Paige Sparks:

I think the most important thing that people don’t do correctly is, they’re making videos for the views.

Chris Dreyer:

Social media marketing right now is hot. If you’re going to do it, it better be for the right reasons.

Paige Sparks:

I don’t need a million people to see it. I need one person who was wrongfully fired, and now I’ve got a client.

Chris Dreyer:

You’re listening to Personal Injury Mastermind, where we give you the tools you need to take your personal injury practice to the next level. Social media is changing the game when it comes to digital marketing. A low cost to start means anyone can do it, and everyone has access, and it’s truly a choose your own adventure kind of situation. Individuals can spend loads of cash on a production team, and polish videos, or find success on their own. Both avenues can lead to incredible returns for your firm.
Paige Sparks is crushing the TikTok game. She has over 300,000 followers, and has collected over four million likes. But are these numbers more than vanity metrics? In a word, yes. She doesn’t spend a dime on marketing, lowering her case acquisition costs, and she’s basically a one-woman TikTok factory, records, edits, posts all of it on her own. The secret sauce of Paige’s social media isn’t in getting the most likes, but is to really connect. Today, she gives us a mini masterclass on creating viral content that converts. I’m your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the pre-eminent personal injury marketing agency. Being at the forefront of marketing is all about understanding people. Let’s get to know our guest. Here’s Paige Sparks, owner at Sparks Law, which she opened with her sister-in-law, Samantha, aka the FBI.

Paige Sparks:

She can find anyone on the internet. We have some invisible defendants, especially for some of her consumer protection cases, where if you say stop texting me, and they don’t stop texting, you can sue the company who’s doing that, potentially. Sometimes, those companies are impossible to find, and they’re like a shell company, and she’s very good at finding who, the man behind the mask. She is our own version of the FBI.

Chris Dreyer:

Tell me why you made the jump, why you made the leap, what was going through your head in terms of capitalizing it properly, making sure that you had the ability to bring in business, and because biz dev is so important. What made you make the leap?

Paige Sparks:

I’ve always been really hungry for success, and that can look different for a lot of people. For me, I didn’t want to have to worry about money. But also, I wanted to my work-life balance, I wanted to not be so stressed out and get upset. I didn’t want to cry on Sunday nights anymore, because I was dreading the Monday. Honestly, that was more motivating for me than just like, I just want to make a bunch of money. I’m a first generation lawyer, I’ve always had four jobs. I was sick of hustling that far spread and so, I was like, let’s refine this, let’s do what I know how to do best, and it just really took off. I’m the kind of person where I figure it out as I go, a lot of the times, and just being totally honest, I was winging it.
I had a lot of support from other local lawyers who I’m really good friends with, and they’d be like,”Do this, don’t do this.” Just general advice of where to host the website, or things like that where I’m like, I have no idea. Those are things they don’t teach you in law school. I don’t know what SEO is, those kind of things. After I got some guidance from my local friends, and I felt comfortable I’m not going to fail, I have my safety net of support here, no one’s going to let me blow it up too bad, it took the stress off and everything else just started falling in line. I was able to do what I do know how to do, which is lawyering, because the business is running itself right now, which is nice.

Chris Dreyer:

I know you had those side hustles, and did they contribute to learning the game on social, because-

Paige Sparks:

Oh yeah.

Chris Dreyer:

… particularly social media, you’re absolutely killing it, right?

Paige Sparks:

TikTok, we just got to 310,000 followers, four million so likes. I know Instagram. Instagram, I’m super proud of that number, because it is so hard for organic growth on Instagram. I don’t know what happened. I repurposed my TikToks for how Instagram likes it, and it’s a whole different audience and so, those videos just took off. On Instagram right now, I think I’m at 129,000 followers which, like I said, I’m super proud of, because that is my personal Instagram, pictures of my family, and dog. It’s not a business Instagram, and I just happen to share videos too there. To go from having 2,000 followers from my high school friends, college friends, and law school friends to now, I’m getting messages from all over the country and actually, the world. It’s insane, that’s crazy to think about.

Chris Dreyer:

It’s uncommon in the legal space too, and there are so many different channels that are traditional, your TV, your billboards, but really in legal, not very many people have cracked the code, so to speak. I wanted to dive in on these strategies. What are you seeing that works? How would you guide someone that wants to build a presence there?

Paige Sparks:

There is no secret sauce recipe in my opinion. You do have to experiment, and explore what works for you. If you go, see this really sleek, slicked-back lawyer who’s real fancy, and if that’s not you and you’re trying to sell that, nobody’s buying it. It’s not genuine. If someone wants to find growth on social media, you have to be genuine and authentic in it, because today’s consumer, whether it’s like they’re watching videos or going to a store, their BS meter is on point. If you aren’t genuine and authentic, they pick up on that, instant ick. They don’t like that. I think that step number one is you have to know who you are, and it’s hard to find. If you go back to my old videos, they suck. I didn’t know what I was doing. I figured it as I went, and I developed into being more comfortable knowing how I like my hook.
The algorithm is constantly changing too. You have to be able to adapt, you have to be okay with experimenting with your clips and looking stupid, you have to be okay with a little bit of self-depreciation by making videos, because they’re not all going to be great. Some of them are going to flop. I think the most important thing that people don’t do correctly is, they’re making videos for the views. For my content, I don’t need a million people to see it. I need one person who was wrongfully fired, and now I’ve got a client. Pick your ideal client. What do you want to bring in? If you are a PI lawyer, you want to bring in trucking cases, talk to someone who just got hit by a truck. They’re scared, they don’t know what to do. You don’t need to show these checks, and big numbers, and crazy things.
You just need to talk to what someone’s looking up, and that’ll resonate with them. That’s what has led, I believe, to it. All of my success is, I’m talking to that person who was just wrongfully fired. They don’t know what to do. They’ve never applied for unemployment before, and they’re freaking out, because they don’t know how they’re going to pay their mortgage. If you can gear your videos to your target audience… It’s hard too, because with lawyers, we always care what everybody else thinks. You were saying, a lot of people are trying to crack the code for social media. I got a lot of pushback on that, when I first started doing it at the beginning of the pandemic. I had local lawyers reach out to me, and softly threaten bar complaints, because they didn’t think I should be doing this. I had a lot of pushback. My lawyer friends were like, “Why aren’t you making videos? You’re missing the bus.” They are so afraid of what other lawyers think of them.
If someone can get over that hurdle, and get into like the, who cares? You know what’s funny? It’s those lawyers that reached out to me and were like, “Hey, I think you’re violating these rules.” I wasn’t, I was doing the disclaimers and everything as required. They’re now making videos, asking for help. Everybody is shifting that way. When I got that message, I was like, that I’m not going to lie, that made me some kind of sick pleasure. I was like, “Oh, you want to make videos?”
But if you can shift from not caring what everyone else thinks, it’s like freedom, because then you can make the goofy, funny content, if you want, it’s therapeutic. It goes back into the genuine category, where you have to enjoy what you’re making in order for someone to watch it and enjoy it. But it comes full circle, as everyone who’s just now starting, they’re late. It’s not too late to do it, but you’ve got to do a lot of work right now to catch back up, because the algorithm, the views, everything is totally different than it was a couple of years ago, when all of this really first took off. Now, you have to work harder.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. It’s like a big library of content. It’s a big repository, and now that there’s just so much more content, it’s harder to stand out. I think that jumping in now, as opposed to later, and figure it out, and then improve, so to speak. You’re basically appealing to a nationwide audience or a global audience. How does that impact you from a local jurisdiction, and that side of the coin? How does that function in terms of you promoting yourself to such a broad TAM?

Paige Sparks:

Sure. It does limit it, because I’m only licensed in Missouri for state employment law. I only do employment law. Our federal laws go, as you know, across the whole United States. When I’m speaking about certain workers’ rights like, “You’re allowed to discuss your wages. If your employer doesn’t let you, that’s illegal.” That’s a federal right. Those videos, wherever they get shared, it’s good. If someone reaches out, we ask for basically a summary in whatever state they’re in. If they’re not in Missouri, then I have a network of employment lawyers that love getting the potential leads, and I need more. There are some states where I can’t get a lawyer to return. I’m like, “Look, I’m trying to find local counsel for people who need a lawyer in Arizona, or North Carolina.” I’m trying to broaden that network, so that I can help refer people to those areas where we’re not licensed. Samantha is licensed in Illinois, and then also in Texas. We do a handful of different cases there too, and broadening that out, but if we find that…
If it’s a really good case, and I really like it, or I really like the person, we will get local counsel on ad hoc, so that if it had to be filed. But most of it’s through the EOC. If it’s within a jurisdiction that we have local counsel, we can still file the charge. You’d be surprised, the variety of cases, because I do only employment law, that’s all I talk about. Every once in a while, maybe a different story or something interesting. But most of my followers, our little community know that I only do employment law. I still get emails of like, “Hey, my brother was in this car accident in Tennessee. We don’t know who to use,” or all sorts of variety of cases.
I’m really niche down to employment law, because that’s what I like. But it still brings in that variety, because there it’s hard for the common consumer to trust a lawyer. If you can refer them, they 100% feel more comfortable, and they’ll go that route. Well, I’m still developing that. I’m trying to find those people that we can trust to refer to, that’s going to return the call, and not make us look bad, because I view that as an extension of if I sent you there and they ignore you, I don’t want a bad review kind of thing. But it’s really been great how that’s developed, and created a lot of friendships with other lawyers in other states too. I have a lot of great friends in California, we send them all to California, wild west of employment law. I have no idea, so we send them all to there. I have friends now around the country, which is super cool.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. Have you found that it lends itself to reciprocity or is it more just… Obviously, you can monetize those, and that’s fantastic. But has it been reciprocal, where they’ve started to send you an occasional case too?

Paige Sparks:

I’m mostly the sender, just because of the volume of cases that are coming in, or potential cases that come in. But they say they’ll reciprocate. But again, the ones I’m referring to aren’t huge, except for the California lawyers that I refer to. The ones that I’m referring to aren’t in the media form. They think this is awesome, because they’re like, “How are you getting 20 Tennessee leads a day?” I’m exaggerating a little bit. It’s probably a couple a day that we’ll send over. They think I’m really cool and I’m like, Okay. They’ll keep coming, if you keep calling them back.”

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. Yeah.

Paige Sparks:

They say they’ll reciprocate, I haven’t received one. But, again, with the volume we’re doing, I’m not expecting someone to be able to do that.

Chris Dreyer:

Paige talks directly to her clients as a real person that they can relate to. She thinks this is a massive opportunity for personal injury attorneys across the nation. For anyone who thinks there’s no case for social, she has this to say.

Paige Sparks:

If they think that, you are missing out. You need to have the biggest FOMO for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. You’re missing out, if that’s what you think. This will just be an example. Samantha, my sister-in-law, hates doing videos. I literally make her do it at gunpoint pretty much. I have my formula of, I like this hook, I like the information this way. Say who you are, have your call to action, really short for TikTok. She doesn’t like doing it, so I make her do literally the bare minimum. If you go look at her profile, all organic growth in views and so, she doesn’t have a million followers, but she has videos that have hit 50,000 views for an illegal repo of a car. There are a lot of people that like that topic, and it’s crazy when someone’s getting repossessed with their kids in the car. People like crazy stories. If I knew PI, that would be so easy to shift over to that way, which lot of lawyers are trying to do, just because you can make so much off of injury cases, if you get good ones.
It’s the same idea, again. Who’s your target audience, if you want to shift that way? Using her as an example, very inconsistent posting, because she doesn’t like it, and then I post them and edit them, but we have the formula of how to do it. That’s all organic growth in views, and she gets emails from people saying, “My car was repossessed. What do I do now?” If you wanted to look at bare minimum time example of what you can do, her account is a great example of it. It’s like she doesn’t religiously post once a day. She doesn’t do all the stuff I do. As a comparison, I’m burdened with my account sometimes, where I’m like, “Oh, I have to post today or I’m going to make the algorithm bad.” Hers is a great example of even if you are stretched so thin, there’s no excuse not to make videos, when you could do it like that and still get those results.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. That’s one thing I was wondering on, on the cadence, and consistency, and how that’s impacting to you on TikTok, and because every channel is different. LinkedIn is where I have a very small presence, so I don’t have anything near in your social, but I’ve noticed if I miss the cadence, then it hurts the momentum. You alluded to this structure and format with the hook, and then the call to action. What are we talking to get investment? Is it a good camera? Do you send it over to an editor, you edit yourself? What are we looking at, in terms of cost to do this, and the barrier entry to do it well?

Paige Sparks:

Having an iPhone, that’s pretty much. Again, I am not fancy or formal with anything. I mean, we’re talking in the kitchen right now, but it that’s my style. There are some lawyers on there who… There’s a lawyer, Mike, who has millions of followers, and all this stuff. He does the high-end level production. I’m sure that’s very expensive. It looks very nice. That’s just not me. My investment is good window lighting, my iPhone, and maybe a tripod when I’m doing my coffee stories, and that’s it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Again, it goes back to that relatability is like, who do you think… If you message that your mom lost their job, they don’t know what they’re going to do, who do you think would respond to that message for, me or Mike?
Because right now, you’re talking to my kitchen with me, we’re all friends and so, it’s okay if you can’t do that formal commercial production. Actually, those don’t really perform well usually on TikTok, and Instagram, because people like those DIY, I made it videos. They want to keep going with the scroll. You talked about storytelling. We have our group of TikTok creators where we’re like, what do you think the algorithm’s doing today? Nobody actually knows. We just say what’s working, and we scheme about that thing. But I do try to post every day, at least one video. I’ve noticed if I don’t, the next time, the algorithm doesn’t really pick it up, because it boosts your video to your immediate, close followers that always comment, and interact with your post. If they like it, and interact with it, it boosts it to your other followers that maybe don’t interact, and then you start getting into your non-followers.
If I miss a day… I try to post three a day. If I miss a day, the next time it doesn’t even barely get to my small audience, and I have to really comment, and interact, and work to get that one to get the outreach. If you’re going to go hard on it, commit to one video a day, three if you feel ambitious, and then I do take the weekends off, or one day of the weekend off, or I might pre-record one that I can post that day, because it is exhausting. It’s editing, and you’re sharing, and you’re talking, you have to think of this idea. I’m obsessed with TikTok and how it works, and I love it. There’s statistics where, if you noticed all my hooks will be like, if you use you within the first 10 seconds, it retains viewers by whatever percent.
If you use it twice, it retains it by 30. Some of my hooks show here. This is a super easy way to get started for people who are maybe intimidated is to be like, if your boss has told you this, they’re wrong. It doesn’t have to be high-tech, it doesn’t have to be a fancy idea. I like to work smarter, not harder, so I use ideas for what’ll happen. If someone will send me an email and they’re like, my boss told me I have to sign this severance or else, or something, then I’m like, wow, that’s really messed up. That’s a brief topic that I can touch on during my coffee conversation to where I’m doing my storytelling and sometimes, we don’t even have this great result. Even if we sue them, I’ll just be like, be careful, and don’t feel stressed if you’re forced to sign a settlement, something like that.
You don’t even have to say something, you don’t have to full circle on the substance. You could just touch on topics and be like, one time when I was at court, someone got sanctioned for chewing gum, just little tidbits work for me. You don’t have to come up with this full production, story, and conclusion, and things like that. Honestly, those don’t perform well. People like the short-form clips that you can maybe do in series like that. But I think that’s where people get hung up a lot is, they try to pack way too much information in this 30 or 60-second clip. Sometimes, less is more.

Chris Dreyer:

That’s a fantastic piece of advice and there’s so much there to unpack. There’s this decision that a lot of individuals make, and a lot of times, they make it like a binary decision. They’re like, do I do it Instagram and social for my company, my firm, or do I do it for me personally, and build my personal brand? I’m addicted to TikTok, first of all, so I’m on TikTok all the time. I just get sucked in, right? Because I think the algorithm is so smart, because it hits my interests, right? If I engage in sports, I’m going to see sports. If I engage in business, I’m going to see her Harmozi, or whoever. Versus Instagram and some of these others, where it’s only going to show me who I’m following, and maybe I like what they’re posting or not, social, is it more about the personal, and less about the company? Where do you make that decision?

Paige Sparks:

Real quick, before I forget, what you were saying about the Instagram. They have repurposed their Reels to where now, you’re seeing people you don’t follow, if you’re using Reels. My followers on there are 129,000. My account reached over 900,000 within the last 30 days, barely any more my followers, because it’s trying to copy TikTok. Don’t sleep on Instagram Reels, because they are now taking the trend of TikTok. But as far as personal branding versus business branding, I can only say what’s worked for me was personal, because I was at another law firm, and I didn’t want to work for someone to create this brand for a law firm that wasn’t mine, and that I could be fired from, or walk away from. For me, personal branding works, because it’s always been… I’ve always been that overshare on social media, way before I even had a following or anything for all my local friends, and family.
It’s very hard to translate it over to the business branding, because you’re just going to be associated with that personal branding. If you can’t walk away from your business with the branding that you’ve created, then it’s not worth anything. If and when that would ever happen, my personal branding, I like it. It works for me, and it creates that authentic relationship with my clients, and potential clients, and just followers who like to watch. I would say, for someone who’s going to create their own content, if you have your own law firm, I would do both, actually. I would feature your law firm on your personal page. That works really well for me.

Chris Dreyer:

It just seems, especially on TikTok that I just see mostly individuals, and not very many companies I see. Occasionally, I’ll see an ad where the company might be featured, but it’s frequently just the individuals that are creating the content. Does this tie in? I saw in a recent interview where you said the website’s no longer the main point of contact for your clients. Does that mean, are you referring to it like, hey, they’re commenting directly in the DMs, and on the specific channels? What did you mean by that?

Paige Sparks:

My traffic doesn’t come from the website at all. If someone’s going to my website, it’s after the fact. They’re just seeing what I’ve posted on there, I think. That’s just what my take from what we’re able to track and see, because all of my outreach comes from someone either comments, they message me on Instagram, or Facebook. There’s a lot of stuff to sort through, because that is my thing. I want you to feel like you can pick up your Instagram, send me a message when you had a crisis, and you have a lawyer friend that will help. That’s always been how I like to do things. But now that the volume is so big, what I do is respond, or it’s the running thing in all of my accounts like, if you have a legal question you want to help with, you have to email me, that’s the only thing I can ensure that I will see. I have found that that extra step…
I know this is so controversial, having someone who wants to reach out to me, having one extra step, like a hurdle, has sifted through what is a real matter or not, because it’s sifting through someone who doesn’t have a legal claim, who just wants to vent to someone who’s now attaching their termination letter to the email, and it makes it more formal. That’s how I like to face things from social media like, “Hi, yes, I hear you. I’m sorry that happened. Please email me, so we can talk about this tomorrow.” Having that one extra step for me is what weeds that out. To be honest, I don’t even need a website. When I first was going to do this, when I was, like I said, winging it as I went, I wasn’t going to have one. I’m like, I need an email, got my TikTok, I’m good. That’s all I need.
I’m glad I have one. It’s legitimate, and it’s good for Samantha. I feel opposing counsel will look it up and feel we’re more legit, of course. But that’s not how we get people, and very, very little traffic to the website.

Chris Dreyer:

Yeah. I like the additional qualification step. It reminds me there’s a lot of similar tactics on resumes, when you get a ton of resumes, where you have them do one little extra step, or even it reminds me on the high-volume websites that rank from SEO and Google Ads, where you have the live chat. A lot of times, the live chat, there’s a lot of tire kickers, right? You really got to sift through those. That’s a really great tactic, because I was just wondering, I was like, well, do you use software to consolidate all of yours, because you got a presence on Instagram, you got a presence on TikTok, or is it manual? I think that that’s a huge tip, and a big takeaway that that’s really simple, but that makes sense in terms of qualifying the prospect.

Paige Sparks:

It’s hard for these employment cases, because a lot of the people I speak with are, they just got fired, they’re pissed off, and they just want to vent. And then when I call them the next day, they’re like, “You know what? I thought about it. I don’t want to do it anymore.” If I dedicated an hour of free consultation to every person who did that, I would never work, because it’s just not practical. Having them have a little bit of homework like, hey, you have to send me your pay stub, which I need anyway. But having a little homework assignment, or that extra step like you’re saying, has really weeded through someone who is like, “I’m serious and I would like to speak with a lawyer.”

Chris Dreyer:

Fantastic. Paige, this has been amazing. This has been a masterclass on TikTok, and social. I’ve just got one final question. What’s next for Sparks Law, and then where can people go to connect with you?

Paige Sparks:

The best way to connect with me, like we were talking about earlier, is my email. That’s the only thing I can guarantee that I see. I do want to say all the social medias are me. If you comment on something, or message, that’s all me responding, nobody else runs it, it’s not a bot. Someone yesterday was like, “You’re a lawyer bot.” I’m like, “I literally blood, sweat, and tears go into responding to everything I can on there.” Best way is email though, because that’s the only thing I can keep up with. As far as our next steps, it’s happily falling all into place, as far as… We just got a awesome settlement, our first awesome settlement the other day. I’m just going to keep doing what we’re doing. Don’t fix it, if it’s not broke. We’re happy, we’re practicing law how we like to. I think, for now, we’re just going to maintain. I don’t have any… We’re not going to buy a huge new office, or anything crazy like that. We’re literally just happy and going to maintain.

Chris Dreyer:

Social media is changing the way law firms connect with potential clients, and expand their book of business. Paige is so successful on TikTok, they barely even use their website. There’s no one size fits all model, when it comes to success for your firm. Experiment, get creative, find out what works for you, and your clients. For the love of everything, please do it with authenticity, make it yours. Today’s modern consumers are savvy, and they can smell BS from a mile away. If you want to go viral, but hate dancing, don’t do it. But if you love to cut a rug, and you’re seeing good engagement when you do, dance your heart out. Whatever you choose, commit to a schedule, aim to post one video a day. Paige aims for three, but recognize that she is a human, and can’t always hit that quota. Schedule post whenever you can. You don’t need to have a fancy production budget to make a video super polished, to be successful. You can bring your audience into the kitchen, or over coffee, or into your car between errands, so long as the lighting is good.
Thanks so much to Paige at Sparks Law for everything she shared today, and I hope you gained some valuable insights from the conversation. You’ve been listening to Personal Injury Mastermind. I’m Chris Dreyer. If you liked this episode, leave us a review. We love to hear from our listeners. I’ll catch you on next week’s PIM with another incredible guest, and all the strategies you need to master personal injury marketing.