What social media platforms should a law firm be using?

Whatever your law firm’s specialisms and objectives, how you utilise social media could make or break your business. A strong social media strategy created with awareness and engagement in mind can be the difference between a good financial year and a great one.

In this comprehensive guide, we discuss the best platforms, tips and trends to optimise your presence in both legal circles and to potential customers.

Need some help with marketing your law firm? Contact Legmark today and see how we can help.

What content should a law firm be posting on social media?

There is a wealth of information out there, particularly when it comes to legal news and views you can post about on social channels. This is on top of company updates, local matters and/or guides you may be producing via a content strategy.

Which avenue(s) your law firm takes very much depends on what you are looking to achieve and your ultimate business goals. Below we’ve broken down some of the more common tactics and how they can benefit your business.

Legal news and topical matters 

Keep clients and the wider legal space up to date with summaries of key developments in your specialist sectors.

It may be worth avoiding using jargon or posting complex stories without context. Clear summaries, explaining challenging topics in layman’s terms and providing your own unique take on matters could make your firm become the go-to for accessible, trustworthy updates.

This public display of expertise will work in your favour, hopefully putting you front of mind when potential clients decide to hire a solicitor.

Company news and local business developments

With the bricks-and-mortar office requirements of most legal firms, it’s almost certain your business relies somewhat on local customers. Social media is the perfect forum for company news or talking about local matters, be it business, politics, developments or even sports!

Granted there is a balance here – we’re not saying your company should become a live commentary feed for your football team or a leading activist in local governance matters! But if you choose to sponsor your local football team or donate to a local charitable cause it’s certainly worth showing your audience that you are engaging with the local community.

This arm of a social media strategy will help your brand get in front of a local audience, and could also result in some regional press coverage if backed with a strong PR strategy.

Office goings-on with staff, work and activities

Held an event or won an award? Exciting new hire or area of work? Let your followers know. 

Updates on office activities are a great way to build your firm’s voice and values. It also demonstrates trust and transparency to potential clients, as well as presenting your firm as a great place to work and attracting the best solicitors.

Promotion of content, guides or blogs

You’ve spent hours (maybe days) writing a HUGE guide on your legal niche. It’s SEO optimised and driving organic traffic which is great, yet (unbelievably) we still see many law firms completely forget to share this expertise on their social channels.

Not only can sharing your guides help demonstrate expertise to your audience, but regular posting can give you a steady stream of social engagement. Posting a guide to your social channel once is rarely enough! One simple way to improve your social reach is to syndicate your content into a social content calendar. There may be a big influencer who would have retweeted that post but they were offline at the time. Or you may have an article about post-Christmas divorce rates you wrote 2 years ago that remains relevant and could benefit from an annual share while the subject is topical.

Should we use images, videos and links in social posts?

Rich media can enhance your social media feed through catching the eye and generating engagement. However it’s also worth keeping the purpose of your post in mind.

An image or video may stand out on a user’s social feed, but what if they never see it? All social media platforms have algorithms in play that give more reach to certain types of post. Adding a link with a bold title and engaging image to your latest post may stand out visually, but if the platform is rewarding image-led posts over linked content it could negatively impact how many users see it. In some cases, posts will steer clear of including a link but then post it in the comments for users who do want more information.

It’s also worth asking yourself what the aim of the post is. Are you looking for shares or clicks? An information-rich graphic could have more shareability but it will likely decrease click throughs if a link is present as the user has all the information they need.

Which content works where (and when) is continually changing as algorithms, user behaviour, new platform features or even entirely new social media sites evolve. For this reason it’s always worth keeping up-to-date with social media trends.

Should we reply and engage with comments?

Engaging with comments is a great way to show your business has time for people outside of pure business interactions. Conversation can also lead to wider reach through the algorithms, higher likelihood of users sharing content and in some cases even help your business go viral.

However, as is common knowledge in the present age – engaging on social media can be a dangerous place.

Social media is now a place where complaints (and more importantly, how businesses handle them) can be put under the spotlight.

If a comment is negative, such as a complaint, handle it with care to prevent causing more negative sentiment from the poster or wider public audience. Carefully consider tone and language, as well as if social media is the best forum for engagement. An initial acknowledgement on social media requesting more information via email can take a negative sentiment out of public view and into private discussion for example.

How should a law firm handle bad PR, negative comments or complaints via social platforms?

It’s almost certain that at more than one point throughout the lifetime of your business you will have to address complaints and/or negative sentiments about your company/services.

It could be a client or staff member has done something that brings your brand into dispute. Or you may have slipped up wording your business comms which has angered or upset people. Perhaps it’s a complaint about a very sensitive matter, bad press coverage or someone with social influence has publicly complained about you.

No one is immune to bad PR, but there are ways to proactively handle such situations with both long term and short term care. Legmark recommends considering the following…

Don’t rush!

Even in urgent situations, a rushed response could mean not factoring in every aspect and digging yourself a deeper hole. Stop and collect your thoughts.

Refer to your brand guidelines

Sticking to brand guidelines ensures your law firm’s use of social media is consistent and effective. You may already have a considered procedure in place for such an event to ensure reaching the best resolution for all involved.

If you say something that contradicts your brand’s positioning (or even worse the law) there’s a high chance of internal company disciplinary matters and further reputation damage.

Request external opinion from colleagues or MD(s)

Colleagues, especially higher-ups, can provide invaluable advice and sign-off on sensitive topics. This due diligence aids your own job security too.

Remain courteous, calm and humble with public replies

Treating all comments with respect and politeness can prevent a negative situation from escalating. Even if the person on the other side is wrong, they believe they have a grievance – further pressing their buttons isn’t going to help anyone, even if you feel like they are intentionally pushing yours.

Be considerate to all, not just the respondent

Be aware that different people read comments from different perspectives. Consider wider context when responding on a public forum. A statement that keeps one person happy may be offensive to someone else.

Steer users into private conversation means

As already discussed, private messaging helps avoid a negative public image and escalation (but keep in mind that private messages can be made public through screen grabs).

Aim to resolve the issue and convert the negative sentiment

The best way to resolve a complaint is to solve the problem. If a resolution is not possible, being able to state you still have a positive customer service experience means sticking to your values. Offer alternative means of compensation if an issue cannot be resolved and always learn from customer feedback – good or bad.

Do not engage with trolls, bots or bad faith actors

Positive engagement isn’t always possible, so don’t be afraid to ignore or block if necessary.

It’s not uncommon on social media for businesses to become embroiled in politically charged public debates and fall victim to astroturfing campaigns. Worse yet, many of these campaigns utilise bot or sock puppet accounts to amplify pressure and steer public sentiment via projected group think tactics.

If you end up in this type of situation, you’re on an uneven playing field before the whistle has even been blown if you choose to engage. These types of campaigns are designed to frustrate you, waste your time and play devil’s advocate.

That being said, it’s also worth noting the difference between a legitimate social justice campaign and an astroturfed harassment campaign can be very subtle and practically invisible to anyone who doesn’t know the signs to look for.

Honest self-critique is always worth considering if you find yourself in such a situation, the last thing you want to do is call out a legitimate grassroots movement with real grievances as a troll farm.

If you need a second opinion, speak to a social media expert before engaging.

Have a proactive crisis PR plan in place (or get one as soon as possible)

Ideally, you should have a crisis plan ready as part of your social media guidelines. If not, develop one on-the-go or after a negative PR event to reference if needed in the future. Being prepared can reduce the stress and panic associated with bad press.

Should I outsource running my law firm’s social accounts or hire a social media marketer?

Promoting a law firm on social media has its own nuances. Building an in-house team with social media and legal expertise can be difficult, but you may worry that a generalist marketing agency won’t have the understanding necessary to run a law firm social media campaign. 

Legmark is here to take care of these digital marketing concerns. Combining knowledge of the digital and legal sectors, we’ve been running social media for law firms for years both in-house and as an agency. 

What social media platforms should my law firm be using?

Below is a summary of the more popular social media platforms and how they tend to be used in the legal industry.

Twitter

Twitter has 250 million daily active users and offers 280-character ‘tweets’ with links, images and videos, as well as private messaging. The site is a great tool for summaries, rich media content and updates, as well as sharing links to longer content. 

It’s also one of the best platforms for direct, fuss-free engagement with clients and peers, especially when used to live-tweet during events or conferences.

Twitter acts somewhat as a public square and is known for better connecting the public with larger figures who previously would have been harder to access. For this reason, among many more too nuanced to summarise, Twitter finds itself a platform where the people can speak to power directly via @ mentions. Solicitors like Feargal Sharkey (yes, THAT Feargal Sharkey) and The Good Law Project are great examples of the legal sector capitalising on social cause involvement to amplify their reach.

Facebook

Originally for personal social networking, Facebook now offers business pages and advertising opportunities. With over 1.9 billion daily users, this social network has an incredible reach. It allows longer posts than Twitter, as well as video and image-sharing and direct messages. 

Law firms can also join groups which may be relevant to brand-building or attracting clients. It may be more effective depending on legal sectors, clientele or location, but the sheer scale of Facebook means it should be part of any law firm social media strategy.

LinkedIn

The most business-focused platform, LinkedIn, is tailor-made for professional networking. Law firms can promote news, updates, content, employment opportunities and much more. The site connects firms with real-world professional contacts, with more than 875 million registered users extending this reach way beyond traditional circles. 

A LinkedIn presence is key to any law firm social media plan, particularly if you service B2B clients. The site offers a range of opportunities to build your brand through content, from pages to personal profiles.

TikTok

The newest kid on the block, TikTok is increasingly being used to promote brands and businesses. The app has over 1 billion monthly active users and a particularly young demographic. As a video-hosting site, using TikTok could inject the most creativity into a law firm social media campaign. 

Depending on sector and desired reach, TikTok may not be the most central platform to your social media strategy, but could be a great tool to build your voice and generate more dynamic content.

Instagram

An image and video-sharing site, Instagram has around 500 million daily active users globally. Law firms can create a business account and use Instagram to promote updates and news through images and text captions. The app also has direct messaging. 

Like TikTok, the role of Instagram in your law firm social media plan will depend on location, goals and legal sector. As a platform for sharing engaging content, Instagram is a great creative addition to any law firm social media campaign. 

Snapchat

Snapchat works by sharing instant messages and images, and has over 363 million daily active users. The mobile app provides opportunities for advertising a law firm on social media, as well as organic content. 

The focus on instant updates, filters and stickers makes Snapchat a particularly informal social media platform. It can generate dynamic and unusual ideas for a law firm social media strategy and may be a useful platform for advertising.

Should Law Firms do Paid Social Media Ads & Promotion?

Twitter Paid Ads 

Like most social media channels, Twitter offers a variety of ad options, from promoting single tweets to a relevant audience, to taking over the feed with sponsored hashtags. It also allows video ads, carousels and what Twitter calls ‘moments’, a curation of tweets promoted to a select audience. Twitter’s targeting is quite detailed allowing choice of gender, age, location and interests as well as the ability to use follower lookalikes. Twitter can make a cheaper alternative to search advertising and allows great targeting but its campaign management and reporting means it can be difficult to demonstrate return on investment as easily.

Facebook Paid Ads 

Facebook is the go-to channel for paid social for a lot of businesses due to its massive reach and huge variety of advertising opportunities including carousels, sponsored posts, video, images, stories and more.  It also allows dual posting across Instagram at the same time. In terms of targeting, Facebook allows a high level of targeting users based on a range of demographics and interests as well as lookalike audiences. What this means though, is that it becomes an art and it can be quite easy to build a campaign that misfires because targeting has not been implemented correctly. They also have a lot of rules. One bonus though, is if you use the Meta Business Suite you can easily add your digital agency as a user to support with this.

LinkedIn Paid Ads 

LinkedIn has one of the highest average cost-per-click of any social media channel and more recently has been moving towards a more Facebook-like advertising model by using in-feed advertising. Currently, the platform allows sponsored in-feed posts as image, video, carousels and more. LinkedIn also offers the opportunity to send sponsored InMail which can be an effective way to reach a specific audience and can be sent as an individual, not just as a business. This means rather than your firm advertising services, a managing partner could directly contact targets with marketing supported private messages. 

TikTok Paid Ads 

Still the new kid on the block with paid social, TikTok is slowly upping its game although it’s still more common to use influencer marketing than direct paid ads on the platform and paid ads of any kind tend to be reserved for big brands with big budgets. That being said, if TikTok forms a central part of your organic strategy then there is an opportunity to dovetail it with some paid activity which will likely be more effective once you have an organic following.

Instagram Paid Ads 

Not just celebrities selling vitamin supplements – Instagram ads allow you to cut through the clutter and get your firm in front of people. But you’re going to have to work hard to get them to engage. Engagement rates for ads on Instagram are lower than other platforms and the demographic is very different to other platforms too. Similar to TikTok, Instagram ads work well if they stand out, are creative and if the firm already has an organic following.

Bonus Content: Additional Tips & Considerations for Law Firms on Social Media

• Keep an eye on calendars and have a proactive strategy – you should be planning topical content 2-3 months in advance if possible, be it Christmas, a law change or a landmark public case.
• Utilise tools that align with your aims/needs – There are endless tools to help up your business’ social media game, from cross-platform posts to performance monitoring. Here are some of Legmark’s favourites:
  • Sproutsocial – a powerful social media management tool, curate posts across social channels, analyse the results and even look at what your competitors are doing
  • Canva – quickly and easily create social media graphics and much more, with very little effort. You can even use a handful of crafted templates and match them to your brand colours.
  • BuzzSumo – a one-stop social media research shop. Find the best performing content by keyword and help build your firm’s content strategy.
• Ensure your staff are comfortable being used on social media or tagged in posts – Respect their wishes.
• If your staff have personal social channels they use for work, remember they belong to them. Ensure it is reflected where needed their views are their own and not of the entire business.
• Try to keep your branding the same across all platforms.
• Don’t feel like you have to be on every platform either. Although platforms like TikTok are popular and have potential customers as users, the content you’d need to create to appeal to that audience is drastically different to what you’d need for other platforms. It would be great to run a creative campaign building a video shorts library of legal advice aimed at the general population, but how much new business is that time/budget really going to result in vs a modest ad spend on Facebook?
• Post at a rate you are comfortable with, even if only 1-2 times a week – Don’t force yourself to post for the sake of frequency. On the flip side, don’t let your platforms turn into a graveyard with no posts for over 2 years either!
• In relation to the last point, if you decide a platform is no longer worth using, debate whether you archive/delete the account – If it is driving no value a graveyard page could drive down brand sentiment/trust.
• HAVE FUN! The hint is in the name “social media” – Most users are there to engage and learn outside of life commitments. Sales pitches get less engagement than interesting and enticing content.

If you’re looking to build your law firm social media campaign, Legmark is a one-stop-shop for digital expertise and legal sector knowledge. Contact us for more information