Los Angeles family lawyer Kelly Chang has taken law firm marketing via YouTube to a new level with her latest video. The video itself shows her out and about in Los Angeles talking about her family law practice, including her refusal to take on clients unsure if they really want a divorce.
Another quality video from Kelly, but the real story here is that Kelly emailed the video link to her friends and clients and invited them to comment on the video. And comment they did. The comments add even more marketing oomph to the video. In fact, the comments might very well do more for Kelly than the video itself.
As I've stated in the past, you cannot just upload a video to YouTube and expect it to generate business. You must also promote the video. Otherwise, it will languish unwatched — like most law firm videos on YouTube.
Kelly went a step further. Not only has she promoted her video, but she is also trying to create a community around the video with user-generated content.
There is a right way and a wrong way to use user-generated content for marketing purposes. Creating fake user accounts and posting comments from those accounts is wrong, very wrong. Paying people to post comments on your behalf or telling them what to write is not much better. Plus you can easily spot such user-generated spam because it comes across as too good to be true.
To do it right, invite people to comment in their own words and hope for the best. If you deliver a quality service and showcase it in a quality video, you should have nothing to worry about. If you don't then don't use this form of marketing. If someone posts a negative comment, respond to it. Chances are they're mistaken about something or not disclosing all the facts.
In other words, the less control you have, the more user-generated content helps you. You need to light the spark, but you also need to get out of the way. Watch Kelly's video and read the comments below (click here if you can't see the video below).
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