Your Guide To Social Media Marketing for Law Firms In 2022

Whether you are just getting started with your law firm or just setting up yourself digitally, you need to realize the benefits of social media marketing for law firms is.

Or better yet, what it means especially in the case of law firms. Social media marketing is an excellent way to build your law firm’s following. It is a good place for you to publish pieces that help your attorneys to become personable and accessible. It’s also a good place to create connection points with people in your community that need your help.

Social media and legal marketing go more hand in hand than what most people would expect. When social media marketing is done for law firms and lawyers then it becomes legal marketing.

Legal marketing is a method by which a lawyer or a law firm implements in order to make their brand more recognizable and trustworthy, leading to people who might potentially hire them for your area of practice.

To do legal marketing right the right way, you must have an effective plan ready to be implemented, and to have the perfect plan you need to follow the following steps:

• Identify your goals for social marketing that are realistic and attainable.
• Identify your social media platforms.
• Research your competitors and learn from their achievements and mistakes.
• Start small so that you don’t break any rules.
• Consider which type of content you want to post.
• Consider your target audience and make hashtag groups.
• Set a schedule and strictly follow it.
• Set a system to measure your results.
• Follow lawyer social media influencers and build connections with them for a possible collaboration in the future.

1) Creating Brand Awareness

The consumption of social media has increased so if you have a strong social presence, it will work out in your favor. Expect to broadcast your message to an increased audience, resulting in overall increased brand awareness.

2) Engaging Your Target Audience

Social media is a valuable platform to engage and make connections that might even turn into prospects. As an attorney, you’re paid to be an excellent communicator—but are you as effective when it comes to social media marketing to your target audience?

3) Establishing Thought Leadership

Social media has always been able to show your expertise. It has a manner of showing which business is successful and professional and which is not. You can use this to prove your credibility and win the trust of people. Hence, establishing yourself as a leader who should be revered and followed.

While social media is always a place that should be handled with care, in the case of lawyers it is that a hundred times more.

There is a very fine line between sharing just the right amount of helpful information to your audience and oversharing. Although it may seem like privacy is an impossible feat on social media, lawyers must assure the confidentiality of their client’s case.

Some other things to consider:

Ethics and laws about online marketing from a general perspective

Digital marketing is of ‘broad-based nature and expansive capabilities’ which is why any business has to practice a great deal of caution. Ethical and legal restrictions are not a new concept in marketing. For ages, these restrictions are being followed by television, radio, etc.

Thus, a marketer must have a mechanism for monitoring ethical practices.

For instance, when conducting target advertising, the campaign should not be offensive or discriminatory to any group and should not misrepresent a product or service of a competitor.

Laws specific to lawyers looking to do social media marketing

When it comes to lawyers, ethics are a notch tougher. For attorneys, the following are the best ethical practices:

• Always protect client’s confidentiality. Always!
• Do not establish a specific attorney-client relationship
• Follow the ABA Model of Professional Conduct
• Think twice before posting
• Take formal permission from the person’s lawyer to review the restricted social media content.

1. Analyzing Competition

The start of social media marketing for a law firm’s journey can be very confusing. There are a million directions you can take your socials and not all of them are liked by the audience.

If you unknowingly take a direction that had already been used by another law firm, then that’s on you. To avoid that from happening, research your competitors, get inspired, and note which strategies work for them and which don’t. This will spice up your creativity and you might up end up upping their social media marketing game.

2. Follow The 70/30 Rule

We have already talked about there being a fine line between oversharing and being informative but there is another fine line that you need to be prepared for: the line between posting valuable content and promoting your services.

Here is where the 70/30 rule comes in. While putting valuable content is fun for your audience, you still need to promote yourself and remind them about your services so that it is fun for you too! According to this rule, 70% of content should provide value to your audience, and 30% of content should promote your firm’s services with an actionable CTA.

3. Video Content Centered Around Educating People

Video marketing makes everything so much easier.

Getting clients? Easier!

Educating people about your services and other topics? Easier!

Injecting your personality? Easier!

This is why it has become such a vital part of top law firms’ social media marketing strategies. As long as your videos are informative and interesting, you are all set!

4. Sharing Authoritative Law-related Resources

To become the leader of your niche, you must act the part.  Start by knowing and talking about everything that falls under the umbrella but especially the latest news.

The more is the merrier! Provide credible and valuable information and show off your expertise in everything law. In the legal industry, it is especially important to become the leader since that is how most clients will get attracted to you.

5. Collaborating with Influencers In The Same Niche Industry

Following and connecting with legal influencers is the best thing you do to keep up with the latest happenings of the industry.

It can lead to possible collaborations in the future and a more socially-recognizable social image for yourself – and that’s exactly what you need! The legal industry is highly competitive and hard to survive in. Add lawyer social media influencers to the mix and you have very little room to make your mark.

However, if you build connections at the right time and with the right influencers, you can take advantage of their following by collaborating with them on your social media. Make sure you are not the only one winning in this situation because then it wouldn’t be a collaboration. Equal the scales!

6. Tell Your Law Firm Story

A great way to build a relationship with your audience is by telling your brand story to them. This will humanize you in their eyes and build an emotional connection, trust and loyalty.

This will prove to be a great foundation for the relationship you’re building with them. Start by telling your initiation process then your struggles and achievements. You can always use a face to help people visualize your brand of law firm better.

We have compiled a list of law firms that are doing social media marketing right to inspire you to create amazing content and get clients.

Please note that these are just some of the popular names that we have highlighted below. There are tons of legal services platforms that are doing pretty well in the online stratosphere.

Feel free to setup competitor research analysis for the following law firms online:

1) Allens

2) Blumenreich Law Firm

3) The Sam Bernstein Law Firm

4) Pace Law Firm

5) Greenberg Traurig, LLP

6) Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

7) Pushor Mitchell

In conclusion, legal marketing or social media marketing for law firms and lawyers rely on five things:

• Having a Big Network
• Active Collaboration (*For Internal and External Stakeholders)
• Career & Business Development Coaching
• Adapt to Change
• Having a Strong Internal Law Firm Culture

Relationships are like the holy grail for businesses which is why you should try to build them based on trust with your clients and colleagues. This is what often leads to collaboration.

Research demonstrates that when specialists collaborate across functional boundaries, clients are less likely to leave and less likely to see the firm’s work as a commodity.

Additionally, changing the landscape and developing your business is more welcomed today than it was before. Lawyers are no longer afraid to ask for help and training that will help them adapt to the landscape better is some real progress.

When all of that is implemented in a wholesome approach, there is no way that your firm or career is not headed in the direction of profitability.