Social Media Marketing For Law Firms: 11 Must-Know Tips 

Embracing social media marketing for law firms in this digital age is an important strategy for business success. 

Almost every social media user visits their accounts on a daily basis, while over 68% of American adults use social media.

You can leverage social media to improve your law firm’s online popularity and caseloads. However, the strategy you implement matters a great deal. 

In this post, we will discuss how law firms can use social media marketing to create massive brand awareness and business success. Read on!

What Is Social Media Marketing For Law Firms?

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that law firms can leverage to achieve their marketing and branding goals. It involves leveraging several social media platforms to reach potential clients and acquire new business. 

Having a clear strategy is a recipe for success in social media marketing. You may have to test several methods to determine the best-performing ad campaign and channel more energy toward that. 

The point is that all your social media campaigns will yield different results. But with consistent testing and adjusting of your strategies, you’ll find a winning strategy to get more clients. 

Can Law Firms Land New Clients With Social Media Marketing?

Yes, law firms can get new clients and create massive brand awareness with social media marketing. Many people spend time on social media daily. 

Social media has become a place where people get information about events happening around the world and even in the local communities. So you can target potential clients on social media and create massive brand awareness. 

Your activities on social media shouldn’t only center on posting regularly on your profile. While sharing information is a great way to keep your social media profile active, you should consider developing other strategies that will help you acquire new clients. 

You can use social media to increase traffic to your website. But, then again, the most important thing is your strategy. The results you’ll get from your social media marketing campaign are a function of your marketing strategy.

Traditional Marketing Vs. Social Media Marketing For Law Firms

What’s the difference between using social media and traditional marketing strategies to help a law firm acquire more clients? 

Social media is a great tool law firms can leverage to reach a wider audience and increase their caseloads. Unlike traditional marketing strategies like Television commercials and print advertising, social media marketing lets you engage your audience. 

Television commercials and print advertising don’t offer advertisers the means to engage with potential customers. You won’t even have the opportunity to know potential clients on a personal level. 

The reverse is the case with social media. On social media, you can interact with potential clients, answer their questions, and build their confidence in your law firm. 

Prospects will become more interested in your law firm when you engage them on social media. Social media will also give your law firm the opportunity to target a specific audience. 

Here are the advantages social media has over traditional marketing for law firms:

• Social media allows real-time conversation between your law firm and potential clients. You’ll have the opportunity to respond to their questions or even send valuable resources they can read and get more knowledge about their cases. Unfortunately, traditional marketing is like a one-way street. Law firms can’t communicate with potential clients.   
• Social media marketing is less expensive, making it an attractive and effective lead-generation platform for small and medium-sized legal firms. On the contrary, Television commercials and prints are on the high side.
• You can measure results with social media marketing and adjust your strategies to achieve your targeted goal. Social media platforms boost analytical tools you can leverage to monitor your views, clicks, and engagements to know ads that are underperforming and those performing well. With the results, you can adjust your strategies to yield better ROI. 

Unfortunately, you can track television commercials. You won’t even know the people who viewed your ads, their demographics, age, interests, and other important details. 

What Makes Social Media Marketing Vital For Your Law Firm’s Success?

Why should a law firm consider social media marketing? How can it make a law firm successful? Here is what you need to know. 

1. You can generate more leads with effective social media marketing:

You can get more clients from social media. With social media advertising, you can reach your target audience and boost their interest in your law firm. That’s how you get more clients. 

An individual who came across your social media advert might become a follower immediately or take note of your law firm. They may not hire you immediately, but expect a call from them whenever the need to hire a lawyer arises. 

Your marketing strategy on social media is highly important. It will determine the results you’ll achieve on the various platforms you’re using. 

Besides running adverts on social media, you can focus on providing valuable content to prospects. Improve people’s knowledge of the law, and they’ll repay you for your hard work when the time comes. 

You can host webinars and occasionally share helpful content on your social media platforms. This will help to establish you as a thought leader. 

When potential clients start seeing you as an expert in your practice area, they’ll feel more confident in your legal services whenever the need to hire a lawyer arises. 

2. You can create brand awareness with strategic social media marketing:  

Do you know why many law firms are now turning to social media? Check the population of active users on Facebook. Then, you’ll know why social media should be an integral part of your law firm’s marketing effort. 

With a strong presence on social media, you can establish your law firm as a thought leader in your practice area. You can also use targeted promotions to reach your audience (people in your geographical location) and create awareness.

3. Social media advertising has a competitive price:

Running ad campaigns on most social media platforms is expensive. An example is LinkedIn. It costs more to run ads on LinkedIn than on platforms like Facebook. 

However, compared to search engines like Google, PPC advertising on social media is cheaper. Besides, you’ll achieve a high ROI with social media adverts. 

For small and medium-sized law firms, keeping the ad budget as low as possible is crucial. This makes social media ads a viable option for attracting clients. 

4. Build competitive advantage:

With social media marketing, law firms can build competitive edges. With a strong online presence, you can gain online popularity and become the law firm everyone in your location is talking about.

5. Build solid relationships with your customers: 

Social media platforms allow legal firms to interact with potential clients and build strong relationships. Clients appreciate brands that interact with them. It shows that the brand cares and will deliver satisfactory services. 

When you interact with prospects, you automatically prove to them that you’re reliable and have what it takes to deliver the needed legal services. 

6. Build online reputation: 

With social media, law firms have a unique opportunity to build their reputation. When you share valuable content consistently, potential clients will start taking you seriously. 

So you can improve your online reputation by providing valuable answers to potential clients’ questions, and you’ll become their favorite law firm. And when prospects hold your law firm in high regard, they’ll find it easier to promote your brand to others in need of legal assistance.  

7. Ease of measuring results:

Marketing on social media is straightforward. With the insights and data social media platforms offer, law firms can identify working marketing strategies and channel more effort toward them.

The ability to measure results means prospects can quickly identify poor-performing campaigns and stop them to prevent further losses. 

Different Social Media Platforms And Their Importance In  

Each social media platform is unique, offering law firms the opportunity to promote their businesses to a wide range of users. However, each platform boasts unique features. That’s why law firms must understand social media and the opportunities they offer law firms. Let’s discuss the various social media platforms. 

1. Facebook: When discussing social media platforms, Facebook’s name always comes first. The social media platform is the largest in the world, with over 3.2 billion active users. 

Facebook offers law firms a unique opportunity to reach a wide audience. Lawyers can interact with potential clients via messages and comments. You can even target potential clients via Facebook Ads. 

With Facebook Ads, you can target specific demographics and reach your target audience. 

Publish high-value posts on your law firm’s social media account on a regular basis to educate prospects. With this, you can build trust and establish yourself as a thought leader. 

2. LinkedIn: This platform is a wise choice for professional networking. You can connect and interact with other lawyers, including potential clients.

Your marketing strategy on LinkedIn matters a great deal. It’s important to join groups, publish quality posts consistently, and engage with your connections occasionally. 

3. Instagram: Being visual-focused makes Instagram a great platform to showcase events happening within your law firm. Share photos of various events, lawyers, and clients to show prospects that what you do in your law firm goes beyond helping clients solve problems. Interact with people in the community and share your thoughts on different issues. You can share short videos and images from the events. 
4. Twitter: Twitter (now X) is another social media platform whose popularity as a platform for reaching potential clients is rising fast. With a premium account, you can share long posts on Twitter. 

Talk about various legal topics, and ensure you’re in the comment section to reply to potential clients. Users on Twitter are super active, so your posts could reach a wider audience fast. However, you can also run paid advertisements on Twitter to reach a wider audience. 

5. YouTube: If you have the time to create video-based content, YouTube will be a great platform to reach a wider audience. People enjoy watching videos rather than spending time reading large blocks of text. 

So, create a YouTube channel with the name of your law firm. Publish video content on varied topics. Share your point of view on varied topics so potential clients will start seeing you as an industry leader. This way, they’ll trust and respect your law firm more. 

Post YouTube shorts 

6. TikTok: TikTok is another essential platform lawyers can leverage to increase their caseloads. It’s a video-focused platform that allows creators to publish short and catchy videos. Because TikTok videos are short, views and retentions are usually high. 

Create shorts for TikTok, just like YouTube. Your videos should contain vital information despite being short. 

Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies And Tips For Law Firms

Here are important strategies you can implement to help your law firm succeed online. 

1. Put a solid social media policy in place:

It’s necessary to have a social media policy in place. Remember that your employees will publish social media posts on behalf of your law firm. 

Having a social media policy will ensure employees in your law firm don’t fall out of line. It will prevent your employees from publishing posts that will create legal issues for your law firm. 

With the policy in place, your employees will coordinate themselves all the time and represent your brand. 

Here is how having a social media policy can help your law firm:

• Having a social media policy will ensure posts published by your employees are consistent. 
• The policy will ensure your employees don’t create posts that may cause legal issues for your law firm. 
• Your employees will represent your brand accurately and speak in your brand tone. 
• Your employees will always remember to protect the confidentiality of your clients and law firm. 

When potential clients notice the consistency in the content (articles and videos) your employees publish on social media, their confidence in your firm will increase. 

How do you create a social media policy for your law firm? A good place to start is to read the ethics regulations of the American Bar Association. With the rules, you can create a social media policy that protects your law firm from legal issues with the American Bar Association or clients. 

2. Set SMART goals:

Now that you have created a social media policy, it’s time to create your firm’s marketing goals. State what you want to achieve so that everyone in the office will have it at the back of their minds. 

Here is what we mean by SMART goals:

• Specific: Think carefully about your goals. Don’t just set goals because a competitor or colleague has the same goals. Be specific. State what you want to achieve with your social media marketing effort.  
• Measurable: It’s important to quantify your goals. That way, you can track your progress. 
• Attainable: Set goals you’re confident of achievement. Be realistic with your goals. 
• Relevant: Are your goals relevant to the success of your law firm? Ensure it is applicable. 
• Time-bound: When do you want to achieve the goal? Is it in 6 months or a year? Ensure your goal is time-bound and give everything you can to ensure you achieve the goal in the set time. 

For instance, your goal can be to increase website traffic to your law firm by 30% using social media referrals within six months. Just create SMART goals, and you’ll see results. 

Here are examples of goals you can create for your law firm:

• Create brand awareness
• Gain more clients
• Improve website visitation

Another important piece of advice is to set short- and long-term goals. But the most important thing is to set attainable goals. When you have clear goals, you’ll be more focused and know how to fine-tune your social media marketing strategies to achieve your goals.  

3. Conduct competitive analysis:

Your competitors will always be there. You have to decide whether you want to remain in their shadows or remain in yours. 

Conduct a competitor analysis. In other words, research your competitors. You can join their online community, share their social media posts, and engage in discussions. 

Check out their ads and other social media strategies. Read their posts, and keep a close watch on their activities on social media. 

If you follow your competitors keenly and master their strategies, you’ll be a step ahead of them. Researching your competitors will help you figure out strategies that work and the ones that are a dealbreaker for potential clients. You’ll know strategies to avoid and what you can do differently to stand out. 

4. Know your audience: 

The success and effectiveness of any social media strategy lie in your effort to understand your audience and niche. 

When you do, you’ll be able to tailor your message, launch a better advertising campaign, and create relevant content. So start researching your audience. 

5. Decide the ideal time to post:  

Did you know the frequency of your postings can have a direct impact on the success of your social media marketing campaign? Every expert social media marketer understands this.

So, when should you post on social media? The first thing to note is the platform on which you’re posting your content. According to Hootsuite, here is the best time and frequency for posting on diverse social media platforms. 

• For Twitter and LinkedIn, Hootsuite says firms should post 1-5 times daily. 
• Law firms or brands marketing on Facebook should post 1-2 times daily. 

The best time to post on social media is 10 am. Furthermore, the best days of the week to post are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

Actionable Tip: You can follow the tips we shared on the frequency and timing of posting on social media. However, it’s important to experiment to know what works and what doesn’t for your practice area. 

You might achieve great results when you post on weekends. It can happen that way. So, experiment by posting on different days and posting at varied frequencies. 

6. Start your social media marketing journey small:

Resist the temptation to market your law firm on all the social media platforms at once. You can create a profile for your law firm in all of them, but focus on the social media platform you’re familiar with. The reason you may want to create a profile in advance is to ensure no one else does before you. Like domain names, people can create a social media account with your name and wait for you to contact them to claim it.  

Trying to market your law firm on all the social media platforms at once will take time and effort. Remember that you have a business to run, including documents and clients to attend to daily.

By trying to publish on all social media platforms at once, you will have little or no time to interact with potential clients. You might miss comments or delay in replying to clients’ comments, which may do your law firm more harm than good. 

The ideal thing to do is to focus your energy on a specific social media platform. Build your presence on each social media platform one at a time. 

Actionable Tip: If you want to market your business on social media, hiring a social media marketing expert will be a step in the right direction. With social media becoming more competitive and client engagement increasing, you’ll need an expert who can keep an eye on your brand’s social media activities. 

7. Plan your content strategy:

It’s important to decide the type of content you want to be posting on social media. Do you want to create new content, respond to comments, or share posts from your law firm’s official website? Be specific with your content strategy. 

Don’t plan your content strategy without considering your audience. Remember, potential clients are the ones who will read your content and patronize your law firm. 

It’s important to create content that your audience likes. Additionally, add visual materials to your content to capture attention. 

Actionable Tip: You can vary your social media posts. Publish posts with different lengths and content types. For instance, you can publish videos and texts. Try different posts to see what works best. 

8. Set a calendar to publish your posts:

Have a content calendar to publish posts at the right time. Let your audience know when to expect your social media posts. That way, you’ll get better engagement and have time to reply to their comments. 

You can use social media tools to plan your content calendar. Additionally, your frequency of publishing is entirely up to you. You can follow the frequency of publishing that Hootsuite suggested or do something different. 

9. Engage your followers:

Building an online presence involves investing a lot of time and effort. Furthermore, the way you respond to your audience will also determine how they will react to your social media posts. 

If you’re one of those law firms that share posts and leave followers to their fate, it’s time to change such an approach. Respond to your followers. 

Whether constructive or destructive, respond to every comment. Don’t forget that potential clients are reading your comments and seeing how swiftly you’re responding to your followers. 

You will get different comments from your followers and non-followers. However, reply to all comments. And let your professionalism and expertise in your practice area be visible in your responses. 

10.  Create a Facebook Page:

Facebook is different from other platforms. While there is a main account, you can have a Facebook page. 

Having a Facebook page is important for law firms that plan to do PPC advertising on Facebook. You’ll need a Facebook page for this. 

The reason we singled out Facebook is because it’s the largest social media platform in the world. There are over 3.2 billion active users on Facebook. So, you can see the massive opportunity your law firm will have when you kick-start an effective Facebook marketing campaign. 

11. Measure your results:

It’s important to measure results when conducting Facebook marketing for legal firms. When you measure results, you’ll know if you’re making progress or not. 

Be consistent when measuring the results of your social media advertising campaigns. Note ads that yield results and ones that don’t. With this information, you can make the necessary adjustments to your ads to achieve the best results. 

Conclusion

Social media marketing for law firms is an important strategy law firms can implement to create brand awareness and improve organic traffic and client base. 

When you increase your client base, you’ll generate more revenue and be able to expand your law firm. Having more revenue means you can hire more lawyers and provide better services to clients. 

These social media marketing tips will guide you and ensure you leverage the various social media platforms to achieve your goals. However, it’s important to have a social media policy and don’t be afraid to start small. You can create a profile for your law firm on the various social media channels to preserve your name, but focus on the platform you think will yield the best results. 

Once you establish a solid online presence on a social media platform, you can focus your attention on the next platform. Take it one step at a time.