Law firms can use social media to promote themselves, check out the competition and get content ideas. It can also be a convenient customer service channel for a large proportion of your potential clients.
Misconceptions
Common misconceptions about social media apply across all industries. A big one is that it’s just an exercise in vanity. In many cases that’s true.
But if you can establish why you are using social media from the start and get the correct balance of time vs money and resource, there’s no doubt social media can be a valuable tool for your law firm.
Time vs return
Some law firms have an in-house function to manage and create social media content.
Others can learn about it on the job and do it themselves.
Some just blindly create content and post it to an audience of a handful of people. It takes time or money to create content and the return on investment in terms of engagement (and of course, enquiries) from relevant people is limited.
There’s also a danger of giving up early on. Building an audience organically takes time.
Measure the right things
You need to measure the right things.
Likes, follows and engagements are all well and good, but new enquiries and “customer queries solved” are even better.
Customer service
Law firms can use social media as a valuable customer service tool. Providing options for customers and new potential clients to contact you via Facebook messenger, for example, is extremely convenient for them.
They can simply pick up their smartphone, log into Facebook and send you a message.
You just need to decide who and how to manage this, but there are a number of options with regards to automation. For example you can reply automatically, asking people questions and sending them on a certain route. This could be to useful content an enquiry form or even an email address.
Reviews
Reviews are a massive Factor in your online marketing mix. If we see a relevant, authentic review online, we instantly Trust the brand and are more likely to make an enquiry or purchase.
Facebook is a great place to capture reviews from clients and this will appear on your profile and also insert results encouraging other people to get detail about your services.
A recent study suggested that online reviews influence over 67% of purchasing decisions.
Which social media channels to use
If you think that people don’t really want to engage with a law firm on Facebook, then you’re probably correct. If I need a divorce I don’t want to like your content about the subject.
What I would appreciate however it a guide on the subject, in plain English, that I can educate myself with before making a decision.
Facebook is also a great advertising platform for which you’ll need a a business profile. So even if you post content on Facebook infrequently, it’s still worth having a page that is professional if you want to use it as a platform for advertising.
The same applies to both LinkedIn and Twitter.
Each of these channels is is a place that you can manage from your smartphone, so simply create an accounts with a profile picture, a bio and there you go.
What content to post
The barrier for most law firms is the creation of content.
But, once you make this part of your daily or weekly routine, it can become a lot less daunting.
For example, a quick win for most solicitors or law firms is to take a selection of new stories for that week and post onto your channels giving your expert opinion or comments. This will demonstrate that you are an expert in this field and encourage people to engage.
Inbound things, a law firm marketing agency, suggest that social media should be part of your marketing strategy but not the sum total of it. It should be used both socially and as a customer service tool. But, there’s a danger of doing the same thing over and over again without getting any results.
SEO is a big win for law firms because their target clients often starts with a search in Google about a legal service. A good SEO strategy requires you to create website content. You then want to promote your website content and what better place and social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Sprout social, a social media management platform, recommend using social media to tell a brand story: an effective way to humanize your brand and create emotional connections with an ideal audience. This helps to build trust and loyalty. Include sharing your firm’s achievements history and stories about staff.
