In online spaces, visuals are king. It’s a show not tell world where consumers are all but eschewing words in favor of graphics. Be it videos, photos or emojis, the demand is clear. When communicating marketing messages, best to use visual stories with limited text, if not in lieu it entirely.

That is unless you’re using it as a highlights reel for your Facebook content. Digiday estimates that 85% of videos are watched without sound, so a subtitle or two is key.

Want to capture the fleeting attention of your target audience and expand your reach? These Instagram stats help demonstrate why effective online marketing campaigns are heavy on the visuals.

IG User and Engagement Statistics  

600 million Instagrammers can’t be wrong. Users on the photo and video sharing platform now outnumber both twitter and snapchat, and show no signs of slowing. ‘Grammers are a loyal group who make a daily practice of engaging with visual content.

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Here’s a numerical look at why businesses are capitalizing on video marketing’s impressive reach.

1. 400 million Instagram users are active every day, posting a mind-bending 95 million photos daily.
2. Each month, users search “Instagram” more than 16,600,000 times on Google.
3. The ‘Gram has grown from 1.6 million registered businesses to more than15 million business profiles in less than a year.
4. As of 2017, more than 7% of US businesses are active on Instagram.
5. Instagram released data that showed80% of its users follow at least one brand on IG.
6. They also found that 30% of Instagram followershave made a direct purchase based on a post they saw on Instagram.
7. Instagram online advertising has jumped to 1 million since 2016.
8. Users of newer features like Instagram Stories already top 250 million daily, beating out competitors like Snapchat.
9. Posts with faces tend to garner 38% more engagement than those without.
10. Emojis are featured in more than half of all IG captions and comments.

How Visuals can Improve your Brand Strategy

The best branding strategies engage our sense of sight. And for good reason.

Research shows the brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than even a small block of text.

Perhaps that’s why the same study revealed that 46% of surveyed participants view web design as the primary indicator that a company is credible. What does that say to us? When the images are high quality they change the way your buyers see and engage with your brand or product.

Ultimately, as our fleeting attention darts from one task and platform to the next, it’s starting to feel like visual content is the only marketing tactic with staying power.

Want some help harnessing the potential of visual content marketing? We’re ready to blast off when you are.

All of us have an inner child. It’s practically guaranteed that he or she loves Halloween. Appealing to them in the workplace may sound counterintuitive at first, but in truth it can be a great way to motivate your team.

Whether you’re a digital marketing agency or paper company creating a teamwork-centric office culture, improving company morale can reduce employee turnover and lead to increased productivity. It’s the last two months of the year, so no time like the present.

Looking for some fun ways to celebrate Halloween at work? Think of these office place Halloween activities less like workday distractions and more like motivational team building techniques.

Encourage Costumes

Work appropriate Halloween costumes give you a look at the man behind (or in this case, inside) the mask. Meaning, seeing an employee’s interests expressed through costume gives you valuable insight into who they are outside the cubicle. It’s a natural conversation starter that can lead to deeper ties among team members and senior staff alike.

It can also lessen the divide between upper management and the rest of the team. Costumes are a great equalizer. In seeing executives and directors dressed up and mingling they may become more relatable. Really isn’t any small departure from “intimidating” a good thing?

Invite the Fam

In some cases, employees spend more hours of the day at the office than they do with their families. An office Halloween party is a great opportunity to include your employee’s loved ones. It gives them a chance to see where and how mom and dad spend their days. It also allows entire families to bond and strengthen relationships internally.

Whether you invite the kids to trick or treat around the office or have a special Halloween cookie decorating party just for the little ones, extending the invitation to family is always a great idea.

Schedule a Volunteer day

Research shows that millennials are especially keen on, and motivated by, purpose. In fact, a millennial impact report published by Forbes says as many as, “81% of Millennial employees wanted to participate in company-wide volunteer days.”

The same study showed some correlation between employee retention and participation in purpose-oriented causes.

Being as close as it is to the holidays, the Halloween season is the ideal time of year to give back to communities in need. Try inviting special needs children to trick or treat in your office, visiting with the elderly for a day, or leading a collection effort.

Whichever you choose, don’t hesitate to put the extra energy to good use on Halloween. It’s also an easy way to improve your reputation management goals!

Celebrate with a Contest

There are no shortage of games or friendly Halloween contests you can host in the workplace. Bonus points if you can divide the entire team by department or into smaller groups. It’ll help facilitate the team building.

Some popular office Halloween activities include:

• Departmental cubicle decorating contest
• Guessing game of how many candy corns are in a container
• Department-wide pumpkin carving contest
• Best costume contest awards like (best homemade, scariest, funniest, most realistic)

Ultimately, work Halloween festivities are great office energizers. Done right, they can bring your team closer together and give everyone a chance to have a scary good time before killing your sales goals in Q4.

Experience the endless rhythm of conscious at Oak Cliff artist’s November Gallery 550 opening

Event: Wednesday, November 1, 6:30-9pm

Location: Globe Runner, Gallery 550, 16415 Addison Rd #550, Addison, TX 75001

Artist: Gary Perrone

For a few years, the walls at Globe Runner, a Dallas-based digital marketing agency, have been a haven for art. Next week, they’re hosting a come-and-go cocktail party and art opening featuring Oak Cliff-based artist, Gary Perrone.

The event is part of a quarterly initiative to make a positive contribution to Addison’s community and culture.

Perrone’s exhibit started with one idea: to give shape to the artist’s inner thought processes, transferring the visual noise within his mind to canvas.

Perrone has been creating fine art since 2001. For the last few years he’s been grappling with questions like, what do thoughts look like and how can they be rendered visually? He uses his internal mindscape as his muse, paying close attention to how creativity moves through his awareness. His paintings, referred to as Subroutines, attempt to capture the endless rhythm of thought, otherwise known as the “white noise” of the greater consciousness.

“The concept for my paintings is based on the idea that thoughts, indiscernible to the naked eye, can be represented visually,” says Perrone. “I see mental subroutines as having rhythm and chaos and color; they are omnipresent layers that can obscure the true nature of things. A certain kind of order emerges as thoughts materialize on the canvas, which I believe reveals the innermost self.”

The event is free and open to the public. RSVP to the November 1 event here.

About Globe Runner

Globe Runner is an Addison, Texas-based agency that specializes in branding, digital marketing, search engine optimization(SEO) and advertising. It has over 60 local, national and international B2C and B2B clients in consumer-packaged goods (CPG), beauty, credit repair, fashion, healthcare, home and interiors, jewelry, legal services and sports. Globe Runner sits on the boards of the Dallas Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association (DFWSEM) and the Social Media Club of Dallas (SMC Dallas). The agency’s staff and work have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Adweek.

About Gary Perrone

Perrone, an Oak Cliff resident, became a disciple of graphic design upon obtaining a BFA from the University of Hartford/Hartford Art School in 1983. Since then he has been a designer and creative director in both New York City and Dallas and is currently a full-time artist in Dallas.

Facebook Advertising for Law Firms

Gone are the days when Facebook was primarily used for reconnecting with old friends. Now it’s far more than that, especially in the business world. Facebook is projected to earn close to $30 billion in advertising revenue in 2017. There’s a reason for this extraordinary revenue growth ─it works very well.

According to Attorney at Work’s recent Social Media Marketing Survey, eighty percent (80%) of attorneys use Facebook on a regular basis. Forty percent (40%) utilize social media advertising, and half of those use Facebook Ads.

Unlike Google Ads, Facebook advertising allows law firms to target their prospects with more pinpoint precision. As a result of this better targeting, Facebook advertising often results in a lower cost per click (CPC) and better ROI. Like Google Ads, Facebook paid advertising is auction-based.

Following are the four (4) basic elements involved in creating a Facebook paid advertising campaign for your law firm.

In Facebook, you can create an advertising campaign by selecting “Create Ads” from the dropdown menu in the upper right of the home page. From there, you’ll have the opportunity to select the campaign’s objective from a provided list of options. For instance, some attorneys with a specific niche seek to build a following (objective: likes) that they can then send their own unique content throughout the month. Others would rather drive clicks on a landing page (objective: traffic) and others might want to build a following for their business page (objective: likes).

Here’s where you can pinpoint your ideal target client. You can select locations, ages, interests and a host of other criteria. There are dozens of options for selecting your ideal target audience. For instance, a firm with that specializes in employment law can target those that work in human resources departments. Once you select your target audience, Facebook will list the potential reach based on these demographics.

3. Choose Budget and Bid Strategy

Simply enter the maximum dollar amount that you’d like to spend in a day or over a period of time. Also, you can select when you’d like the advertisement to begin and end. You may set your own bid or select automatic bidding. There are a few other choices to make, such as paying per impression or paying per click.

4. Create Your Ad

After you’ve selected your target market and have set your budget and bid parameters, Facebook helps you create your advertisement. After selecting one of the different formatting options, you can begin to upload pictures, images or a slide show. You’ll also need to enter your advertisement’s headline, your firm’s URL, and any text to be included in the advertisement.

LAW FIRM PRACTICE AREAS WE OFFER LEGAL FACEBOOK ADVERTISING SERVICES FOR

Business Law

Business Litigation

Child Custody

Civil Litigation

Corporate Law

Criminal Law

Estate Planning

Family Law

General Practice

Health Care

Immigration

Labor and Employment

Landlord and Tenant Law

Medical Malpractice

Medicare and Medicaid

Personal Injury

Real Estate

Social Security Disability

Wills and Probate

Workers Compensation

These four basic elements of a Facebook paid advertising campaign just scratch the surface, but they will get you headed in the right direction. If you’d like assistance with Facebook advertising for your law firm, contact Accelerate Online Marketing at (877) 676-2010. We specialize in helping law firms get the most out of their Facebook paid advertising dollars.

The Importance of Reputation & Review Management for Attorneys

You might think online reviews are only important when it comes to tangible items (appliances, cars) or trades (electricians, exterminators). Not so. Consider the following data concerning the importance of online reviews for lawyers:

• 66% of consumers say they’d be more likely to hire an attorney with online reviews.
• 60% of consumers say they have considered online reviews when choosing a professional service provider, such as a lawyer or doctor. And that number jumps to 71% for Millennials.

Monitor What’s Being Said About You and Your Firm

Do you know the status of your online reputation? You should. Try doing an online search on your name and your firm’s name and look for your reviews. If you find a negative review, don’t ignore it. It’s not going away. Always respond to negative reviews in a positive, professional manner. Be empathetic. It might be tempting to respond with a nasty diatribe, but don’t; you’ll only lend credence to the negative review.

Ask for Online Reviews…from Everybody

This might fall way outside of your comfort zone, but it is important. Ask your clients to review you. The following are the most common sites where attorney online reviews can be found: LinkedIn, Avvo, Yelp, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Lawyers.com, LawyerRating.com, and Martindale.com. If anybody tells you that attorneys don’t ask for reviews, that they’re beneath the legal profession, refer to the aforementioned statistics. Asking for reviews and referrals is part of doing business in the 21st century.

Publicize Positive Reviews

Don’t assume positive reviews will magically fall into the right hands. Let people know your satisfied clients are willing to take the time to share their opinions about your legal expertise and customer service excellence. Put your reviews on your website and link them to online profiles you maintain.

LAW FIRM PRACTICE AREAS WE OFFER LAW FIRM REPUTATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES FOR

Bankruptcy

Business Law

Business Litigation

Child Custody

Civil Litigation

Corporate Law

Criminal Law

Divorce

Estate Planning

Family Law

General Practice

Health Care

Immigration

Labor and Employment

Landlord and Tenant Law

Slander and Defamation

Medical Malpractice

Medicare and Medicaid

Personal Injury

Real Estate

Social Security Disability

Wills and Probate

Workers Compensation

If you have questions about your law firm’s reputation and review management, contact Accelerate Online Marketing (Accelerate). We’re an award-winning digital marketing agency that focuses on law firm marketing. We make digital marketing easy for attorneys.

With these values as the foundation, they build companies distinct from the competition, who are aligned with their target audience and that make a difference.

But it’s more than simply communicating a strong value-based message. It’s about demonstrating it. Let’s take a look at how successful brands are leading the charge with strong company values.

What is Values-Based Marketing?

There’s nothing more unique, and quite frankly marketable, than a company’s individual values. Differentiating these can help position a brand far above the competition. Drafting your messaging in alignment with these overarching principles is the essence of value-based marketing.

Make sure each value is sustainable enough to carry you through the long-term, but flexible enough it can be shifted as the market ebbs.

To give you an idea of the kinds of relevant core values that resonate with customers, here’s an overview of the words and work Globe Runner lives by:

• Play to Win
• Be the Spark
• Lead with Integrity
• Own the Work
• Put Clients First
• Never Stop Learning

Distilling these core values into a workable mission statement is the best way to gain traction.

What’s in an effective mission statement?

More than any other function, the mission statement makes clear the purpose of your business. When drafting, focus on demonstrating what you do, who you are, who you serve and how you do it.

It can and should be simple, so long as it effectively addresses why you exist at all and what you’re striving toward. (Usually outlined by a long-term goal.)

This is not to be confused with a company vision statement, which is more directed toward how you plan to impact the community at large.

Used together, a mission and vision statement serve as guideposts for success. They keep the company focused, serving as a litmus test for decision-making and action taking.

Start by hearing out your leadership team. Let them wax poetic about why the company was started and where it’s headed.

At Globe Runner, we started by making note of how we dedicate ourselves to customers, what experience we bring to the table and how we innovate based on the market.

The result? A three-part mission statement hinged on our guiding core values first, branding second.

Values Before Branding

Values-based marketing puts your purpose at the core of what you do and sets the framework for your branding. Not the other way around.

Done right, it taps into the emotions that drive consumer decisions and turns buyers into advocates. That meaningful brand connection is at the heart of what more than 87% consumers report that they look for when shopping, according to a 2014 Edelman brandshare survey.

Making this shift from product-pushy to customer-committed creates a lasting impression that can carry a sale from initial engagement to loyal customer.

In the end, attention is fleeting. Innate values usually aren’t.

Need help prioritizing and promoting your core values? Globe Runner is an expert at executing effective rebrands that do just that. We’d love to partner up and re-fuel you for success.

Call Globe Runner and talk to a member of our creative team at 877.646.6118 or simply enter your information in our contact form and we will help you get launched.

Live streaming is one of the most captivating ways to market an event and more and more options are becoming available to live stream your company’s event on social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Live all have great user interface and allow you to go live instantaneously. Each social medium has pros and cons and you really want to look at who you are trying to interact with when deciding what platform to go live on.

CEO Eric McGehearty talks about some innovative ways Twitter Live can be used, including a recent example of when MGM Resorts used it to great success.

SEO for Lawyers

What’s one of the most important things to include on an invitation? The location, right? Your address on an invitation allows your guests to find you. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is like the address on an invitation. It allows those searching for you online to find your legal website.

These searches take place through search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN or Bing, etc. If your law firm website design hasn’t been optimized to perform well in search engines, prospective clients won’t be able to find you. You might have the best-looking website in the legal profession, but if you don’t have visitors, you won’t have much of a party.

How Our Law Firm SEO Agency Works

Search engines face competition as any business does. They must do good work, by providing relevant search results, or Internet users will leave and go use another search engine. So, as the Internet has grown, and more and more pages have been added, search engines have refined their processes adjusting their algorithms to return excellent search results for every search imaginable.

Search engine algorithms use a variety of factors to determine rankings for any particular search. We know what many of these factors are, but we don’t know exactly how they are weighted in the algorithms, which can change daily. The factors that go into search engine algorithms are broadly classified in three categories. These are: site architecture (how a site is designed and built, technically, functionally and visually), content (information on the site), and links (links pointing to your site from other sites).

In order to have your site performing well in searches, just take care of those three areas—site architecture, content, and links, and your site will do just fine.

Site Architecture Tips for Law Firm Websites

Good site architecture has well organized information that is easily navigated by both human user and search engines. Its pages are organized and labeled in a way that makes sense to the user. Code, images, and CSS are streamlined so that pages load quickly. Its design is easy to use and intuitive, allowing the user to find what they want and perform desired functions easily.

Be sure your pages use the right keywords. In other words, the words that your users are searching for. You can do the research yourself. Start simple, with one or two keywords, then build to long tail keywords that are more specific to your specialty. A long tail keyword example might be “DUI attorneys who speak Spanish in Dallas”. Are the keywords you’ve identified producing the correct results? If your competitors are showing up, you’re on to something. Be sure not to overlook any. Make sure your keywords appear in the page titles, H tags and links on each page.

Quality Content

Over twenty (20) years ago, Bill Gates famously stated that content is king. It still is. One way to help remain relevant in light of algorithm changes is by creating high quality, unique content. Copying content from another website won’t get it done. Blogging, white papers and frequently asked questions are all good examples of quality content that will help search engines know exactly what your website is all about.

Link Building for Legal Websites

Links are a third important factor in search engine rankings. The links that point at your site from other sites send signals to the search engines that your content is valuable. They are votes of confidence from other sites that say that your site is an authority figure on its subject matter. Good quality content, as mentioned above, is very important to getting external links. Internal links are important too, so be sure your site has a good internal link structure.

SEO for lawyers & law firm websites isn’t a one-time endeavor

Successful law firm SEO program isn’t a set it and forget it proposition. It requires steady monitoring. Keywords that once worked may no longer produce the desired results. And content needs be fresh and relevant. The success of your legal SEO efforts will correlate with the amount of time you’re willing to give it.

According to a fifteen-year-old American Bar Association study, 100 percent of law firms with 50 or more lawyers and 85 percent of smaller firms had websites. And that study is fifteen-years-old! That 85 percent is probably close to 100 percent by now. And that’s exactly why Search Engine Optimization is so important for Attorneys and Lawyers. Why have a website if clients, either current or prospective, can’t find you?

LAW FIRM PRACTICE AREAS WE OFFER LEGAL SEO SERVICES FOR

Bankruptcy

Business Law

Business Litigation

Child Custody

Civil Litigation

Corporate Law

Criminal Law

Divorce

DUI/DWI

Estate Planning

Family Law

General Practice

Health Care

Immigration

Labor and Employment

Landlord and Tenant Law

Libel, Slander and Defamation

Medical Malpractice

Medicare and Medicaid

Personal Injury

Real Estate

Social Security Disability

Wills and Probate

Workers Compensation

For more information about law firm SEO for attorneys, contact at Accelerate Online Marketing’s legal digital marketing experts in Dallas, TX. We specialize in helping law firm marketing.