Social Media Help Your Law Firm
“Social media marketing for law firms” and its more-personal equivalent “social media marketing for attorneys” strike many lawyers as just so many buzzwords. But dismissing the possibility of establishing and maintaining a strong social media presence can cost you many valuable opportunities.
The key is viewing social media activities as critical components of the firm’s overall marketing strategy and business plan. To use a very simplified analogy, it helps to treat each Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube post as an advertisement. You are not booking television or radio time, but you are selling your attorneys’ services and expertise as legal counselors, consultants, and representatives. The post is the means for doing so.
Working from that basic conception of how to use social media for law firm purposes, it should be obvious that the firm must have its own accounts on each platform. Individual attorneys can keep their own accounts for sharing pet pictures, vacation videos, and memes. Reserve the firm’s accounts for firm business.
Once you sort that out, you can work toward realizing three major benefits from doing social media marketing for your law firm.
Posting on Social Media Boosts Content Marketing:
Once you start doing it, social media marketing will be part of your online marketing strategy. The point of doing online marketing is to drive potential clients to your law firm’s website and, then, convince them to call or email to schedule a consultation. The way you convert a website visitor into a client is by presenting high-quality content in the form of practice area descriptions, explainer articles, blog post, and videos.
Using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to alert potential clients to your best and newly added content attracts clicks. Clicks turn into contacts, and contacts become cases. This is called content marketing, and social media increasing its effectiveness by simply making the content visible and accessible.
Using Social Media Well Builds a Brand:
Instagram is especially useful for branding your firm as a good corporate citizen and for portraying your attorneys as trusted, valued members of the community. Posting images and descriptions of volunteer activities, conducting tours of the offices, and showing attorneys engaging with clients put a trustworthy, human face on the firm.
Other platforms also offer branding opportunities when doing social media marketing for attorneys. Using the firm’s logo as the profile picture prompts brand recognition. Regularly posting links to insightful and helpful content lets potential clients know they can rely on your attorneys for sound advice and quality representation. Responding to comments shows that you are accessible.
Engaging in Social Media Extends Professional Networks:
LinkedIn is the best platform for social media marketing directed at fellowattorneys. This is the place to highlight case results, answer questions from other lawyers, participate in legal forums, share best business practices, and post detailed analyses of major court decisions and new or proposed laws. Using LinkedIn in this way puts you in touch with attorneys who will think of you when they require co-counsel or insights.
The team at Legal EFX includes law firm digital marketing consultants who work with clients and our web developers to create and implement online marketing strategies that incorporate social media marketing. Contact us todayto let us know what we can do for you.
