Social Media For Lawyers Summary:
This article highlights 20 top tips of 2022 that law firms can keep in mind while engaging with clients and potential customers on social media platforms. We all use social media in our daily lives but mostly at a personal level.
As a professional firm, should you be using social media to promote your business, attract new clients and showcase your best services? Most assuredly yes, you should! Engaging with your community of lawyers and lawmakers is an important PR activity in today’s time. By doing this, you do NOT waste potential billing hours but invest your time in making your law firm more accessible to the public. If you have a solid social media strategy in place, you can effectively and efficiently build a long-lasting relationship with your contacts. You know how essential this is for a law firm, don’t you?
What Is The Importance of Social Media for Law Firms?
Every day an average adult in the US spends about 4 hours browsing on their smartphones, computers, or other hand-held devices. What does this mean for your law firm? Simply put, it means that your audience is out there browsing one or all social media platforms probably waiting for you to connect with them. Moreover, today clients (like consumers) want to stay well-informed. They seek to know everything about a business before investing their time and money.
As a law firm, you must cater to the needs of the public. You have to use social media for building brand awareness and to stay connected with your clientele. With the help of a professional presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, you make your company accessible and approachable.
Unsure about how to begin your social media journey? Today, we shall talk about some social media tips for lawyers that you should keep in mind.
20 Social Media Tips for Lawyers in 2022
1 – Invest Your Time, Don’t Waste It
For lawyers, time is money. We know it as well as you live it. Thus, our first tip is for you to remember that you shouldn’t be wasting time on social media. You cannot waste away a day browsing from one platform to another. Pick a couple of platforms that cater to your needs and decisively spend your time on each every day or once or twice every week.
2 – Don’t Hard Sell Your Firm – Prioritize Information
It is natural to want to self-promote your firm on multiple social media platforms. Resist this. Rather use the platforms to share news about relevant legislation, articles, and link to resources. These things are valuable and will gain you more followers. Your knowledge and expertise will have a better impact on your followers than simply hard-selling your firm.
3 – Plan and Post
You should have a social media engagement plan which includes a schedule for your posts. Planning gives you time to research and write relevant posts. Facebook already has a built-in feature using which you can conveniently schedule your posts. This is also possible on other social media platforms. Self-automation can be useful if you have a busy week ahead and you are likely to ignore your social media pages.
4 – Have a Social Media Policy in Your Law Firm
Consistency plays an important role in stabilizing your social media position. To get this right you must have a few guidelines in place. This will help employees know who can have access to your social media platforms and who can’t. The guidelines should also mention any style and design elements you follow to maintain consistency.
5 – Don’t Forget High-Quality Graphics
One of the best tricks to improve social media engagement is to make use of high-quality graphics. On social media, people tend to scroll. They only stop scrolling when something catches their eye. A good and high-quality graphic can help catch their attention. If you are unsure about doing this yourself, you can outsource the job to digital marketers such as Cyrusson Inc. We have a dedicated team that takes care of such client needs.
6 – Make and Post Videos
Videos get more traction on Instagram and Facebook. Post more videos to improve your engagement rates. The videos must be concise and crisp and should contain valuable information about new laws, your areas of expertise, and/or the entire legal experience.
7 – Keep The Account Professional
Be as professional as you would be in real life with your clients. Do not use the platform to stir up controversies. The content you post must be informative and professional focusing on the good work done by your firm.
8 – Use Hashtags Thoughtfully
You must have seen your competitors use hashtags on every social media platform. But instead of following such trends aimlessly, think before you use hashtags. They must be relevant to your practice area and your post. Moreover, hashtags work better on Twitter and Instagram – remember that. Make sure you use an average of 21-24 characters because shorter hashtags have more reach.
9 – Keep The Look Consistent
This isn’t your personal social media account for you to change your display picture every week. We are talking about a professional account. Only use a professional profile photo that has your law firm’s header and logo. It must be the same in all platforms as it improves visibility.
10 – Update Your Law Firm’s Contact Information
One of the many purposes of your social media account is to reach out to prospective clients. Thus, you must update every information about your firm like the contact information, working hours, website link, etc. If you are accessible, potential clients are more likely to reach you.
11 – Invite People to Connect to You
The aim of running your social media account is to improve your network – of clients (both new and existing). You can do this by encouraging your existing clients to follow and share your pages and posts. When your posts are shared, it increases your visibility. Always include added links in posts (such as links to newsletters and your website).
12 – Go Where Your Audience Are
Instead of testing all social media platforms to understand your audience, optimize your time only on platforms where existing and potential clients are. A little bit of research will help you in this.
13 – Post When the Time’s Right
Statistics show that posting on a weekday afternoon can give more engagement than posting on a weekend. However, do your research to know what works best for your firm.
14 – Post Consistently
This is a rule you should stick to. Have a posting schedule and stick to it. If you are posting once a day, do it every day. Do not fall off the radar when you are deep in work. Being absent on social media doesn’t go well with social media followers.
15 – Be a Part of Communities and Groups
There are many communities and groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Be a part of them. They are specially made for lawyers – to connect with colleagues and improve their referral network.
16 – Interact on Social Media
What’s the use of social media if you don’t socialize, right? Respond to comments, engage with your followers, and show that you are genuinely out there for them. This can make a whole lot of difference.
17 – Pay Where It Makes Sense
Promoted content and ads are very popular on social media platforms – and for a good reason. Do not be afraid to invest (even a small amount) as it can get you more followers and improve your visibility.
18 – Listen to Conversations
Social media is a great place to listen – to know what’s happening in your industry and the conversations that are going to make a difference. Being part of conversations on Twitter and Instagram with the help of hashtags can be good for you.
19 – Change Your Strategy Where Needed
Simply posting isn’t helpful. You also need to measure engagement to know what’s working and what isn’t. Study your reach, impressions, and insights to know what kind of posts are performing well. Over time, you can also see how many people are reaching through your website. Analytics will give you a fair idea of how to change your strategy when needed.
20 – Examples That Can Work as Law Firm Content
Some things that can work well on your law firm’s social media pages are –
- Share Links to Interesting Articles
- News about Regulations and New Legislation
- Awards and Recognition Your Firm Has Received
- Charity Projects You Are Part of
- Information about Your Team
- Blog Posts
- Updates About Services Offered
If you are unsure about how to kickstart your law firm’s social media engagement, get in touch with us at Cyrusson Inc. We are a digital marketing company with years of experience in developing social media strategies for different types of clients. We are your go-to guys to develop a social media strategy that keeps in mind your need for lead generation and improved engagement with your clients