You have the right to remain silent on social media, but you should not. A survey conducted by the American Bar Association (A.B.A.) revealed that at least 81% of law firms in the country maintain a presence on at least one social media platform. At least 29% of these lawyers confirmed client retention due to their social media presence.
While deciding to market your law firm on social media is great, many attorneys struggle to implement effective marketing strategies that can drive engagement and generate quality case leads.
With so many social media platforms available and each having its own unique characteristics, it can be quite difficult to know where to start and which platform to focus your efforts on.
We have compiled this simple guide highlighting the top 10 proven social media tactics that every law firm should know.
These tactics will help you maximize your reach, build a loyal customer base, and drive more case leads to your firm.
1. Define Your Target Audience
Knowing your target audience is the most important part of planning and executing your social media marketing strategy.
Remember that everything you do, including the content you push out, will be geared toward nurturing and growing your target audience.
Therefore, the clearer you define your target audience, the better you will understand their needs and how to target them.
You must be as detailed as possible when defining your target audience. Think about their gender, age, marital status, profession, and how they spend their time.
You can even try to figure out their hobbies because no detail is too small to be considered. Always strive to go beyond generalizations.
Avoid targeting people broadly. For instance, your target audience should surpass “people who need an attorney.”
Instead, define your target audience specifically and design a simple marketing language that speaks directly to them.
For instance, if your law firm targets people involved in car accidents and actively seeking compensation, you could target “people who have recently been involved in motor vehicle accidents and are looking for an attorney to help them seek compensation.” You could use phrases like “Get the compensation you deserve” in your campaigns.
2. Know Your Goals
If you don’t know where you are headed, you will likely end up anywhere. Knowing your goals is a must. What do you want to gain from social media?
You must clearly understand your primary objectives in using social media platforms to market your law firm. Do you want to generate leads? Do you want to build brand awareness? Do you want to increase the number of visitors to your site?
Strive to make realistic and attainable goals that can be divided into three categories: short-term, mid-term, and long-term.
You must also ensure your goals are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely).
Take time to research and identify goals specific to your firm, measurable in that you can track progress attainable within the available resources, relevant to your overall objectives, and timely.
Besides setting goals, you also need to set key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you track your progress.
For instance, if your goal is to generate leads from social media, then your KPI could be the number of leads generated in a given period.
3. Choose The Right Platforms
Once you have a clear picture of your target audience and goals, it is important to select which platforms your law firm will be active on.
Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, and some may be more suitable than others for your specific needs.
For instance, Twitter is an excellent platform for businesses looking to publish timely, short updates and engage with a wide audience.
On the other hand, LinkedIn is great for professionals who want to build credibility and connect with industry experts.
When choosing platforms, consider the demographics of each platform in relation to your target audience, as well as the type of content that works best on each platform.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to be on all social media platforms.
Sometimes, less is more. In fact, you may lose focus if you try to operate too many accounts at once because you are most likely not giving them full attention.
The truth is that there aren’t enough hours in a day for even a small law firm to run a comprehensive outreach campaign on all social media platforms.
Identify the few platforms frequented by your target audience and concentrate on them.
4. Create Awareness
More people will be interested in your law firm’s social media profiles only if they know about them.
Therefore, spreading awareness by including links to social media profiles on your promotional materials, website, and other related content is important.
You can also promote your profiles through paid advertisements or collaborating with legal industry influencers.
Also, consider informing your existing clients and peers that your law firm is active on social media and share your handles with them.
Since you already have a relationship with these people, they will be willing to follow you and share your profiles with their friends and family.
5. Create Quality Content
Your social media posts should be interesting, engaging, and informative. Ensure you maintain a consistent tone throughout your accounts.
To achieve your social media marketing goals, it is crucial to experiment with different types of content that resonate with your target audience.
Explore different content formats such as videos, infographics, articles, and live sessions. You may have to experiment extensively to figure out what drives engagement from your target audience.
Don’t forget to analyze engagement metrics while experimenting with different content formats.
Focus on key metrics such as shares, likes, comments, click-through rates, and the overall time spent on the piece of content.
Gain insights into the specific topics and content formats with the highest engagement rate.
Your content should be largely educational because it will help your target audience understand the complexities of their legal issues.
For instance, you can write blog posts on topics such as ‘Steps to Take After a Car Accident‘ or “How to Win a Personal Injury Claim.”
Also, be sure to use visuals on social media platforms. Visuals draw more attention than plain text and will likely generate more engagement.
6. Engage With Your Audience
Your social media content should be designed to inspire conversation and dialogue with potential clients.
One of the most effective ways to engage your audience is to ask questions or post polls inviting followers’ participation.
Encourage people to comment, share, and like your posts. Respond quickly to their comments and interact with them.
You should also reply to direct messages promptly and use different social listening tools to find relevant discussions outside of your profiles and comment on those ones as well.
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Start Small
While it may be exciting to jump right in and start executing your strategy on a bunch of social media platforms at once, you may end up doing more harm than good to your brand.
By trying to do too much at once, you may spread yourself thin and not be able to give enough attention to each of your social media accounts.
This will lead to low-quality content and a lack of engagement from followers, which can negatively affect your reputation.
It is better to start small and build up gradually as you become more comfortable with the platforms. As your experience increases, you can expand to more platforms and experiment with new content formats.
This way, you can invest the required resources into each platform while still delivering quality content and engaging conversations with your audience.
8. Set a Specific Schedule
Consider creating a content calendar to guide your social media marketing campaign. Tools such as Hootsuite can help you accomplish this task.
By pre-planning when you will publish content, you eliminate the stress of thinking about what to write and post in the moment. Furthermore, you get plenty of time to review each post before it goes live.
You can also create posts in batches rather than posting them one by one because it will free up your time for other tasks, such as interacting with followers or creating new content ideas.
Just review the entire batch of posts before hitting ‘publish.‘ Consistency is key when it comes to social media content, so be sure to follow your schedule.
9. Analyze Your Performance
Regularly measure the performance of your social media campaigns and use this data to refine your strategy.
The most important metric to keep track of is R.O.I. since it will help you determine whether or not the resources invested are worthwhile.
Other metrics, such as shares, likes, comments, click-through rates, and the time spent on each post, should also be monitored.
Use these insights to identify areas of improvement in your strategy.
For instance, if a certain type of content does not generate sufficient engagement or drives too few clicks, try experimenting with different content formats or topics until you find the perfect combination.
Failing to track which content is most effective puts you at risk of wasting your effort focusing on things that don’t generate revenue.
What Next for Your Law Firm?
Overall, social media is an effective tool for law firms to reach potential clients. However, it requires careful planning and execution for successful implementation.
Establish your goals and objectives, select the right platforms, create quality content, and engage with your audience. Doing so will help you take full advantage of the power of social media marketing.
At PALO, we understand the many challenges law firms face while trying to generate quality case leads. Fortunately, we are here to help you.
Our legal lead generation services are designed to provide your law firm with the highest-quality case leads that will help you grow your practice and increase revenue.
Contact us today to learn more about our pay-per-call campaigns and how we can help your law firm generate more case leads.
