Social Media Tips for Law Firms From Beginner to Advanced (2023)

No matter where you are in your legal marketing journey, you can learn new things. Whether you’re brand new to social media or just need some fresh inspiration to ramp up your law firm’s digital presence, take a look at the following list. We’re offering 21 of the best tried-and-true social media marketing tips for law firms that can help any legal marketer, from a beginner to the most seasoned pro.

Social Media Tips for Beginners

1. Sync Posts Across All Social Media Accounts

If you haven’t done this before, it’s a good idea to invest in a social management tool like HubSpot’s Social Inbox or Hootsuite. Keeping content synced will ensure a consistent brand presence and also ensure you post on all platforms. These platforms will help you schedule content, monitor mentions, and monitor important keywords and contacts.

2. Update or Republish Older Posts

If you have older content that performed well but is outdated, simply update it and republish for an SEO boost. Whether blog posts, landing pages, or other content, updating items to be recirculated on social media will take less time than continuously pumping out new ideas. Instead of posting your content using an image, try out a video or infographic this time around.

3. Schedule Posts at Optimal Times

If you’re using a social media scheduling tool, you should be able to view which times are best for posting to each platform. You can also refer to this comprehensive guide for general time guidelines.

4. Increase Engagement with Hashtags

Research existing hashtags, and use a mix of popular ones and lesser-known hashtags to reach more people. You can also create your own firm hashtag to keep a pulse on your unique media presence. Check out our past blog post on leveraging hashtags to improve social efforts.

5. Use Lots of Visuals

Include pictures, videos, or graphics whenever you can. There are free services such as Canva that can help you create graphics, or you can subscribe to stock photo services or even use pictures of your own staff. This is important for all social media platforms – not just Instagram.

6. Optimize Each Page

Every social media platform has different options that you can use to make your page unique. Pay attention to your bio, profile picture, and header image if applicable. All images should be branded. Using something like your logo in your brand colors is a good idea. Always include a full bio with a call to action and a link to your website so they can find you. You should also look into optimizing your bio and taglines (the one-line platforms like Instagram and Twitter give you to describe your account; this is different from your handle, which is specific to you) for search. So for example, include a tagline on Instagram like ‘The Premier Personal Injury Law Firm of New Jersey’.

7. Do Audience Research

Each platform appeals to different conventions and demographics. Do some research by looking at your competitors’ pages, similar accounts to yours, and hashtags to determine which sub-market of your audience is on each platform and what type of content they enjoy.

Social Media Tips for Intermediate Users

8. Post Multiple Times Per Day

Up to three times is optimal. If you are running low on ideas, you can post user-generated content, turn to snippets of long-form content that you created (such as whitepapers), or post thought leadership content where you discuss others’ industry articles.

9. Make Sure Your Brand Speaks for You

Your goal as a legal marketer is to blend your brand into social media marketing. You can do this by adding your law firm’s logo to posts, including a firm hashtag, or highlighting your attorneys or staff.

10. Leverage Interactive Content

There are many ways to create diverse and interesting content that piques readers’ interest. Try a Twitter poll, Instagram Q&A, LinkedIn Live video, etc. You can even simply ask your followers what they would like to see more of and what would help them.

11. Invest More Time into Visual Content

As we mentioned, there are plenty of free options for visual content. Once you get more sophisticated on social, you might want to spend additional time creating graphic elements such as infographics, higher production value videos, GIFs, or document posts on LinkedIn.

Related: How Lawyers Can Optimize Videos for Each Social Media Platform.

12. Develop Brand Guidelines

As you continue to improve your social media presence, it may be helpful to put together some brand guidelines. This will help you, and anyone else posting, ensure each post falls in line with your firm’s goals. Make note of things like font for images, colors for images, tone and style of writing, call-to-action ideas, and hashtag ideas.

13. Engage in Social Listening

Social listening is the act of scanning social media platforms for relevant information pertaining to your firm or industry in order to better understand your audience. There are some tools that can help you do this easily.

Social Media Tips for Advanced Marketers

14. Test Out New Social Media App Updates

Both new apps and app updates offer new avenues or ways to engage an entirely new audience. For example, consider uploading your law firm’s podcast or webinar recording to Instagram TV (IGTV). You could even create a video checklist on TikTok or host a Room on Clubhouse. The point is to explore what’s new and don’t count anything out.

15. Extend Your Reach by Collaborating with Thought Leaders

People trust their favorite subject matter experts. Research your industry and pitch to potential collaborations. When you produce content with one another, you’ll be exposed to their audience and vice versa. Win-win. Another tip: closely observe the social media of influencers in your sector and see what best practices you can apply.

16. Go Beyond Syncing Content Across Platforms

Once you’ve mastered getting content out on all the social channels, you can start to diversify and make sure content is unique across platforms. All content should relate back to your firm’s goals and mission. Check out our guide for best practices.

17. Create Timely Content that Resonates with People

Think outside the box of just what’s happening in your industry (though you should create content about any important news there, too). You can create memes or share photos relating to seasonality, holidays, etc.

18. Measure Social Media Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Make sure you are optimizing your presence by consistently viewing performance across social channels. From there, you can try to test different post formats or landing pages. Use the data available to you to create more compelling content. In this blog post, we review valuable social media metrics that law firms should be tracking.

19. Explore Social Media Advertising

If you want to accelerate your social media marketing efforts and have a budget for it, it’s worth exploring paid social advertising. Social ads can be especially effective since they’re not disruptive and look very similar to the organic content your audience is already scrolling through. They’re also highly targeted. Depending on the network, you can target your posts by location, company type, job title, demographics, and other criteria.

Related: Advanced Social Media Strategies for Law Firms eBook.

20. Create Multiple Pages per Platform

As a law firm, you may be catering to many different audiences. Consider creating multiple accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram to target each niche audience. So, for example, a page just for job seekers, or a page for specific locations.

21. Perform an Audit

Now that you’ve got the hang of social media, consider conducting a social media audit. This Social Media Audit and Analysis Tool will help you identify areas of improvement and improve your ROI.

Takeaway:

Social media is always changing, so even the most experienced law firm marketer might not be advanced across all of the platforms. Hopefully, these 21 social media marketing tips will help you boost your law firm’s social media marketing strategy. When put into practice, they can help you get ahead of your competitors, grow your audience, raise awareness of your law firm and drive new leads.

Updated and reposted from April 2, 2021.