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

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 general counse

The economics of a legal blogging network as a virtual community

Over twenty years ago I read of the power of virtual communities in Net Gain, Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities by John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong (now executive director of Debevoise &Plimpton). I read Net Gain then while creating Prairielaw.com, a virtual law community of lawyers and lay people alike, later sold to LexisNexis. I am reading Net Gain again as LexBlog’s worldwide legal blogging network begins to pick up steam. This legal blogging network is every bit a virtual community of: Blogging legal professionals Those supporting these legal bloggers – LexBlog and its partners Those whom benefit from the legal information and commentary of legal bloggers, including legal professionals, consumers of legal services empowered by legal blogs to select a lawyer in a more informed fashion, and other publishers who receive blog commentary by syndication. No question there is a business model in organizing a legal blogging community, so long as the focus rema

Blogging Makes You a Better Lawyer

LexBlog’s associate editor, Melissa Lin , shared on Twitter this week a blog post of mine on some of the reasons that lawyers blog – to learn, to join a conversation and to build a community. To which Josh King , the former general counsel of Avvo and the current general counsel of realself added, “Also makes you a better lawyer. Also makes you a better lawyer. — Josh King (@joshuamking) September 27, 2019 I have been following King’s blog for years. He has a keen interest in the professional speech regulation of lawyers, and how that regulation may not serve the public interest. I’ve watched him pick up relevant news stories, whether from traditional media or legal bloggers, dissect the issue, analyze the law and share his commentary. Good stuff. I engaged him and others on many of his posts. King was doing exactly one of the things we were told in law school, and which the consumer of legal services would like to see in their lawyer, he was staying up to speed in relevant

Michael Ferguson

Search This Blog