Social media management is an element of digital marketing, so you should consider it to succeed in the digital sphere regardless of your practice area. You might be an excellent law firm with years of legal experience, but are you doing enough when it comes to social media marketing?
It is not just about posting updates of your law firm on social media accounts. Social media marketing involves engaging the target audience, increase your visibility and attract more leads. Around 3.8 billion people currently use social media. Your clients can be one of them or maybe thousands of them; thus, it’s time to show your presence there and utilise this effective platform – Social Media.
It is the fact that advertising has the power to grab the audience’s attention if shown at the right place. But where are those right places today? Nobody looks for billboards when they need legal help nowadays, right?
Be it shopping for a new smartphone or hire a new attorney, people prefer to go online. And when it’s online, then most of the time, it’s social media. Approximately 31% of law firms with a social media presence tend to obtain at least 1 new client through it, and now it’s your time to get the new one for your firm.
With social media being so valuable for law firms, you cannot afford to miss out on this channel to market your law firm services. You can build community on social media, interact with potential clients, persuade them to know more about your legal services. Social media could be a great marketing tool as there are 3.96 billion people who use social media; at least a few must be scrolling the feeds to get law firm contact details. Make sure you get the social media basics right; you can try out some of the ideas we’ve presented in this post.
Social media helps in getting new clients.
Networking is a successful strategy for growing the business, and logic applies the same way when networking on social media. 35% of those surveyed in 2018 who utilised social media channels for business purposes have acquired clients. The outcome is even improved for small firms: with 42% obtaining new clients with the help of social media marketing.
Social media offers an opportunity to generate leads
You can use lead magnets on social media to receive prospective client’s contact details. For instance, the path from watching your social media post to hiring your law firm might appear like this:
Social media is a platform to communicate with the community.
Lawyers can utilise social media to join or build a community. Many lawyers build community in their niche practice area where members discuss their challenges and exchanges solutions. By engaging on social networks with other lawyers, you can remain updated on current changes in law, discuss challenges and share solutions; there can be an opportunity for strategic partnership.
Get the basics right.
Like every advertising method, you should begin by looking at the fundamentals of social media marketing. This comprises:
Share graphics with helpful facts and stats.
In social media, marketing visuals play a vital role as they stand out over text content. So your content tactics should concentrate on developing visuals that will instantly connect with your prospects.
You can share beneficial tips, basic legal information like acts/regulations, inspirational quotes, and industry updates with graphics that stand out. Graphics will play a huge role if you’re going to utilise image-heavy platforms such as Instagram.
Share informative YouTube videos
Informative YouTube videos are even an important component in social media marketing for lawyers. You can share details about your legal services, your law firm core values and client care, etc. Videos are more appealing than other content formats.
Nowadays, people like to consume video content instead of text content. So prepare YouTube videos to describe appropriate topics, talk about fascinating stories and talk about trending topics. You might also carry out interviews with industry thought leaders and utilise their influence to attract new viewers.
Reply to queries and comments.
Social media offers you a place to engage with your network. For example, prospective clients look for information or direction when they require legal advice; you can answer their basic questions and build rapport with them.
2019 the Sprout Social Index establishes that 47% of consumers get in touch with the companies on social media regarding service or product queries.
Build brand awareness
People spend a lot of time on social media. 2019 The Sprout Social Index establishes that 44% of consumers have stated a rise in personal social media utilisation. Therefore, a powerful social presence benefits you in getting your message to the correct audience and enhancing brand awareness.
Engage the target audience
People connect to chat with friends and relatives on social media, but they also consume content and connect with brands. So you do have an opportunity to engage with the target audience and convert them into prospects. You can utilise social media to offer them legal information and engaging content, respond to their questions, offer a solution for their legal problem.
Determine thought leadership
You can have direct communication with your target audience. Social media helps showcase your expertise. You can share your legal knowledge and instances you faced in your years of experience, demonstrating your trustworthiness, you can win the target audience’s faith.
Enhance your SEO efforts
Although social media does not directly contribute to SEO ranking, there is a connection between activities on social media and search engine ranking. Likes of your law firm website you share on social media increase brand awareness. When people share your content on social media, it generates social signals that suggest your post are helpful to your target audience. Social media platforms are a great place to distribute your content and drive traffic to your website, which improves Law Firm SEO results.
Ensure you understand the laws and compliance responsibilities of advertising your law firm and legal services on social media, whether personal or for your law firm. Please go through the SRA and bar regulations for compliance obligations and ethics laws, and be sure you follow them before posting or sharing anything on social media. Various countries prohibit law firms and lawyers from utilising terms such as ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ to describe themselves.
What are your objectives of marketing services on social media? Do you wish to generate more leads from this platform? Do you desire to build awareness in the legal community? Or do you want to have more visitors to your website?
Create practical and achievable short-term and long-term goals for social media marketing. Once you identify those goals, you can form a strategy to market your law firm and its service on social media.
Although it can be tempting to jump in and try out various social media platforms, that strategy might fail. It is highly likely that you will feel overwhelmed and unable to devote the appropriate time and attention to every social media account, and as a result, you might fail to meet the social media marketing goals. So, begin using only one or two social media platforms initially, and once the strategy seems working, you can expand to other platforms.
Plan what sort of content you’ll be sharing to your law firm’s social media accounts. For example, whether you wish to produce fresh content to post, want to post curated content, or plan to concentrate on communicating with people through messages and comments. It could be an excellent idea to discover what your target audience expects when you plan your strategy.
You must track and evaluate the results of your social media activities if you want to improvise and excel. First, you need to identify what is working and what is not working in your social media strategy. Are you using the right form of content? Is the messaging correct? These kinds of questions can be answered if you have data to analyse. You might end up wasting time, money and energy if you do not investigate results and keep going in the wrong direction.
With roughly over 2.89-billion monthly active users, this is the most famous social media platform globally, and it’s even popular among legal professionals.
Although the reach you can obtain from Facebook is exponential, you should be careful. It is possible that Facebook might not be an appropriate platform to market the legal service you provide. You want to ensure that you reach your target audience, so do the research and find out if your prospective clients are active on Facebook or not. If not, why waste efforts?
Many lawyers deal with businesses and professionals; if you are one of them, LinkedIn could be a perfect social media platform. LinkedIn is developed to build professionals communities. You can make connections here, share your knowledge, offer solutions to legal problems to your prospective clients, and grab an opportunity to make strategic partners.
It will help if you have a complete and attractive profile to get the attention you require from your target audience. So here are a few points for an effective LinkedIn profile:
Additionally, you can create a LinkedIn page for your law firm to share what your practice offers. Of course, not everyone in your connection will be your prospective client; inviting your target audience to follow your law firm page can be a screening exercise.
Claiming your law firm name on every social media platform is a good social media page strategy. Ensure you have a similar name for all the social media pages; this will help people find your law firm page across different social media websites.
Additionally to a consistent name across platforms, use brand colours and theme; it will help to spread awareness of your firm. Do not modify your brand look frequently; marketing takes time to mature your law firm brand.
What is the use of having social media accounts when there is no one to see your posts? Use popular hashtags, publish engaging content, send connection requests, and grow your network. In addition, you can use paid ads to expand your network and spread awareness about your law firm and legal services. Bigger the network, the higher chance of getting the result from social media campaigns.
For a successful social media strategy, engagement is a must. It is not an easy task. It would be best if you talk to your audience swiftly and consistently. People appreciate that you give time to comment on their posts and share your knowledge. Share the human side of your law firm business. You should avoid getting into controversies, but it is recommended that you take a stand on social issues without offending anyone and with respect. Do not feed to the trolls as they can be a distraction. More engagement can drive more traffic to your page. Possibilities are, others will start engaging with you.
The simplest way to evaluate your social media marketing efforts is by checking the growth of your followers. The gain in your list is a clear indication that you are getting noticed and your law firm marketing strategy is going in the right direction.
Checking the audience’s reaction to your posts will help you evaluate what sort of content your audience wants to see. This way, you can aim for the content that interests your audience the most.
Likewise, you can check when anyone tags you or mentions you in a post. The more tags you have, the more users you will reach. This can help you to grows your followers and business visibility.
Campaign reach specifies the overall number of people you’ve reached outside and within your target audience. You get better online visibility when more and more audience reaches and reacts to your posts. If you have an excellent reach to your posts on social media, it indicates that your marketing campaign is performing well.
CTR is a significant element, as it is linked with direct conversions. This assists you decide whether your marketing campaign is having compelling content and the right call to action. Higher CTR means it’s on the right path.
Your budget for marketing is a percentage of your target revenue. Many companies spend about 5% to 15% of annual revenue on overall marketing. 15% to 25% of the online marketing budget should be spent on social media marketing.
You need to stay consistent with a social media marketing strategy for approximately 6 to 12 months before it starts showing meaningful outcomes. Simply sharing images and text will not work well; it takes time to discover the client’s interest, share rich content, build community.
Usually, a law firm digital marketing agency will ask you to sign a contract for 12 months, but we do not tie our clients in a long term contract. Building community on Social Media takes commitment and time; we ask for the same.
No one can guarantee the exact result of Social media marketing, but progress can be assured. Social media marketing does show outstanding results when the right strategy and plan are in place.
It is very important that you review the content before it goes live online. This gives the idea and confidence that the information you are sharing is relevant to the target audience. Going through the content will not waste time but will help you deliver the right message to your prospective clients.
Every social media might not be suitable for your business. So, first, you should not go by what others say. You can do your research and decide which social media platform is suitable for marketing your legal services. If you lack time and expertise, the best way is to hire a firm that can effectively handle your social media account and attract more traffic.
The content should be informative, such as the latest update in the legal industry, creative posts regarding the services you offer, your company’s core values, your views on the importance of client service, legal tips, etc. You would find many posts that are not related to the business but still receive more likes and shares; it is a nature of a social media platform. You should avoid posting such information unless you cannot creatively deliver messages related to your work. Otherwise, it can cause distraction in your marketing strategy.
You must follow if your law firm has a media policy. You must check with the compliance requirements of the regulatory body, any legal advice you provide to any person may be subject to scrutiny. However, your audience always likes the response from you. You can start the conversation about their legal matter and share your experience dealing with such matters, and when you get an opportunity, take the conversation offline – as sales happen offline efficiently!
An easy method to reach local clients is by showing your ads in the areas near your firm. Social platforms provide additional targeting features to assist you to advertise your law firm to the target audience.
Don’t underestimate the power of a blog. It helps in engaging visitors to your website. They read the blogs and relate them to situations where they need an attorney or help from a law firm.
It is even the best way to showcase your rewards and recognitions more extensively so that the visitors can build trust regarding the services you are offering.
Better the quality content on your website, better chances of your website be on the first page of the search engine.