Lessons - The Lawyer Who Gets More Views Than Most TV Shows | Mike Mandell - "Law By Mike" (30M+ Social Media Followers)

In this lessons episode, explore how short-form content turns expertise into visibility and drives business growth. Discover how to simplify complex ideas into valuable content, understand how consistency builds momentum and trust, and uncover why short-form video is the most powerful tool for attracting new customers. And another thing too that I think you're a really great example of because social media is great at taking very complex issues and simplifying them. And I think if we're talking to business owners that are sort of on the fence about putting themselves out there, they're trying to figure out, well, you know, all I need is time and an iPhone, but my time has a cost associated with it. And if I'm going to spend time filming, what else could I be spending on for my business? But when you think about the ability that you have to take complex issues and simplify them and educate an audience, I think that business owners should understand that they actually can simplify some of the more complex topics that they know inside and out because to their target audience, depending on the complexity of the audience or the potential customer, but to their audience, they may not need to know it at the same level as a business owner. So business owners are going to get inside their own head and they're going to say, well, how can I possibly talk about whatever product or service in its entirety in 30 to 60? That's not what you're doing at all, at all at all. And that's not what people want. And this goes back to that point I was making that you want to provide value to people, something that they can act on now. If you're getting too much into the weeds, that's the type of thing they should be calling you for. To give an example with the legal content, it's like, hey, you don't have to answer the cops questions and vote the fifth. I mean, that's simple quick tips that, again, they don't teach you in school, right? But it's a very quick way and simple way of explaining a right you have. Of course, there's all these different exceptions and things and all different things with that. And that's maybe a different video. Talk about those. But I think there's no matter what your industry is, there's a way to present things in a simple way. And we, you know, we have different ways that we think about topic ideation, whether it be, you know, visually showing someone like you, you had in the act of doing something first, giving insider tips, you know, kind of like my content first, you know, answering frequently asked questions or questions that people are calling you. Because that people are constantly googling that they don't understand like the basics. There's just so many different ways of presenting stuff that, you know, you can really figure out a way to connect with your audience by doing it correctly. Well, let's talk about, let's talk about the time investment as well, because people are trying to figure out is it worth my time. When somebody sort of gets on the social media train and social media content, you know, it lasts for 30 seconds and then the consumer is on to something else like they scroll through it, they watch it, they scroll through it. And it does take a lot of exposure to a particular person or a business or a certain brand before somebody starts to remember them and it starts to, you know, really resonate so that when they have a legal issue, they think of Mike, it's going to take a couple pieces of content over a period of time. So the business owners like, well, okay, how much time to actually have to put out two, three, four, five, six plus pieces of content per week and I have all these different platforms after worry about. So what's the, what's the strategy for somebody who just wants to start doesn't have tons of time wants to show up in front of an audience again and again, because they know that one piece is really not going to make a big difference. So I'm sort of sort of predictable strategy and schedule, right. So how do you, how do you get them just started with some sort of content schedule. Yeah, we talk about this in our course, you know, the bare minimum that I would like to see someone post is is once a week, you know, preferably more like twice a week. You know, we, we organize stuff and we, we explain this in our course, it's about blocking and putting tasks together where we essentially say that if you can devote, you know, four hours a week, you can get two videos done. And when it comes to the posting of, and that's, I'm talking about that's from topic ideation scripting editing and filming assuming you're doing all of that. You know, there's, depending on your funding and what you have available, you can outsource certain things and make it easier on you. But that's what we, we have figured out. And the idea is to constantly post the same time every day, same time each week on that day. You want to think of your content like a TV show. If people are used to watching their favorite TV show Sunday evening and all of a sudden you start posting Wednesdays or take a week off and then post three weeks later, no one can get any consistency there. So it's about figuring out what you can handle. And if that's once a week, fine, you know, start there and then build into more if you need to. And as far as the scheduling for different platforms, it's actually easier than you think. There's a lot of different what they call Omni tools out there where you can upload a single video. And then it can auto post to, you know, all the platforms. You certainly want to take advantage of all the platforms. The good news is with short form content, which is why I love it so much. You create one piece of content, you know, under 60 seconds. It's going to go on TikTok, YouTube shorts, Facebook, and Instagram. That's four platforms. You know, you just quadrupled the amount of people that would be looking at this because it's on four different platforms. And, you know, I think it's just the easiest way to, you know, really take advantage of the time you put into that one content. As far as, you know, the time commitment you're saying that people, that it takes a while, right? They have to constantly see your face. I think there's some truth to that, but there's also, you know, in my experience, I'll put out a post on a certain topic. And sometimes someone just calls me right away because it's on that topic. So sometimes it's, it is because you're talking about something that someone is going through that issue right now or has that that kind of, you know, problem they need solved or looking for whatever product it is, whatever it may be. But the key is the consistency of putting out the post, engaging with your audience, building a community. And if you have a community of like, even if it's only like 100 people, but they like love your brand, that is better than any advertising will ever give you. Because these people also go out, I've got in referrals and clients from people that found me online, but now through word of mouth told someone else who's never seen me online. So it's now it's going like a different level, you know, so there's, it's just a, if you're not taking advantage of this, it's 2023, you got to do it. Like you got to do it. It's like, yeah, I know, I know, I know, and I know we're, I mean, we're both believers in this. I mean, we're creating content non-stop. I mean, I, so I took a different approach, and I'm actually curious about your opinion on this. So I thought when I first started this podcast, for complicated issues, it would make sense to do long form that way you can have a conversation about it. And to nuances and context, and you took the opposite approach, you went super short form, and you kicked ass, by the way, like you, you have a much larger following. So I know that I have to focus more on short form stuff, but I'm wondering if, you know, maybe it's the comfort level of the person with the medium as well. Because some people like to write, some people like to have casual conversation on long form podcasts and people don't mind dabbling in the editing and they, they mess around with like short form editing. Do you think that there is a certain title? I mean, I guess it would just be the platforms that have the best chance of going viral. If you can manage to go on those, that's the best opportunity. Yeah, so it's, we, our course focuses on short form content for a reason because it is the fastest way to grow. There's nothing wrong with doing the long form content that you're doing, but you will never, even if it's as good as, you know, the best content ever. It will never grow as fast as how short form content grows. And the reason behind that is, you know, when it used to be only at Instagram, Facebook, in YouTube, TikTok comes in and TikTok's algorithm essentially revolutionized everything. It was all of a sudden off one, any one video someone could become famous, like viral sensation. And that didn't exist before. With Instagram, you had to build following over years and years and same thing with Facebook and YouTube. And so that's what got so many people attracted to TikTok because they, each video is taken separately. You know, if you have a larger following on TikTok, yeah, I will get more initial views, but essentially each video is determined how, how long are people watching it? And that's, you know, it will go viral. And so once that happened with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, in YouTube, sorry going, oh crap, everyone's taking, everyone's going to TikTok and taking away our views. So then they all created their own versions of it, which all do the same thing, which lead to more, more eyeballs quicker than has ever been before, before TikTok showed up, more eyeballs seen it, faster growth. And, you know, because the platforms are competing, they are kind of pushing this content out more than any other content. So it really is like the prime time to be taking advantage of it. And with your, you know, what you're doing, you know, you just, you can do long form content and cut it up into shorts. No, you just got to get good at it. Yeah, exactly. And that's the way you do it. And you'll see a lot of that, you know, online. I'm still, my preference still is to create specific short form content because I know it does better, but you can still create good content doing long forming and making it into shorts. And also, you know, I think that another thing that is very important for business owners that are trying to start to create content, if they haven't already, like to your point, you're answering questions that people care about. So this will allow to monetize quicker. So if you are creating that very specific content for a short form platform, like TikTok, Reels, YouTube, whatever, I mean, now they even have like Snapchat spotlights, which I don't mess around with, but I know that's a thing. If you're answering these very specific questions that the buyer could have, then that's going to turn into a lead much quicker than just a brand play, giving very, you know, ambiguous, almost general information that maybe isn't so specified. Or if, for example, I cut a 30 second clip out of this, well, you know, that's great. It could, it could go viral, but it may not. It may be like a very, you know, part of a conversation. It's not the most useful thing to somebody. It's a nice thing to listen to, but it's really not going to drive a point home like if I scripted out a 30 to 60 second show, right? It's a little bit different. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's why we focus with our students so much on the scripting coming up with the topic ideas. We have what we call the heartbeat method and it's an acronym where each letter stands for a different thing that you can go down the list and, you know, figure out a topic idea. You never run out of topic ideas on it. And the, and then with the scripting, it's, it's really, you know, get all the information down, then you, then you want to make it shorter, make it shorter. And, and we teach all of that. You know, but it is starting from, you know, the value and then getting it down, you know, it's a different process than a podcast like this where we're just talking and you don't have that straight forward, you know, like almost like beginning, beginning, middle end, which you would have with a script. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like if you, if you've, you know, Mr. Beast, when he makes long form content, he starts with the title. And then, and then from the title creates the content. It's kind of a similar process. Start with the value and then create the content when you're doing podcasts, you know, they just don't work in that way. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one. You