(800) 854-6735
If you’ve been dragging your feet about joining social media, it’s time to lace up your sneakers and join the team.
A staggering 81% of law firms or individual lawyers have a presence on social media platforms, and it’s time for your firm to embrace social as well. Once you join, you can reap a number of benefits, such as increasing brand awareness and attracting potential clients. But online marketing for law firms is a marathon, not a sprint. To cross the finish line, you’ve got to put in the time.
With so many different social media platforms to choose from, it can be hard to figure out where the starting line is. Be sure to follow these law firm social media sharing best practices to grow your practice and expand your online reach.
How you should use social media to grow your practice
Figure out your client persona
A client persona is basically a fictional profile of your ideal clients. By creating these fictional profiles, you can identify what content you should create and where to publish it.
When figuring out your client personas, outline their:
- Age
- Income
- Occupation
- Living situation/lifestyle
- Relationship status
- Favorite brands
- Goals and hobbies
- Hopes and fears
- Decision motivators
Write your brand’s story
Sit down with the other lawyers at your firm. Pinpoint what makes your firm different, your firm’s achievements, and its history. Then, you can use this to establish your company culture across your law firm’s social accounts and strategize on the different types of content you can make.
For example, you can highlight one of your employee’s achievements in a Facebook reel as part of a series sharing how your company got started. This humanizes your firm and helps people feel emotionally connected to you, which helps you win over their trust.
Choose your platform
Every social media platform has its own audience, its own features, and its own set of conventions. Do your research to figure out which one will work best for the client personas you’ve outlined.
To get started, here are the types of content people look for on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
- Facebook: Wants to watch content that’s emotional and inspiring. A heartfelt story or a cute animal always does well on Facebook!
- Twitter: Values authenticity and frankness, and wants to watch or read short content.
- LinkedIn: Popular in the B2B space. These are professionals who want educational content or insights into their industry.
Create a content marketing calendar
To create a successful legal marketing strategy, you need to post engaging content on a regular basis. The best way to stay on top of this is with a content marketing calendar. Schedule posts, videos, and any other type of content in advance. This way, you can work on the content when you have time in your busy schedule. You won’t have to rush to finish a post if you know you need to work on it well before it’s due.
Produce visual content
80% of video marketers say that video directly increased their sales. (Ask who at your law firm has done theater because this is their time to shine.)
Your video content will vary depending on your platform.
If you post on LinkedIn, you should create educational explainer videos that highlight the services and legal niches your firm excels at. But if you’re on Twitter or Facebook, those videos can be a bit more informal. You could do a fun “behind the scenes” day at your law firm where you introduce everyone and why they love their jobs. Or you could even bring in some dogs from a local animal shelter as an employee appreciation day event and film the whole thing to share later.
With a little creativity, there’s no limit to the visual content you can create for your legal marketing campaign.
Stay engaged with your followers
When you post your content, be sure to respond to any comments and shares. Say a quick thank you if it’s a positive comment, or address a concern if it’s a negative one. When people start to follow you, follow them back, and be sure to comment on their content. Social media is a community—if you want to be a part of it, you have to participate.
Use analytics to improve your posts
Even if you create detailed client personas, it can be a little hit or miss when you first start. That’s why you should invest in some robust analytics that outlines which posts are working for you and why. This way, you don’t have to spin your wheels trying to figure out which content to create. You can hone in on the subject matter and post types that are working best for your firm to grow your followers and social media pages.
Make it easy for your employees to share
Your employees are your most important resource for growing your law firm social media. But you don’t want to make sharing your firm’s content a burden for them, so use employee advocacy software to make it as simple as possible. With employee advocacy software, you can send your employees an email with pre-approved social content that they can share on their personal pages with one click.
Law firm social media marketing no-nos
It’s easy to want to jump the gun and go full speed at your law firm social media marketing once you have a plan in place. But be sure to avoid these common pitfalls so that you don’t rub people the wrong way online.
- Don’t spam people. If someone ignores your comment, don’t go and write on their Facebook page. Leave them alone.
- Don’t go overboard on hashtags. Use three or four relevant hashtags per post so people can find your content. If you use 30, you look like a bot.
- Don’t be afraid to apologize. It’s easy to misstep on social media. If you do, think about why you said what you did, and apologize thoroughly. Spend a little time on this because a half-baked apology will only make the situation worse.
- Don’t force your employees to participate. No matter how easy you make it, not every employee will be comfortable sharing every post you create. That’s okay. What matters is that they’re sharing the content they’re excited about.
- Don’t try to be on every platform out there. Unlike the movie, you can’t be everything everywhere all at once. Do yourself a favor and just focus on what social media platforms will work best for your firm.
And perhaps most importantly, stay within your state bar’s compliance and ethics regulations in all your marketing activities. Share these with your employees so that no one at your firm gets into hot water.
Clearview Social simplifies your legal social through employee advocacy
Building your law firm’s social media marketing strategy is a big enough challenge, so simplify your social media sharing with Clearview Social.
Clearview’s robust employee advocacy software makes it easy for your employees to post company content on their personal pages. You can send employees pre-approved social content via email that they can share with their followers with one click.
Clearview’s robust analytics can also tell you which posts are working for your socials and which aren’t, so you don’t have to waste any time creating content that your potential clients and followers will feel meh about.
Get A Free Demo today to see how Clearview Social can make your social media sharing a walk in the park.