Skip to main content

YouTube’s passing Facebook for top social network in US doesn’t matter to lawyers

Facebook traffic

Facebook will cede its runner-up position in website traffic to YouTube in the next couple of months, according to a new study shared with CNBC by market research firm SimilarWeb.

From CNBC:

The five websites receiving the most traffic in the U.S. in the last several years have been Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo and Amazon, in that order. However, Facebook has seen a severe decline in monthly page visits, from 8.5 billion to 4.7 billion in the last two years, according to the study. Although Facebook’s app traffic has grown, it is not enough to make up for that loss, the study said.

The Facebook drop is pretty apparaent when charted. 

Facebook has been growing in plenty of markets abroad and Facebook users are now spending more time on other Facebook owned platforms, including Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

YouTube is growing, in part, because of increased use on platforms like Chromecast and Smart TVs.

Facebook’s slide doesn’t matter to lawyers — at least those lawyers who grow their business by nurturing relationships and building a name.

Facebook is where more people engage more people than anywhere – online or offline. YouTube is great, but’s a democratized broadcasting platform. Broadcasting is a far cry from listening/reading and commenting in response.

Facebook is a conversation among business colleagues, friends, relatives, and community members. It’s where we hear of a customer’s wedding anniversary celebration and a business partner’s oldest child graduating from college. It’s where we receive news and commentary on a recent legal or business development — and join in the ensuing discussion.

Just yesterday Daniel Rodriguez shared (not announced) on Facebook that with his role complete as Dean at Northwestern Law School he will be headed to Stanford Law School for the fall semester. Likes and comments congratulating him and welcoming him to California ensued from colleagues and friends.

Rodriguez wouldn’t think of leaving the professional and personal interaction with people on Facebook anymore than he would think of leaving Twitter, where he is a force of nature in driving discussuion among innovators in the law, world-wide.

For lawyers and other professionals using Facebook, the discussion only gets richer as we connect and engage to get to know people better, to learn and to build a reputation.

Sure there are those who fear Facebook. They’ll look at the news of Facebook’s website traffic decline as validation that Facebook is evil or a waste of time.

It doesn’t matter to the increasing number of legal professionals who see the growing value of Facebook.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

LexBlog Con Can Provide Legal Companies and Law Firms an Opportunity to Connect With Influencers

Imagine a “LexBlog Con” where leading legal brands from startups to traditional larger players to law firms are offered the opportunity to connect with legal bloggers. After all, legal bloggers are quickly supplanting reporters and traditional media as the influencers of our legal community. From a blogger attendee, today, at BlogHer19 in Brooklyn. Day 1 of @BlogHer was wonderful. So many amazing brands to connect with #blogher19 #blogherpro #blogherlife #blogherstyle #blogherhealth19 #womenslifestyle #lifestyleblogger #lifestyleblog pic.twitter.com/IIcVrg9apz — Mademoiselle Skinner (@guestlistblog) September 18, 2019 There may not be a better way for legal industry companies to connect with the biggest influencers in legal than a conference of legal bloggers, ala LexBlog Con. LexBlog Con could start as simple as BlogHer did years ago and, as we had discussed for this last year, as a larger meetup of legal bloggers for a day of blogger education and networking. But ...

Job security is a myth for lawyers without a personal brand

I talked with a highly respected legal professional last Friday who was recently let go by his law firm. He had been employed by the firm for four or five years and employed by similar large law firms for a couple decades before. A couple weeks ago I heard of veteran lawyer who joined a large firm with a major client, but whose employment status was now at risk with the general counsel’s leaving his client. These stories pale in comparison to all of the lawyers who have been the victim of downsizing caused by the collapse or merger of their law firms. With the changes in the legal services market, very few lawyers have job (or stable income) security  writes Dan Lear, Director of Industry Relations at Avvo. Lawyers need to build a strong brand or a business, and to do so now, Per Lear, the job security once held by law firm partners and in-house counsel who had reached the the ranks of Assistant General Counsel or Deputy General Counsel is gone. There’s the former gener...

Election Coverage Now Comes From Blogs

Election coverage now comes from blogs. Whether they be blogs run by the mainstream media, blogs that have the status of mainsteam media, such as FiveThirtyEight , blogs published by legal commenators, or citizen bloggers, blogs dominate election coverage. In addition, what Americans read on social media is often a report originally published on a blog. This was not the case not that long ago. Sixteen years ago, the Boston Globe’s Teresa Hanafin , reporting from. the Democratic National Convention shared the following: They don’t have space in the media pavilion, and are forced to pay exorbitant prices for lunch at the press café – unless they are willing to wait in long lines at McDonald’s in the FleetCenter or bring their own food. The crowded workspace they do have is in the rafters of the convention hall, which they would be sharing with pigeons if this were the old Boston Garden. Who are they? They are bloggers: Those who write weblogs, online journals of sorts with regu...