If it is a client that you really need, it is most likely they will have a social media presence at least in one of the “popular social media”. If we were to go by the logic, go where your customers are, certainly you should have a social media presence. But the real question is which social media should lawyers use and how can a lawyer effectively use social media.
In this post, I will be discussing which social media should you be using. At Law Pundits, we use a wide range of social media platforms including, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, WeChat, WhatsApp, Pinterest, YouTube. While we have been able to grow the audience in each of the platform and we have been early adopters of some these platforms, the purpose and the audience each of these platform serves differs.
As a law firm you will need to determine who your target audience is and the best platform to reach your target audience. Once you do that, the next question you need to ask yourself is what should you be posting.
Find “your” audience.
Depending on your practice area, you should focus on a few or all of the major social media platform. Say for instance, you are a lawyer focusing on family law, which could include divorce, probate, estate planning etc. The highest percentage of divorce happens among people between 20 to 30 years age range. Where are for estate planning and probate matters, it is likely you’re your audience will be 50 and older. Which platform do you think you are likely to find the audience in both this age group? Now, let’s deviate from family law to personal injury. If you are a lawyer or a law firm that focuses on the broad area of personal injury law, you would rather target your audience based on the work they do (workmen, hospitals, industries, factories, shops, restaurants etc) or it could be based on age or location. There can be different combinations you need to consider when choosing the social media platforms. Here is a rule of thumb based on your practice area, your marketing budget, the time you have, how popular you want your practice to become, how popular you as lawyer intend to become.
With about 2.5 billion active monthly users, facebook leads the social media pack. No matter what your focus area of your practice, atleast for visibility sake you really need to have a presence on facebook.
With over 650 million users, LinkedIn is ranked as the 5th most use social medial platform. LinkedIn has a wide range of professional users. It might be a gold mine for certainly practice areas like employment law or commercial law, it is equally useful for almost all areas of law practice. While Facebook has about 76% of users under the age of 24, 80% of LinkedIn users are above 25 years of age and with clear demarcation based on the seniority, role, function, industry, position, title etc, you have all the tools you need to identify your target audience. It is also a place to grow your followers, post updates and articles, create newsletter and showcase your expertise. Maintaining a law firm business page is an absolute must for law firms.
With close to 330 million monthly active users and about 145 million active users, twitter is an awesome platform to popularize your law firm. Also based on the kind of practice area you are focused on twitter is also a very good source for lead generation for your law practice.
Many lawyers do not seem to understand the value of having an Instagram account. Instagram is a great visual platform. We, personally have over 40000 followers on linkedin and have generated a lot of business just by maintaining the page. With over a billion users and the visual appeal, Instagram adds a lot to a law firm’s story. This is an excellent platform to generate interest among a wide range of audience.
Whatsapp, Youtube and Pinterest are other platform that you can have an effective presence. I will be writing a post on how to effectively market on YouTube in a later post.
Ok, great now that you know that these platforms are great, you might be thinking what do I do and what should I post. Well first things first, active engagement is key to stay in the minds of potential clients. Social media marketing and engagement is a long-term game for a law firm.
Find out how we can help you with your social media strategy. Get a strategy for your law practice.