Latest / Technically Sound Strategy / Episode 45 - What Social Media Trends Really Mean for Attorneys With Jason Brower

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Episode 45 - What Social Media Trends Really Mean for Attorneys With Jason Brower · Technically Sound Strategy

• 0:01
  Welcome to Legal Marketing Radio, our production of LaFleur Marketing.
• 0:05
  This week I chat with Jason Brower, director of Membership and Communications
• 0:08
  at Kent Country Club in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about what social media
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  trends really mean for attorneys.
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  We dig into how attorneys and law firms can move beyond chasing the latest viral
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  tactic and start using social media as a deliberate strategic tool for growth.
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  Jason brings a one of a kind perspective to this conversation.
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  Before joining the private club world, he led social media and automation
• 0:30
  strategy here at the floor, helping law firms grow their caseloads
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  with paid and organic content.
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  He's also worked with West Michigan White Caps and Grand Rapids Griffins, where
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  he sharpened his skills in community building and brand storytelling.
• 0:44
  Hi, Jason.
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  It's great to have you here with us today, man.
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  I appreciate your time and I appreciate your experience.
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  You've been so active, I think, in the nonprofit world helping with consulting
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  around social media management.
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  You've done some great things in sports with some cool teams to really
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  build a social media department and a team from the ground up.
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  And I think you've got some great experience there.
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  You worked with us for several years and did awesome work with us working
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  in the legal industry and professional services fields which I think gave you
• 1:12
  great context for this conversation.
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  And then now you're working in the club world at the Grand Rapids Country Club.
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  And so I think that you've got just a really unique perspective.
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  I've seen your leadership roles within the world that you live in now and how
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  you've leaned into some of those things.
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  I've always been impressed by the work that you've done and
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  your interest in leaning in and getting into the, bleeding edge.
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  So share with me kinda where that's taken you in your journey
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  and how you're operating.
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  The team that you run now.
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  Yeah.
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  Thanks for having me, chip.
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  Really appreciate it.
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  Yeah, it's been a long journey from the start of social media.
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  I really dove in right when it started for businesses.
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  Yeah, worked for the West Michigan White Caps, minor league baseball team
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  here in Grand Rapids and was their first full-time social media person.
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  At that time.
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  Facebook was kind of just getting started.
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  Yeah, it was very unique.
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  There was no business pages, there was no ads.
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  It was I was actually accepting friend request from Whitecaps fans as the
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  West Michigan White caps at that time.
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  So it was a very unique kind of start of it and then yeah, grew from there.
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  We, we grew.
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  Facebook created an Instagram page.
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  Twitter was just starting.
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  And then during that time, Snapchat was there as well.
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  And I grew those pages.
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  And then, yeah, it grew from there and then, transitioned to the floor
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  where it was more on the legal side and , trying to figure out how
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  to reach clients where they are.
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  And that time it was, oh.
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  A lot more paid advertising but still a lot of organic social as well.
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  So trying to figure out, yeah, the mix between the two and where to reach
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  your audience on the paid side with different targeting and things like that.
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  And then trying to be as authentic as possible on the organic side.
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  I know you're very active in the marketing group for clubs here because we spent
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  time together visiting that group.
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  And it was great to see the collaboration that went in there.
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  What are you seeing?
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  What's changing on social?
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  What are the things that uh, how are you using it?
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  And just to frame it, it was a big eyeopener to me to see how much of
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  the work that you do is really around building, cultivating that audience,
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  engaging with that audience because.
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  A club's not looking to increase membership a ton, but like how are
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  you keeping that audience really engaged across the various channels
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  that you have available to you?
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  Yeah, and Club World's very unique in so we're technically a
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  nonprofit, so we're a 5 0 1 C seven.
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  And part of that is we're not allowed to do any outside advertising.
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  'Cause we're all referral based.
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  You need to.
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  Have a sponsor, become a member.
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  And that's pretty much across the board in the club industry.
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  So with that, it's, there's no really sales tactics.
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  It's so you can't really use paid advertising, things like that to really
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  target into your into your demographic.
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  So you're.
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  You're building these channels as a kind of community focused showing what it
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  would be like to be a member at a club.
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  What would they experience if they were to join?
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  So it's a lot of pictures, a lot of videos, a kind of member testimonials
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  and just showing kind of the community that is built within the club industry.
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  That kind of ties back to the, to lawyers as well.
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  It's building that, that brand, building that auth authentic community showing your
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  clients, showing those success stories.
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  Just showing your personality and how you are reaching
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  people and making a difference.
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  Yeah.
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  When clubs like, our main goal is to give our members the best experiences possible.
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  Stay with lawyers, give your clients the best experience possible with the
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  situations that they're dealing with.
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  Yeah, and that's, shockingly applicable right now.
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  I know that we've had clients in the past, they look at branding and
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  positioning and they see it as a money sink a little bit at times, because
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  , there's not a great way to measure ROI.
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  They see it as like this kind of bucket of hours that go in and.
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  But that's starting to change a little bit.
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  And the reason for that is private equity is trying to enter into the legal
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  world, and so we've got some laws passed.
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  I just had Steve Gerson on this show a couple months ago and he
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  did a great job kinda explaining what was going on in that space.
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  But, private equity has gotten a green light to enter the market in Arizona.
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  And a little bit less of a green light, but still they're able
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  to enter the market in Utah.
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  Utah I think, is tightening up a little bit.
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  But what that's resulting in is an influx of capital into marketing
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  these private equity firms.
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  Now, I've done work in my career around I've worked in assisted living, skilled
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  nursing, projects before, 'cause we were mostly in, in more regulated industries.
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  But I had one experience at a different agency that I was at where we worked
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  for a for-profit skilled nursing.
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  What a nightmare.
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  They came in, it was private equity.
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  They came in and they just cut costs, right?
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  And when your mom or your grandma is in skilled nursing, they
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  need care and they need help.
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  And what ends up coming out of that is the opposite, right?
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  Cost, cutting, profitability, all of those things.
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  And so I've seen how private equity can come into industries and I'm not
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  non-private equity or anything like that, but I've seen how it can come
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  into industries that have some degree of protection or had some degree of
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  protection and really change things.
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  And they're coming into the legal world now, and what they're doing
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  is they're taking and pouring money into their marketing efforts, right?
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  Trying to capture those cases.
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  And what you're talking about is having a resurgence in the legal world because,
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  how do you stand out when you have that behemoth spending all the money on PPC
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  spending all the money on billboards?
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  You stand out by having a strong position by building your community
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  and by establishing your brand.
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  And I think that's smart from a business perspective because, a lot of lawyers
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  that we talk to they're thinking about what are their succession plans too.
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  And I think that.
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  In your role, you've done that, right?
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  You've done that very effectively in the club world because you've got that
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  audience that you've gotta nurture.
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  I'm getting to a question too, and I'm sorry I don't mean to go so long,
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  but we also had that experience.
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  We also had that experience working with canopy Health, where we could
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  not advertise, we could only educate.
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  And I find that some of those more regulated industries.
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  Have that, canopy Health is a, was a partnership between John Muir Health and
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  University of California, San Francisco.
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  We took that project on and we had to do that too.
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  And so I wonder if you see any similarities between that, that sort
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  of work and what you've gotta do now.
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  Yeah, for sure.
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  Yeah, I think, yeah, trying to create content around yeah,
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  without selling it's difficult.
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  Like it's yeah you wanna be, especially when you're, you're trying to get new
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  clients or get new patients in that case.
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  Yeah, trying not to be salesy is, it's difficult, but,
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  being able to create content.
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  What I've always focused on is the diversity of content as well.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So not just being specifically only client stories or only your blog
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  posts, that's all you're posting.
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  Being, being diverse and having some personality with it.
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  I've, whenever I've created content calendars and content plans,
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  it's creating buckets of mm-hmm.
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  Of different, yeah.
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  Topics.
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  So it's, yeah, you're still doing your blog posts, you're still
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  being educational, but you're also creating videos with client stories.
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  You're celebrating anniversaries and just like simple things like
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  birthdays within your office.
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  And those kind of things.
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  They get a lot of shares, like people like to be recognized yeah, employees
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  of the month those kind of things.
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  And then your community outreach.
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  What are you doing in the community?
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  Is it volunteering?
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  Do you have a scholarship?
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  All those type of things.
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  And then, yeah, just having that diverse content and then measuring
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  it, like what are people interested?
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  What are, what is getting the likes?
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  What is getting the shares?
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  Hopefully you can track links back to your website.
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  What are people clicking on?
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  And then yeah, adjusting month to month of what makes sense and what
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  your community is looking for.
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  Yeah.
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  And it makes a lot of sense.
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  And that, that's a perfect lead into my next question too.
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  You're running this really tight knit community.
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  Do you have any like repeatable plays that you're using on social media that,
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  that a law firm, for example, could borrow for client retention and referrals
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  and, I look at you know, from a 30,000 foot perspective, CA Country Club is
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  like a real world lab for community engagement in a really highly regulated
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  industry, highly regulated space.
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  The country club has a long history.
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  Some cool new updates.
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  And I Think you've got a lot of storytelling moments in there.
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  What are some plays that, a law firm could take from our conversation here
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  and say, Hey, I'm gonna borrow that and I'm gonna apply it to what we're doing?
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  Yeah, I think there's a few things.
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  A few things we've been consistent in.
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  We obviously have golf professionals that do instruction.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Um, so we have one.
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  Our lead instructor, he does almost daily, but specifically
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  weekly videos on golf tips.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  So it's super simple.
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  He is out on the range.
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  He is sharing how to adjust your swaying or putting tips or things like that.
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  So it's just simple, like 20 to 30 seconds videos doesn't
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  have to be super overdramatic.
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  He shoots him on his iPhone with a, with his own camera stand.
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  And yeah, they get views 'cause it's something that people are
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  interested in here at the club.
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  They wanna get better at golf.
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  And it's very applicable to their life here.
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  So similar to lawyers.
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  Like what are things, what are some tips that they can share with their clients?
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  20 to 30 seconds that they can use in their everyday life when dealing
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  with certain legal situations.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Um, and the other one I mentioned was kinda community involvement.
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  Like we, we try to do monthly volunteering out in the community.
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  It's great for us.
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  Yeah.
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  We're a longstanding, we've, we're the oldest country club here in Michigan.
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  We've been around since 1896.
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  But that also comes with, you're the old club in Grand Rapids.
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  And trying to change that narrative . It's only for the exclusive, it's
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  only for the top one percenters.
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  That's not really true anymore.
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  So how do we change that narrative?
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  And one of the ways we try to do that is to be a member of the
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  community and giving back, and we share those experiences on social.
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  So it's yeah, it's photos and videos from the events that we go to.
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  And it's also team building as well for us.
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  Yeah, we have a lot of seasonal employees.
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  So it, yeah, being able to create that atmosphere where you're
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  getting to know other departments.
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  And yes, same thing on the legal side.
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  You, yeah.
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  You need to show what you're doing in community.
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  It helps build your brand show you that you're out there and
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  know what your community is and how you're involved in it.
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  Yeah.
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  I love that.
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  You were, you came in there I think, right around right around the time
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  the clubhouse renovations wrapped up.
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  Is that correct or was that before or after?
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  Yeah I was in the middle of it.
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  Yeah.
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  In the middle of it.
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  Yeah.
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  How did you how did you share that whole process and how does that tie in with, law
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  firms sometimes make big changes, right?
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  So I'd love to hear what worked.
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  And I'd love to hear what didn't work.
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  Because law firms go through, they move, they change offices,
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  they add staff, they had partners.
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  Like those are all opportunities to really.
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  Come to the table with some cool content what worked and what didn't
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  work when you were talking about that renovation, because again, that
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  just ties into, reputation of the firm, the positioning of the firm.
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  They did a lot of work to make it better, right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So it was two and a half years ago.
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  Yeah.
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  So it's two aspects of it.
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  One, one was communicating what was happening to our members.
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  Yeah, it was for any renovation of that size, so it was about
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  $2.4 million renovation.
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  Any renovation of that size has to get a vote by our members.
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  So communicating what that process looks like, what they're actually
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  and they have to pay for it as well, so like they'll be assessed for it.
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  So communicating that whole process.
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  Lots of emails, lots of we did a couple town halls.
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  So just getting their feedback of what what they're interested in the renovation.
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  So ended up the main renovation was creating a larger casual dining space.
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  We've seen with our members we've gained a lot of younger families over the last
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  couple years, having a space for them to enjoy the club where it's not as formal,
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  less of a dress code things like that.
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  Yeah.
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  And then during renovation yeah.
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  Trying to share with our members.
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  Yeah.
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  We had closures throughout.
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  It was about a six month process from start to finish.
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  Yeah, communicating with them where they can dine while there is closures.
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  So doing a lot of emails, text messaging just sharing with them.
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  Also with that renovation, able to share with the community as well
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  that we're investing the, these dollars into our our clubhouse.
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  So we were actually able to get a couple news outlets to come out and
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  yeah, it was a simple, yeah, we had a couple of 'em, do a full kind of
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  video walkthrough during renovation, and then I came back at the end.
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  So it was able to get a couple articles out of that.
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  And then yeah, sharing with our members photos of updates.
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  I have now I have a full catalog of.
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  Almost every week of the exact same spot of showing them what
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  to look before weekly progress.
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  That's so I was able to put together a time lapse of six different
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  spots around the club Oh, cool.
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  That were renovated.
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  So then was able to share that at the end and was able to use
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  that in some of our social videos and things like that to yeah.
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  Show the progress from start to finish.
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  Super cool.
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  Very cool.
• 15:21
  I love that.
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  So let's do a Quick lightning round here to put you on the spot.
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  What's the platform you're mo most bullish on for the work that you do that you think
• 15:29
  could be applicable to attorneys as well?
• 15:34
  Yeah, for us for us it's Instagram as a platform.
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  I think, being able to utilize both photos and your main feed but also using
• 15:44
  reels and short story Instagram stories.
• 15:48
  Yeah.
• 15:48
  Yeah I think it's very diverse and maybe the largest kind of
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  range of demographics as well.
• 15:55
  On my Instagram Facebook is.
• 15:58
  I feel like it's fading to the older crowd.
• 16:01
  So if you're looking into the, I would say 25 to 50 range, Instagram is
• 16:07
  your bread and butter at this point.
• 16:09
  And that's where PI attorneys live.
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  You know what I mean?
• 16:12
  Yeah.
• 16:12
  No, I love that.
• 16:14
  All right.
• 16:14
  What's one thing to stop doing on LinkedIn today?
• 16:19
  Oh, good question.
• 16:20
  I would say.
• 16:23
  Direct message, cold direct messages.
• 16:26
  If you're trying to get clients or if you're trying
• 16:29
  to, yeah, build your business.
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  Just sending random invites to random people with, Hey, I would love to connect.
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  Here's my email to schedule a time.
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  Nobody's gonna answer those.
• 16:42
  Quick.
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  Quick.
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  Yeah.
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  Quickest way to get blocked in my LinkedIn.
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  Send me an uninvited message from a person.
• 16:48
  I don't know right, that you're out, man.
• 16:51
  Yeah.
• 16:51
  Yeah.
• 16:52
  Cool.
• 16:53
  What's your top KPI that you watch and then what's the most underrated?
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  KPI for professional services, social media?
• 17:02
  Yeah.
• 17:02
  I think just overall reach, I think is still, still a good one
• 17:07
  because you, it shows like where the algorithm algorithms are sending you.
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  And it gives you a kind of a baseline of what content is
• 17:16
  working and what content's not.
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  So you'll have a baseline of reach that kind of, your everyday posts go to.
• 17:23
  But if you have one that is double, triple, that then you know your
• 17:28
  community isn't, is engaged in it.
• 17:31
  Algorithm seems to like it for some unknown reason.
• 17:35
  But yeah, I think reach is still one to keep an eye on.
• 17:39
  And then unknown kpi, like trying to measure yeah, like clicks from your
• 17:44
  website or from social to your website.
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  So using Google Analytics.
• 17:49
  And looking at referrals and what is coming from social and
• 17:53
  being able to know what blogs.
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  And similar to your social posts you're looking at what content works.
• 17:58
  Yeah.
• 17:58
  What blogs are getting the traffic from, specifically from social referrals.
• 18:03
  Yeah.
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  So being able to know what, what is actually driving that.
• 18:07
  And it doesn't necessarily mean your blogs aren't working.
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  Maybe they're coming from other referrals, but just knowing
• 18:12
  what that social audience is.
• 18:15
  As getting to your website.
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  That's super powerful.
• 18:19
  I love it, man.
• 18:19
  I love it.
• 18:20
  I think you're doing great work as a director of membership
• 18:22
  communications at King Country Club.
• 18:25
  I love seeing what you're doing.
• 18:26
  What's the best place to follow your work?
• 18:30
  Yeah.
• 18:30
  LinkedIn is probably my go-to right now professionally.
• 18:33
  So yeah, check out me on LinkedIn, Jason Brower.
• 18:37
  Yeah, can Country Club.
• 18:39
  We're on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
• 18:42
  Yeah, Twitter is less for me, so LinkedIn's usually
• 18:45
  the way to go to find me.
• 18:47
  I love it.
• 18:48
  I appreciate it, man.
• 18:48
  Thank you for taking the time appreciate your insights and your experience.
• 18:51
  This was, this has been great.
• 18:53
  Thanks Jason.
• 18:54
  Yeah, thanks for having me, chip.
• 18:55
  This was awesome.
• 18:57
  A big thank you to Jason for joining us today.
• 18:59
  You could find him on LinkedIn or out on the golf course at Kent Country Club.
• 19:03
  Legal Marketing Radio is a production of the floor marketing.
• 19:06
  Find us at LaFleur.Marketing and on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.