What’s the One Social Media Move That Could Transform Your Law Firm? with Caroline Langdon

Caroline Langdon (00:00.812)
Hello, I’m Caroline from Impact Media House. I’m a social media strategist, agency owner, content creator, and productivity enthusiast. And I love to share simple social strategies and productivity techniques to sustainably grow your brand, save you time, and create a life first business that thrives without burnout.

Karin Conroy (00:22.222)
Oh my gosh, that is about seven episodes worth of content just in your intro there. That was amazing. There was so many things that I was like, oh, we should talk about that. I love productivity stuff. I love, do you like watching the videos where they’re like home organizing? Yes. Oh, there’s something so calming for my brain. So we’re going to aim for that today in the topic, in the whole show out.

Caroline Langdon (00:28.248)
Right. Okay.

Caroline Langdon (00:34.647)
Yes!

Caroline Langdon (00:39.848)
those resets are my entire TikTok page. I’m obsessed.

Karin Conroy (00:52.01)
actually, but like the whole feel of what we’re going to talk about, I think that’s kind of a good approach with this topic, which is what’s the one social media move that could transform your law firm? So let’s talk first about what’s the first move that most law firms should consider when they’re thinking about like their entire social media approach and plan and like, like kind of dipping their toe in the in water of that.

Caroline Langdon (01:21.494)
Right. So there’s a million things that come to mind on what you could do and things that would make a huge difference for your account. But often it is taking the first step because a lot of people have created the most intricate strategy, the intricate plan. We have a 50 page document on how we’re showing up on all of these platforms and yet we’re not actually posting the content. So I would recommend having that mindset shift to begin.

Karin Conroy (01:33.207)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (01:40.578)
Yes, right.

Karin Conroy (01:45.506)
Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (01:50.552)
that we do need to quote unquote climb cringe mountain. It is so cringe posting videos, having your family see them, friends see them, what are people gonna think about me? It’s very, very human to think this and it’s good to kind of accept that and know this is normal. People showing up naturally, that is a rare occurrence.

Karin Conroy (01:53.982)
Yes.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (02:02.829)
Yeah.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (02:08.942)
Yeah!

Karin Conroy (02:13.518)
Yeah. Well, and that reminds me of even when I first started this podcast, because this is the fourth year of the podcast and the first few episodes, it was so stressful and you could see it in my face. You could hear it in my voice, like the whole thing. And now it’s like, I just kind of roll in, sit down, hit record. But that didn’t happen without going through all of that. It’s like everything in life, you have to have that first

day, the first episode, the first whatever, and it’s hardly ever going to be the best. That was just the first. Now we’re going to build on that and make it better.

Caroline Langdon (02:48.588)
Bye.

Caroline Langdon (02:52.236)
Definitely, and I think once you kind of accept that, you will like, it’s so much better on the other side of Cringe Mountain after you climbed it, because it’s not cringe to have clients coming to you. It’s not cringe to be getting paid. It’s not, you know, cringe to be able to effortlessly fill your roster and have time freedom and financial freedom. So it is the price to pay climbing it because the other side that’s waiting for you. And it’s one of those necessary journeys.

Karin Conroy (03:04.854)
Yes. Yes.

Karin Conroy (03:12.279)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (03:17.45)
Nice. Nice. Okay. All right. So let’s talk about, what does that look like? What, what do people, what does it look like when people first approach working with you and what do they have in their mind? Because I want to talk a little, once you, let’s talk a little bit about what that looks like for you. Cause I want to talk about what that looks like when I first start talking to clients too about like, okay. So we need a social media plan. what is that? What does that usually look like?

Caroline Langdon (03:47.096)
Right. So yeah, whenever clients first come to us, usually it’s we need more sales. We want more views. We want to grow our following. Yes, absolutely. Those are big goals. how

Karin Conroy (03:52.854)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, do they usually start with the goals like that or do they, because that isn’t necessarily what I hear. It’s just like, hey, law firm down the street is on social media. So I suppose that we should do it too, because oftentimes I have to back up and ask them, okay, really why? Like, what are these goals? What are we really trying to do here? Do they usually start with those goals? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Caroline Langdon (04:13.622)
Mm-hmm. Right. So I start with those goals, so I pull it out of them. Yes. Half the time. So we do have, yeah, some people with very clear vision on what they want. But, and some people are like, I know I’m supposed to be on here. Tell me next steps. What am I really supposed to be doing? I know it’s going to be good for me. So yes, definitely get a mix. But it’s that onboarding questionnaire where I really deep dive into their business. And that is going to help me make

Karin Conroy (04:29.164)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (04:33.517)
Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (04:42.53)
their strategy. So here we’re building the foundation of their account. So every single client that comes, whether we are creating a DIY plan where we’re going to create the strategy content themes, we’re going to set them up for success and they are going to execute it or they’re more in the hands off, please take care of it. I literally hate social media phase, which we get those too. We are going to start with a solid foundation of a social media strategy. And this should be simple, easy to execute, fun.

Karin Conroy (04:43.789)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (04:56.461)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:01.164)
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (05:08.065)
Okay.

Caroline Langdon (05:11.953)
and tie in themes that the brand wants to be known for and kind of a leader in their industry. So that would be step.

Karin Conroy (05:19.426)
Okay, so how do you figure out those themes? Because we talked for a minute, but like a lot of the themes that I’m initially approached about when we sit down and have this conversation are like, should we mention that the 4th of July is coming up? Or should we mention, you know, like the holidays, stuff that I take a look back and I’m like, this was like 20 years ago in the kind of marketing approach where

people were using these horrible word templates, and it feels very, very dated. So what do people think it looks like, and then why does that fail?

Caroline Langdon (06:03.38)
Mm-hmm, like for content themes, of the more cookie cutter.

Karin Conroy (06:06.016)
Yeah, yeah, I mean you and I call those pillars, but I don’t think everybody even knows what that is.

Caroline Langdon (06:11.224)
Right, yeah, definitely. So let me explain for those listening who aren’t too sure what a content theme or content pillar is. Essentially, a content theme is basically the topics that you want to be known for. Think of them as your signature dishes that people keep coming back to and want to purchase and want to see. So these are the three to five topics you want to be known for. It is often confused with education, entertainment,

Karin Conroy (06:22.743)
Okay.

Caroline Langdon (06:40.546)
Personal content, those are great. Those can be called pillars, absolutely, but we wanna dive deeper. That’s the goal, is to get even more specific with our themes. So having education, promotional, personal, those are great. Those are good pillars to have, but the content themes, that’s what I like to call the more subtopics of, okay, we are known for, you know, X, Y, Z, yeah.

Karin Conroy (06:47.512)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (07:02.154)
Okay. Okay. So an example, a lot of people would start with these, the pillars that you’re describing as like the practice areas. So we do personal injury, we do medical malpractice law and whatever we, or let’s say we do truck accidents, we do medical malpractice and we do birth injury law, something like that. We do a whole bunch of different personal injury. But what you’re talking about is what do you want to be known for? So we want to be known for the fact that we

had this truck accident lawsuit that we won and it resulted in a $10 million win or something like that, as opposed to we just do truck accidents. Is that right?

Caroline Langdon (07:45.112)
Okay, great point. So with that, that great story that you want to be known for, yes, that’s included underneath the larger umbrella. That is the theme that you mentioned earlier. So for example, one of your themes could be every single week, we talk about legal tips and insights. That is something we always talk about. Underneath that can be a ton of topics.

Karin Conroy (07:56.332)
Okay.

Caroline Langdon (08:07.256)
common legal mistakes to avoid understanding legal terminology, how to choose the right lawyer for your needs. So the, yeah, like you mentioned that amazing story, absolutely pin that story. mean, if it’s a news article, whatever, but that’s gonna be underneath the broader topic of, know, XYZ. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (08:23.532)
Yeah, okay, okay. So we start with these, what did you call it? It’s not the pillar, it’s the subtopic, the theme. Yes, sorry, the theme. was like grabbing for the word, yeah, the theme. So we start with that theme and then what?

Caroline Langdon (08:32.192)
Right, the content themes, yes. Yeah, you got it, I know. And these are just words, yeah.

Caroline Langdon (08:42.292)
Yeah, and then underneath that theme, you can write down all of the content ideas that fall under that. So for example, I’m a social media strategist and I have three themes and every single week I touch on this theme on my feed. So one is simplifying social media. Another one is feel good productivity. And then the other one is out of office entrepreneur, where I show a little bit more behind the scenes or my life. So within those.

Karin Conroy (08:56.546)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (09:05.484)
Okay, yeah.

Caroline Langdon (09:07.968)
I think it’s really important when you are creating your themes to know what is in my lane and then what is out of my lane. So if your theme, my theme is simplified social media, in my lane is breaking down maybe a simplified social media strategy that you can implement. And then something out of my lane is talking about pop culture marketing campaigns. I just.

Karin Conroy (09:14.369)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (09:29.888)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Caroline Langdon (09:30.646)
I’m really out of it. I’m really out of touch and I’m okay with that. So I know, I know what is my wheelhouse and the more you know what’s in your lanes and out of your lanes, the more your audience can trust you, the more you know yourself, your audience knows you and you build those relationships. So I think that is a great homework activity.

Karin Conroy (09:46.574)
It’s so important to kind of recognize, because I do think that part of the overwhelm with social media is that you feel like you need to be on top of all the things. And even when you go into some of these platforms to create content and there’s like these, like, let’s give you some ideas for this. And it’s built on these trending topics and things like that. it’s like,

Caroline Langdon (09:58.082)
Right.

Karin Conroy (10:07.942)
Why are you talking about that? Why are we talking about those pop culture things or celebrity stuff when it has nothing to do with your law firm except that some platform somewhere said you should be talking about that? So I think that’s a really good visual to imagine staying in your lane and that stuff is just, maybe it’s in your lane. If you do that kind of law or it’s somehow, if you can understand that it’s related to your work,

Caroline Langdon (10:33.451)
Right.

Karin Conroy (10:36.704)
Okay, but probably not.

Caroline Langdon (10:37.846)
Right. Right. And definitely, yeah, know what you are genuinely excited about or if you have a team, what they are willing to execute because you don’t want to be touching into areas that don’t really relate or aren’t relevant. There is something to be said about borrowing someone’s audience, though. So if, for example, like a dentist, if they no one knows or is invested

Karin Conroy (10:57.355)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (11:04.978)
in this particular maybe account, but what he can do is draw into things that people are familiar with and know. So if he walks into a Walmart, people are familiar with Walmart, they know Walmart, and maybe we’re looking at products, things that are good or bad for your teeth that we’re familiar with, and that kind of brings us into the story. So there’s definitely benefits to tying in things that people are familiar with, you know, maybe celebrities, things, but know when it fits and when it doesn’t. Just for me,

Karin Conroy (11:26.136)
Sure.

Karin Conroy (11:30.85)
Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (11:31.64)
That would take so much research and time for me to be like, okay, what is Taylor Swift’s marketing team doing? Like, I’m not sure. But I love watching the videos. That’s great for someone else.

Karin Conroy (11:41.134)
And I feel like if you think it’s a stretch, your audience will too. Like, and not even a stretch, like too far of a stretch where it’s like, why is she talking about that? Like that seems gratuitous sort of like, why are you trying to jump on that? But if there is a relevant link, then at the same time, somebody may think, oh, why is she not talking about that? So yeah, keep, keep that in mind. I like the idea of walking through the Walmart and like picking out the products. Cause that’s the kind of stuff that

Caroline Langdon (11:44.536)
This is it.

Karin Conroy (12:09.612)
you know, like if it makes sense and you are an expert on that, that’s the kind of stuff people totally want to see. Yeah. Okay. So let’s, let’s talk about the thing that everybody wants to know about, which is how does this make sense for your sales funnel? Like, how does this make sense for like, I saw a good quote where it was talking about, are you driving likes or, or leads? Like, how does this actually result in sales?

Caroline Langdon (12:11.532)
Right.

Caroline Langdon (12:14.988)
Definitely.

Karin Conroy (12:37.929)
in a real actionable way.

Caroline Langdon (12:40.62)
Right. So I just geek out when it comes to these kind of things and marketing panels. So just to put it in simple terms, though, we have kind of for social media, for anything really, the buyer’s journey. And this is the upside down triangle. And at the very top, that is attract visibility or bringing people in. These are the trending reels. These are the viral videos, the really strong hooks.

Karin Conroy (12:45.772)
I do too.

Karin Conroy (12:54.688)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (13:08.702)
really getting people in. So if you are scrolling on your Reels tab, likely a lot of that content is in that category of attract. So this is not specific for sales. This is really for building your audience, which you need for sales. It is important and plays a key role. So as you kind of go down the buyer’s journey, next is nurture.

Karin Conroy (13:09.997)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (13:22.946)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (13:28.95)
And this is where you’re building a community and you are sharing maybe your brand’s personality. People are getting to know you better and you’re also talking back to your audience. So this is great for weekly Q and A sessions where you can actually answer questions and just have them realize, wow, they’re actually active and care about me and replying. so,

Karin Conroy (13:29.059)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (13:40.108)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (13:46.786)
And how do you, I’m gonna interrupt just for one second and sorry about that, but I wanna dig into that for a minute because how do you get people to actually engage and interact? Like I think the majority of my clients are like, we just post and post and we don’t get comments or you know, what do you see that actually makes that needle move?

Caroline Langdon (14:08.024)
Yeah, I think it comes down to are we posting with strong content themes and intention and we have a plan or are we sporadically kind of seeing things that we like and that, you know, maybe worked for someone else, right, all over the place. So definitely go back to your foundation and your strategy and see, we be showing up and being known for these topics? Because the algorithm gets very confused if you’re posting about one thing one time, another thing another time, and it’s a very sporadic versus

Karin Conroy (14:19.234)
Yeah, all over the place. Yeah, yeah.

Karin Conroy (14:34.892)
Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (14:37.124)
they’re known for legal advice. they’re this law firm. Okay, these keywords, I’m recognizing we’re going to be pushing it out to the right people. So consistency is key. There’s, you know, the quote, riches in the niches kind of stay focused with those keywords, and it will serve you. So yeah, I would say.

Karin Conroy (14:38.765)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (14:48.706)
Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. Okay. All right, sorry. So I interrupted. Let’s go back to the funnel. So we’re at the nurture point. We’re trying to get them to engage and answer some of those questions that they have. And I talk a lot about these FAQs, both in social media, everywhere basically in your marketing plan, but especially on your website because you are overcoming objectives. Also, it’s so good for SEO. You’ve got this whole thing that we’re not gonna go super into.

Caroline Langdon (14:57.41)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:20.94)
but you see this all the time on Google and your results, that schema stuff. So the questions, the FAQs, it’s huge. That should be a pretty big part of your content.

Caroline Langdon (15:30.604)
Right. And I will say it builds momentum whenever you do, say, do a weekly Q &A in your stories and people are saying, they’re replying, they’re talking back, and that’ll spark other questions. And so to begin, I totally get it. No one’s putting in anything. No one’s asking any questions. This is when you put in your own question. You have your friend put in questions. That’s OK. Build the momentum. And if there’s content you really want to share, that’s just a great way to do it. So I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

Karin Conroy (15:41.357)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (15:47.149)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (15:51.586)
Yeah, right, right.

Karin Conroy (15:58.22)
And maybe it’s a question from someone who called. Like, you maybe it’s just a question that you know is actually a frequently asked question that someone asked you last week on a phone call or something. And that’s a legitimate question. Like we’re not saying like make up, make this stuff up or lie or whatever, but you know, maybe it didn’t actually come from the comments on your social media. Maybe it just, you know, came from a conversation or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (16:01.185)
Right!

Caroline Langdon (16:18.124)
Right, exactly. So pull those. Yeah, definitely. So yeah, after the kind of the nurture part of the sales sequence, next, the last phase is conversion. So promotional content. And this is where we’re making the sale. We are asking very directly to comment a keyword, work with us, et cetera. And this, I would kind of think of the 80-20 principle. 80%, we’re going to be nurturing. We’re going to be kind of.

Karin Conroy (16:28.406)
Yeah. Yes.

Caroline Langdon (16:43.768)
giving education and entertainment, really giving away value, and then the last 20 % promoting. So with the sales funnel, kind of the buyer’s journey, different pieces of content are gonna fit into every single one of those areas. So that is how your social media strategy will relate. And there’s ways that they can overlap as well. We were kind of talking about that earlier of,

Karin Conroy (17:07.106)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (17:07.946)
a content piece that’s super entertaining, you’re gonna get the reach, which is great for building your email list, for reaching just more people, having more eyes on your content. But in the call to action, you can call in a keyword to receive a link to my offer. And so then you’re tying in the conversion piece. So there’s ways that they overlap, different depending on your goals or the season, you’re gonna be posting more heavily in different parts of this content funnel.

Karin Conroy (17:21.55)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (17:34.2)
So one thing that we had Pete Everett on a while back and he talks about it not being a funnel, but an hourglass. And the reason I love this is because I find it very true. And I spend a lot of time last year when I was talking about the marketing funnel, talking about that bottom of the funnel and how when you do picture just the triangle, then there’s sort of an.

arrow that goes back to not necessarily the top, but sort of the middle so that you get that the repeat client and you revisit. And the hourglass actually does a better job visually of sort of outlining that. Like, how do you then pull them back in and how can you use social media in this way for past clients and kind of revisiting and reminding and making sure that those past clients who have already sold themselves on working with you and you don’t have to

Caroline Langdon (17:59.211)
Right.

Karin Conroy (18:26.338)
You don’t have to go all the way back to the top because you don’t need to do the awareness part anymore. How can you use social media to address those best ideal clients that you’ve had in the past?

Caroline Langdon (18:38.86)
Yeah, to kind of regroup them for future offers and things like that. Yeah, definitely. I think that trust piece is huge. honestly, Instagram stories is such a fantastic way to nurture your audience and build that relationship and continue to build that relationship. So many of my past clients that we did a strategy session and they’re done. did, you know, just kind of support and then they’re DIYing it. They often will opt into

Karin Conroy (18:43.031)
Yeah, yeah.

Caroline Langdon (19:06.602)
all of my new freebies, everything new coming out because they’re keeping tabs on me in stories. And that’s where I’m sharing links and that’s where I’m nurturing. I’m answering their questions, providing a lot of value. So I would say stories are such a great resource that I would definitely want everyone to be using. But the same goes for the actual feed content, nurturing, providing value, having those saveable, shareable posts, have people still in your circle, top of mind, wanting to opt into future offers.

Karin Conroy (19:11.692)
Right.

Karin Conroy (19:34.126)
So when you’re doing these stories, is it a combination of those three themes that you were talking about before? are you throwing in different things? Or is it that’s just part of your whole similar plan that you’re doing with your posts and everything too?

Caroline Langdon (19:46.848)
Yeah, so for Instagram stories, yes, they do fall into each of those if you like think about it, but I wouldn’t put that much pressure on it where, okay, I have to do an attract piece of Instagram content. Like this should be so casual. Just it is like FaceTime content. It’s the equivalent really of TikTok. This should not feel overly done. These should not be Canva graphics. This should be real life.

Karin Conroy (20:09.634)
Okay.

Caroline Langdon (20:11.564)
what’s going on behind the scenes. It can look cute, but I would not like people turn their nose up or turn away if it looks overly curated. Cause we want the real, we want to feel like we’re right there with you. We want it to feel like real time.

Karin Conroy (20:21.954)
Yep, they’re getting to know you, it feels more personal, yeah. Okay, so on the flip side of the overly, the overly sort of thought through, one thing that I talk a lot to my clients about are these content calendars and kind of how to organize it and keep it systematic and kind of coming back to that first thing we were talking about with the super organized house and all of that stuff. like when I look at my content calendar,

Caroline Langdon (20:26.346)
Exactly. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (20:49.812)
I just love it. Like we’ve spent so much time getting this thing organized and planned and automated. We use ClickUp, which I, you know, not a sponsor show in any way, but I love because it does everything. But for just real briefly, I just want to talk about how my content calendar works. We go month by month. I’m typically at least a couple months out.

Caroline Langdon (20:52.758)
Nooo!

Caroline Langdon (20:59.928)
Should be!

Karin Conroy (21:16.11)
in terms of like when I’m creating something it’s for you know a couple months from now and each piece is under one of those themes so it could be like you know this week that we’re doing this podcast we’re obviously talking about social media so I’m gonna have a blog post about this I’m gonna have a newsletter about social media but they’re all tangentially related it’s not just you know just about this episode but we’re gonna tie them all together and there’s gonna be a whole theme for

that week and then as soon as we start developing one of those pieces, they all kind of flow from that. And I have automated systems that each of the people on my team who are responsible for those different pieces get what they need. How do you typically set these kinds of calendars up for, and obviously for different kinds of industries and clients, it’s going to be different, but what does that look like in terms of systems and the productivity and all of that good stuff that you were talking about earlier?

Caroline Langdon (22:08.493)
Right.

Caroline Langdon (22:14.724)
Right. my word. So my philosophy is that no one way is the right way. And I think we all know everyone’s different, their workflows, their schedules. So I really for like say strategy sessions, dive into what is your schedule? What is sustainable for you? Because truly what is sustainable and you’re able to month after month is way more important than what you can batch create for one month and post every single day and then you ghost. finding

Karin Conroy (22:42.678)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (22:44.248)
What is sustainable realistically? And for a lot of people, it is overwhelming to be posting every single day. And so let’s find something smaller to start with. And you’ve probably talked about atomic habits in the past, but starting, I know that’s so good, but starting so small where, you know, we are just putting on our tennis shoes. We’re not even going to the gym. That’s what I want with you to start your, you know, content calendar. So even though, yes, I would recommend posting four to five times per week.

Karin Conroy (22:56.748)
I love that book. I love it. Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Karin Conroy (23:09.313)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (23:13.738)
minimum because we’re in a very yeah oversaturated kind of place right now on social media. We do not need to start there. If we start two times per week, that’s amazing. So kind of knowing your own schedule, but what’s going to help you is workflows and batching for everyone. Whether you’re an agency helping your clients or you are doing it yourself, batching and your workflows are huge. So you have an excellent workflow set up where you are far in advance. You have your tools.

Karin Conroy (23:14.606)
Eventually. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (23:29.667)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (23:37.902)
Yeah, but it has taken years and years to get to that point along with a lot of trial and error. But yeah, I feel so strongly about this idea of consistency. I’ve said this many times, but consistency and patience are the two most underrated marketing strategies there are. And so this is really important. And I feel like people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they kind of brush that aside. But I wanted to spend an extra minute on this idea of consistency because you’ve all seen it.

Caroline Langdon (23:57.24)
right.

Karin Conroy (24:07.628)
And then also think about this, your potential clients are seeing this. So if you have gone on social media and posts like twice, and then the last post is like from the pandemic, and they go in there they’re like, okay, well, so what’s going to happen with my case? And what’s going to happen when I try to call you? And I feel like this is a life and death thing. you know, you just like, you know, it just gets kind of builds up dust and it’s over to the side and you, you know, do the same thing as you did to your social media.

It’s such a bad first impression and it’s important. So like make sure that your first step or thought is about what’s realistic. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (24:38.178)
Right.

Caroline Langdon (24:43.768)
Definitely. And then find a tool that works for you. Personally, I did try ClickUp and my brain, I needed something simpler. It just didn’t work for me and I wanted it to. So I use Airtable and it’s just like Google Sheets, but I think it’s prettier. So super simple. And so I would recommend find something that works for you because some brains work better with kind of like the monday.com or yeah, ClickUp. for me,

Karin Conroy (24:50.157)
Yup.

Yes.

Karin Conroy (24:56.44)
Nice.

On steroids, yes. Yes.

Caroline Langdon (25:11.254)
just my notes app for all my ideas and then Airtable for just putting in ideas and organizing. But yeah, what we do for our clients as well is we map out a full month of content ahead of time. So a month prior, we’ll map out those full ideas and depending on their niche, if they really wanna lean into trends, we’ll leave a few spots open for that, but we kinda know that’s placeholder, we’re gonna be doing a fun trend then. And then from there, mapping out the ideas, making sure they fall in the content themes.

And I love that you do weekly themes. Sometimes it depends on the client. Maybe they have a YouTube schedule, we’ll have a theme per YouTube video, maybe a theme for the full month. Sometimes no theme, but we just stick to their content theme. So it can vary based on your goals and based on the season. If you’re more in a campaign season and you’re having a big offer, you really want people to see, let’s do a huge visibility strategy in the beginning and then a hard push at the end for the product or service. So lots of ways to structure it.

Karin Conroy (25:45.539)
Yup.

Caroline Langdon (26:07.244)
But yeah, finding what’s sustainable for your posting schedule and then finding time to batch content and making sure that’s a part of your workflow. personally, every single Friday, I, so once a month, I map out the entire month of ideas and then every single Friday, I save a few hours and I do either one week or two week of content actually creating all of the content. So that’s a system that works really well for me, a lot of our clients.

And then another just pro tip that has worked amazing is if you’re feeling like I’m not filming, my house isn’t good enough, I don’t like my backdrops, everything’s too dark, you’re just feeling a little bit self-conscious because same, go book a studio day. And this has been amazing for our clients. You have this very set time. have 60 minutes to, and you paid for it, to knock out all your videos. So I always come with four scripts ready.

Karin Conroy (26:49.986)
Yeah? good idea. Yes.

Yep. Right. Yes.

Caroline Langdon (27:04.15)
I have four outfits ready to go and I knock out all videos for the entire month. Some people are faster, you know, and yeah, a good hack.

Karin Conroy (27:08.59)
Nice. That’s such a good idea. Yeah. Well, and it’s like, I feel like it’s the difference, you know, having it on the calendar and having an appointment and a schedule and a thing that you paid for is the difference of like, during the pandemic decided that I was going to try to do my own swim lessons for my kids. Because I did that in college. was a lifeguard. You know, so like I did it in the past.

Caroline Langdon (27:21.304)
Right.

Caroline Langdon (27:30.122)
Okay, amazing!

Caroline Langdon (27:35.639)
Yeah!

Karin Conroy (27:38.028)
But the problem was like, I could just do it whenever, because we have pools in our community and whatever. And it was free because I was doing it myself. So the difference is that once we signed up, once that failed, obviously, and we signed up for swim lessons and we had to be there a certain time, then it happened. And there is like an investment and a thought process and a scheduling thing there.

Caroline Langdon (27:47.33)
Right.

Karin Conroy (28:03.468)
that I love that idea of the studio. Plus you’re gonna have great lighting. You’re gonna just put a little bit more thought and planning and intention into it. Okay, so the next part of my thoughts around all of this and sort of the process is for me, and I don’t know how other law firms think about it, but how do we measure these results? How do we look at the numbers? Because there’s so many vanity metrics out there that it’s like, we got a whole bunch of likes.

Caroline Langdon (28:07.159)
Right.

Karin Conroy (28:31.958)
Well, so, like what matters? What matters when it comes to numbers and how do we figure out if it’s working and also how to like fine tune around what’s mattering? Mattering? Is that a word? I don’t know if that’s a word. What matters?

Caroline Langdon (28:43.062)
Right, definitely. yeah, matters, I don’t know. I like it though. But yes, no, I think looking at your numbers is so important because that helps tell us what is resonating, what isn’t, what should we do more of, and also seeing what is driving follows, what’s driving sales, what’s driving conversations, which is also huge. So once a month, we do data analytics reports for our clients, and this looks at all of those numbers.

know, profile visits, website clicks, and it’s great to compare top performing content to worst performing content. Where are the gaps? What is maybe themes that we’re seeing month over month? Often it’s really personal Instagram stories that people love, the dog, the kids, that’s great, you know, it’s just showing their day to day life. Another common theme we also see is having someone’s face at the beginning of a video. People love connecting with people. So,

Karin Conroy (29:19.692)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (29:29.826)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (29:36.63)
Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (29:38.764)
These themes were like, okay, well, let’s try this. We’ll keep that element for future videos, but let’s try a different hook. Let’s try a different X, Y, Z. So looking at those themes. So in terms of what metrics we should be looking at, this is determined based on your social media goal. So if you are in a campaign season and you are really pushing offers, I wouldn’t be looking at the reach or the likes at all, because that isn’t the goal. The goal is…

Karin Conroy (29:54.082)
Okay.

Caroline Langdon (30:05.1)
you know, maybe the keyword comments to get the link and maybe it’s the website clicks. So that’s the metrics. Those are the metrics you’re going to look at versus if you are in, maybe you’re a new account, you are going to be primarily an entertaining, educating kind of phase. And so here we’re looking for reach. We’re looking for impressions. We’re looking for follows. So our, is our content getting that reach that we want? So depends on those goals.

Karin Conroy (30:08.226)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (30:29.516)
Yeah. Yeah. So it depends. Yes. And, and also don’t compare your goals to somebody else’s and don’t think that you know what their goals are either. So we get a lot of like, let’s just look at this guy down the street who is the one that we went up against on this recent case and, and maybe they happen to win. So we’re a little bit, you know, have a little bit of a thorn in our side about it. Let’s not do that. Let’s talk about you specifically, what your goals are, why you’re doing this. and then let’s tie.

Caroline Langdon (30:47.467)
Hahaha

Karin Conroy (30:58.386)
all the numbers and all of that stuff to those goals. Okay, so it’s time for the Thought Leaders Library, which is if you haven’t, if this is your first episode, thank you for listening and welcome. But if you haven’t, if you have listened before, you already know that we have a book review on every episode and there’s a whole library on the website of all the guests’ books. So Caroline, what is the book that you’re going to recommend for the audience today?

Caroline Langdon (31:11.032)
you

Caroline Langdon (31:25.31)
Yes, it is one of my favorites. It’s called The One Thing by Gary Keller and J. Papason, I think I’m saying that right. But, right, I know, I hope I’m saying that right. But this book is incredible. And the main theme and repeating concept is essentially what is one thing that I can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary. And so

Karin Conroy (31:32.526)
I think that’s a chair, like the papasan chair.

Karin Conroy (31:52.896)
I love this.

Caroline Langdon (31:54.186)
Identifying and prioritizing that one thing and that will help you eliminate distractions and get way better results. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (32:00.02)
Well, let’s, yeah, so what in, like we started out talking about where should people start, but how do you identify that one thing? And like more specifically in terms of like this, all the social media strategy and what are some examples that you could give for people to kind of tie that idea in?

Caroline Langdon (32:18.444)
Right, so this book recommendation came highly recommended from one of my friends and it changed her life because her one thing that she chose was social media. And of course she got more specific. She wanted to post every day, something like that, which is a big goal, but she asked herself, is this one thing, social media, is it going to make everything else easier or unnecessary? And it did. She has gained, I mean,

Karin Conroy (32:28.023)
Nice.

Karin Conroy (32:41.558)
Nice!

Caroline Langdon (32:44.716)
half a million followers, she has a book deal, she is getting, you know, paid insanely well, and it’s and she’s doing what she loves and helping others. And so this truly made everything else easier or unnecessary for her. She doesn’t need to go to a nine to five, she doesn’t need to, you know, x, y, z. So that’s an example of how content for her changed her life, because she was consistent. And that was her one thing for the entire year.

Karin Conroy (32:46.292)
my gosh.

Karin Conroy (33:01.965)
Okay.

Karin Conroy (33:11.734)
Okay, so what’s the one thing that you think, let’s go more, a little more specific into like a social media plan. What’s the one thing that could make everything else easier or unnecessary in terms of just setting that strategy and kind of making all that other stuff easier when they’re thinking like, gosh, this social media feels overwhelming.

Caroline Langdon (33:40.364)
I think truly I would say your one thing should be picking a posting frequency and sticking to it. These ideas don’t have to be novel. Really they, you know, really don’t need to be. They can be repeating themes over and over saying the same things over and over because that’s what you are going to be known for. But pick your posting frequency and if that is your one thing and you stick to it, you’re going to see incredible results because you’re gonna learn from the data. You’re gonna know what’s working, see what conversations are starting.

Karin Conroy (33:50.851)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:05.122)
Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (34:07.096)
And if that is your one thing and you’re not letting other distractions get in the way, you’re going to do amazing. So I would say posting frequency because you need that data and just the quantity. Some of the greatest, biggest creators right now are posting twice a day. Their engagement, it’s not, I don’t think you have to do that, but I’m just saying if this, that’s your one thing for sure. And they’re doing it twice a day and it just shows more. You need more data. They’re really getting that reach.

Karin Conroy (34:23.954)
Yeah, yeah, they are. Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (34:35.04)
even though engagement per post does go down, the more you post, you’re gonna reach more people overall. So keep that in mind and don’t stress about the numbers. You’re not gonna, I mean, any count starting is not gonna get a hundred likes per post. Like you can hide the likes, that’s fine. Just do whatever you can to stay consistent because yeah, so posting frequency would be what I recommend.

Karin Conroy (34:43.725)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:49.342)
Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Conroy (34:57.71)
think that’s awesome. what I like about this idea of like these ideas don’t have to be novel, like you said, because your story and what you’re talking about is going to be unique and novel. So it’s not that you’re not that you’re regurgitating, you know, somebody else’s posts or somebody else’s content, or you’re just saying the same thing as every other lawyer. It’s that like you’re talking about case results or you’re talking about your expertise on a thing.

Caroline Langdon (35:03.821)
Right.

Karin Conroy (35:25.644)
based on that story that is unique to you and your firm. And so that’s what makes it unique. And that’s what makes people kind of want to connect and tie in. And so if they’ve had a similar issue and whatever, all of a sudden now it’s all coming together. But yeah, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. This is just the basics of human interaction and relationships. And we’re just taking it to a platform.

Caroline Langdon (35:51.18)
Right, exactly. And that’s what your content themes and knowing what’s in and out of your lane really come in handy to make it not cookie cutter because you do need to stand out. But yeah, don’t need to reinvent the.

Karin Conroy (36:03.454)
Yeah. Okay. So at this point, I like to ask, like what’s the first action item, but we, mean, we kind of talked about like that one thing, but is there a specific thing that you would suggest? Like after people have listened to this episode, what’s the first action they should take in terms of all the things we’ve talked about and not just a thought, but something they should actually do.

Caroline Langdon (36:25.708)
Right, yeah, aside from the one thing and choosing your one thing, whether it’s content or not, I would say your action item should be relating to content. Create your first content calendar. I think taking that step, and if it is a two, three, four posts per week schedule, awesome. Just get a piece of paper even and write it out and then start taking action on it. But having the initial plan can be a great motivator to have more clarity when you do take action.

Karin Conroy (36:37.793)
Yes.

Karin Conroy (36:54.434)
Yeah, for some reason, I don’t know why, but these content calendars are a mystery to a lot of the people I’ve talked to and they get very overwhelmed. So I will say like, just Google it, go, you know, do some research, see what that looks like, because it’s not as overwhelming as you might think. But once you put that together, I feel like this is kind of that for me, this is the one thing that does makes everything so much easier because…

Caroline Langdon (37:10.295)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (37:20.27)
If you’re doing all of these pieces that you have in a content calendar separately, without a plan and without like a system for it, it’s so much more difficult. And so by having a plan, batching that work together, making it consistent and then doing it a few times and trying that out, like all of a sudden it’s like, okay, here we go. I’ve got a system, like we’re just rolling and that it’s the same thing I did last week. And it’s not as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

Caroline Langdon (37:29.014)
Yes.

Caroline Langdon (37:38.645)
Right.

Caroline Langdon (37:44.812)
Right, yes, and everyone’s brains work so different. So if it works better to be like Monday, carousel post, Tuesday, photo, Wednesday, reel, do that, do whatever structure works best. I mean, I even this, for those listening can’t see, is my rudimentary content calendar where it’s just a notepad and paper. And I use this in tangent with my air table. Like this is what I go back to because it’s easier. I just literally drew my own calendar and I put in

Karin Conroy (38:00.386)
Yeah.

Caroline Langdon (38:13.004)
what I’m gonna be posting each day. That is it. Like it can be as simple as that. And mindful business is on Instagram. So if an Instagram strategist is telling you this, know it’s possible.

Karin Conroy (38:14.594)
Yeah.

Karin Conroy (38:22.784)
Yeah, yeah. No, I love like writing things. have a lot of lawyers will know I have this remarkable tablet, which is similar to writing on paper. But same thing, I need to actually physically write things out for my brain. So whatever you’re doing, whether it’s paper or whatever, create a system for it and then it will happen and it won’t just happen this week. It will happen on the weeks when you’re too busy to think it through too.

Caroline Langdon (38:48.812)
Right, definitely, yeah.

Karin Conroy (38:51.182)
Caroline Langdon is the social media strategist. I’m butchering this. I’m so sorry. At Impact Media House. Thank you so much. I feel like that was very actionable and not just like a bunch of woo woo social media stuff. it’s, let’s take some action and get this done and do it in a way that’s actually gonna do something and get results. So thank you so much. This was a great episode.

Caroline Langdon (38:57.701)
You’re so good!

Caroline Langdon (39:11.394)
Yes, exactly. Of course. Thanks for having me.