:59
  And I, I think that's where things are going to go.
• 31:03
  I hate the AI videos. There are some lawyers that I
• 31:05
  follow who I tell, I can tell they've gone to AI and it's
• 31:08
  like, dude, your fingers look like a like, I know it's AI and
• 31:11
  it it doesn't have like it has the content, but it doesn't have
• 31:16
  a soul, if that makes sense. Because I think there are ways
• 31:20
  in which we as human beings communicate that are not
• 31:23
  robotic, that can't necessarily be replicated by AI.
• 31:28
  Like kind of the little quirks that just make you imperfect.
• 31:32
  That's one of the things I actually just in my talk today
• 31:35
  is like, people don't really like perfect people.
• 31:39
  And I don't think people necessarily want to see perfect
• 31:42
  content. So my goal is to go, I have to
• 31:46
  get comfortable and being less pop, less produced, but I am
• 31:50
  deeply insecure. And so I'm like, I need a makeup
• 31:53
  artist, I need my hair stylist on set.
• 31:56
  You know what I mean? I need the good lighting.
• 31:58
  So the melanin is popping. You know what I mean?
• 32:02
  Because it's like I, and I think people think like you do this
• 32:05
  all the time and so you're confident about it.
• 32:07
  I am deeply insecure about it, but I got to make a living, you
• 32:10
  know what I mean? So I am trying to get
• 32:13
  comfortable doing the less produced content because my gut
• 32:16
  tells me that that is the direction that the algorithm is
• 32:20
  going to start preferring to kind of weed out the AI.
• 32:24
  That's, that's just my gut though.
• 32:25
  And so I'm trying to follow it to figure it out.
• 32:27
  And we're going to mix up our content just to kind of see in
• 32:31
  the next few months like what performs, how each each piece
• 32:36
  performs. But recently we have learned
• 32:39
  like we've been tracking it, the stuff I shoot on my iPhone
• 32:43
  performs, sorry guys, just as well as the stuff that I hire a
• 32:47
  videographer and a team and shoot.
• 32:49
  Right, you're all fired. I mean, I got my little DJI mics
• 32:54
  too, so I don't know the answers to that question, but those are
• 32:57
  the things that I'm watching and how I'm kind of reacting to.
• 33:01
  The market has has shifted rapidly, right?
• 33:04
  What started out as people trying to leverage all this
• 33:07
  technology to do all these things at scale right, got so
• 33:11
  overdone that now people like yourself are having to pull back
• 33:15
  and be even more real just to prove that you're not doing that
• 33:19
  stuff at scale that's. Right.
• 33:20
  Yeah. I think the things that really
• 33:22
  resonate is couple of things it's posting specifics to the
• 33:26
  platform and certain things. Instagram's a more polished than
• 33:29
  the TikTok would be versus YouTube.
• 33:31
  We have a lot more success on YouTube, but like our format is
• 33:33
  designed for like a longer form. That's why we're more
• 33:36
  successful. It's our audience excuse to
• 33:38
  authenticity is incredibly important in this new world.
• 33:41
  Like you said, like the reason those videos do so well because
• 33:44
  they're harm percent authentic and that really translates.
• 33:47
  I think the one thing that's really the differentiator in
• 33:50
  this new world where there's a ton of AI tools is, is something
• 33:53
  they can't replace. It is what I called taste.
• 33:55
  And there's a lot of people that just like try to like let the
• 33:58
  apps automatically cut up their clips or put up whatever or make
• 34:02
  the content recommendations or strategy.
• 34:03
  It can help influence you in speed along the process, but
• 34:06
  doesn't have good taste to what your audience wants.
• 34:09
  That is still like required by you, your content successful
• 34:12
  because you have the taste for what you want your content to
• 34:15
  look like and to be like. It will miss some of the Nuggets
• 34:18
  and like the zingers and it's like, no, I know that you're
• 34:21
  like fighting with it. Like no, go back and pre edit it
• 34:25
  and include this part. And then it's like, I don't
• 34:27
  think I won't do that. Sarah.
• 34:28
  You're like, no, what? I'll just do it myself, pull up
• 34:32
  my inside out. But yeah.
• 34:34
  And because there are like cultural concepts, right?
• 34:37
  That like maybe just unique to Alabama, right, that the AI is
• 34:42
  not going to capture. But I know I want my audience to
• 34:45
  catch because they're going to go, that's our girl from right
• 34:48
  here, you know? And so that's the struggle.
• 34:51
  I do think that there are so many tools that help make your
• 34:56
  content creation much more efficient and, and so those are
• 35:02
  important to me to use. I just, I don't like the idea,
• 35:05
  you know? I've had some people pitch me on
• 35:08
  like, oh, we can just replicate you, first of all.
• 35:12
  No, you can't. You can't and even you know, I'm
• 35:17
  like, dude, my I changed my hairstyle like every every shoot
• 35:20
  is looks different and so people are going to know if you I don't
• 35:24
  know, I know and I don't like it.
• 35:26
  Like I'm like, I feel, I want to feel like I have a connection to
• 35:29
  the person that I'm engaging with.
• 35:32
  I feel a lack of connection when it's AI and, and, and maybe I'm
• 35:36
  wrong. Maybe that's the direction it'll
• 35:38
  go. If so, I guess I'll have to
• 35:40
  pivot, but I hope not. I think it's weird for trial
• 35:43
  lawyers. Don't be offended if this is
• 35:46
  you, but I think if you were trying to educate people on what
• 35:52
  it's like to connect with human beings as a trial lawyer and
• 35:56
  then for efficiency, you replace it with a with the computer,
• 36:00
  we're doing a disservice to the people, right, Because you
• 36:04
  aren't connecting for real. And I just it will probably
• 36:09
  never be me. Like I may just, I don't know,
• 36:11
  have to start doing TikTok dances to get in catchment.
• 36:14
  Well, I would rather do that. And I cannot dance.
• 36:17
  My black card gets revoked all the time, all the time.
• 36:21
  Dude, my daughter can't dance. My husband just looks at her and
• 36:23
  he's like, this is you. This.
• 36:25
  Is your fault. But I just I would rather dance
• 36:29
  on TikTok then like not show up. And that, my friends, is how you
• 36:36
  do social media correct. Sarah, thank you so much.
• 36:41
  This has been absolutely amazing.
• 36:42
  I hope those of you watching can take away just a little bit of
• 36:46
  what Sarah brings to her social media presence, to the persona
• 36:50
  that she has put online. She didn't build it for online.
• 36:54
  She took herself and she put it online.
• 36:56
  And that's the way, the right way for you to pursue social
• 36:59
  media. Thank you so much for joining us
• 37:01
  and. Thank y'all for having me.
• 37:02
  I'm Sarah Williams, a partner Singleton Schreiber and avid
• 37:06
  legal marketer. If you are interested in legal
• 37:08
  marketing as well, you have to follow, like and subscribe to
• 37:12
  the John Mark Podcast.