Here’s the question: When making a short video, how much legal support do you recommend mentioning in the video?
How Much Legalese And Factual Info Is Needed?
Basically, you’re asking how much legalese should you include in the video or how much factual content? How much research do you need to do? The answer is not much, and it actually works out in your favor, because you’ve got to remember that people relate to stories better than they relate to anything else.
Tell a Story Instead
So do a video where you tell a story about something that happened to a client and how you helped that client and what the resolution was. That’s going to be way better than you saying, “Florida statute 7412 says that if you’re in a car accident, you have up to 72 hours to go to the doctor.”
If you say instead, “I had a person just leave my office. They came in for a free consultation and I wasn’t able to help them and here’s why: They got into a car accident and they felt fine. But the problem was that three days later, the pain started kicking in. Just because you get into a car accident and you feel fine right away doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not injured.”
Think about when you work out. Imagine you go to the gym and you haven’t been to the gym for two years… For example, I went to the gym and I lifted weights and the next day I was so sore, I couldn’t even lift my arm. But I wasn’t sore that day, I was sore the next day.
So, a car accident is kind of the same thing. So this person came into my office and they weren’t injured right away. They didn’t get themselves checked out, and then they waited and they waited.
And now three months have gone by, and they’ve got a ruptured disc or whatever the issue is, but they didn’t go to the doctor. Because of that, I really can’t help them, unfortunately.
When you tell that story, that’s a lot better and a lot more meaningful and a lot more impactful than just giving facts and figures and things like that. So, it’s going to be a lot easier just to tell stories.
Some Clients Try To Write “Term Papers”
I’ve talked to some clients that get hung up in the research. It’s like their kind of writing a term paper and that’s not what these videos are supposed to do. These videos are supposed to be just quick pieces of information that go on to solve a problem.
What You Should Do Instead
And you can say something like, “Here’s a quick tip for anyone that’s in a family law dispute: do not post anything about the opposing party or your case at all on social media. We just left the court and in the case before us, the husband went on a Facebook rant about his ex-wife and how she was out partying – on Facebook.
And because of this, her attorney saved all the screenshots and you know what? He used it against him. And then we saw this result and this person is actually going to have to live with whatever the result is.”
That’s a better story than anything that’s just facts and figures. So, obviously, make sure what you’re saying is accurate, but it’s better to tell stories than it is to just use facts and figures and do a ton of research.
Also, doing a ton of research is going to make it a lot harder for you to consistently create content, so just tell stories about things that happened in real life, and that’s all you need to do.
