Should my law firm be on TikTok? What is Threads? Is it too late to create a Facebook page for my law firm? Have you heard of that new platform, FriendFrame?
OK, FriendFrame doesn’t exist … yet.
According to American Bar Association data, most law firms (89%) have an existing social media presence. Most firms that use social media are on LinkedIn (87%) and Facebook (62%), and about a third of firms (38%) are on X, formerly Twitter.
Whether you are considering launching a social media account to support your law firm’s client development efforts or are looking to expand to new platforms, it is essential to consider how a social media platform would add value to your firm’s marketing strategy.
Four Questions to Ask About Social Media Marketing
When assessing the effectiveness of a social media platform, a few clarifying questions can help you decide if it is worth the time needed to nurture an impactful social media presence.
Here are four questions to ask before launching a social media account for your law practice.
- What Is My Primary Goal on Social Media, and How Will I Measure Success?
When defining your social media goals, remember that the public looks to social media primarily as a source of connection, entertainment and information. According to a recent survey, the top reasons people use social media include keeping in touch with friends and family, filling spare time, and reading news stories.
However, more consumers are also using social media as a search engine: 31% use social media to find answers to their questions, and 15% prefer to search on social media over traditional search engines like Google or Bing.
While “find a lawyer” may not be listed as a top social media search term, individual lawyers and law firms have the same opportunity as other entities to create and distribute content that provides the information audiences are searching for.
For example, your primary goal may be to increase awareness of the services your firm provides locally and, therefore, increase potential client inquiries. Or, perhaps you are hoping to position yourself as a “legal thought leader” who creates content that offers a personal perspective on legal issues in the news or educates fellow lawyers on innovations in legal practice.
Even if your answer is a little of both, it will help inform what platforms you use (more on this later) and how you measure success.
Either way, define clear metrics to help determine if your social media efforts support your goal. Then, establish methods for tracking and evaluating these metrics. For example, you may focus on high impressions on your posts (which may lead to increased brand awareness) or website traffic originating from your posts (which may lead to more lead generation).
Social media platforms provide basic analytics, while tools like Hootsuite, SproutSocial and Google Analytics can supplement your data analysis.
- Is My Primary Audience on This Platform?
Nearly every demographic has some representation among the 5 billion worldwide social media users. Each of these users engages with about seven social media platforms per month. But what platform will help you reach your goals?
Some platforms, like TikTok (whose largest age group among its 900 million monthly users is 18 to 24 years old), may not immediately seem like a fit for an attorney hoping to raise awareness of their services in the local business community.
However, diverse and niche communities of all ages, genders and backgrounds exist on most social media platforms. That’s why research is vital.
Let’s say you are a lawyer looking to grow your firm, which focuses on business formation, contracts, employment, and dispute resolution. When researching potential social media platforms on which to engage, you may consider if the social media platform has an active community of small businesses in your area, your local chamber of commerce or entrepreneurship-oriented groups. These organizations and their members may naturally support your practice, so they are ideal users to start following and engaging with.
You can also consider searching for hashtags that are used locally (e.g., your city’s name) and filtering search results to display only local people or organizations so you can gauge the number of users in your designated audience.
If you are hoping to build a more education-focused thought leadership presence, consider searching for trending topics and hashtags related to the topic you want to discuss (e.g., #LegalTech) to see if there are active discussions on the platform.
It may be more difficult to determine an emerging platform’s audience. Consider subscribing to a newsletter like Social Media Today, which provides updates about new social media platforms.
- What Type of Content Do Users Want to See on This Platform?
According to Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Media Consumer Report, which surveyed 6,026 people aged 18–64 from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia on social media preferences, 56% of users said they prefer content that tells or teaches something new, 55% want content that makes them laugh, and 47% prefer content that inspires them.
Here are some examples of how law firms are using social media to do this:
- West Coast Lemons (@westcoastlemons on TikTok), a lemon law firm in California, shares video content on TikTok that is relevant to its audience: car owners. The firm leverages content on this topic to demonstrate its lawyers’ expertise in the firm’s practice area without directly advertising their services. Their videos include Q&As on the most reliable cars, cars the employees would never buy, recent car buying trends, and more general content like jumping on the Lawyer Barbie trend. The firm also includes a disclaimer in its video captions that says the content is not legal advice.
- Price Benowitz LLP (@pricebenowitz on TikTok), a criminal and personal injury law firm in Washington, D.C., educates users on best practices for navigating things like workers’ compensation cases and personal injury claims through short videos featuring firm lawyers. It also humanizes its lawyers and showcases office culture through videos of office dogs (“pawtners”) and employee outings.
- The Law Office of Erin Wilson, a divorce and family law firm in Chicago, uses photos in almost all of its posts, which does great on most social media platforms (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook). The photos are a mix of infographics, testimonial quote graphics and seasonal elements, which are used to educate readers on how the firm’s services can cater to their lives. The firm also includes photos of the law firm’s employees engaging in community events, illustrating a human side of the firm and building credibility locally.
- What Content Format Does Best on This Social Media Platform (And Can I Create It)?
How you format the content you post will depend on each social media platform’s design and the content you can feasibly create with your law firm’s resources.
According to the 2024 Hubspot Social Media Trends Report, short-form video (or a video about five to 90 seconds in length) is the most popular format of posts among Gen Z, millennials and Gen X, in general, but especially for TikTok and Instagram reels.
However, long videos and text- or photo-based posts may also perform well depending on the platform. For example, on Facebook, photo posts earn the most engagement; on LinkedIn, posts that include a question or an infographic often earn the most engagement.
Additionally, authentic and relatable content typically outperforms highly produced or overly promotional content on social media. While this applies broadly to social media, some platforms, like LinkedIn, may value a more professional tone.
A Few Tips for Creating Content
Once you commit to joining a social media platform, determine the resources you will need to consistently create new, engaging and informative content for your audience. Using a content calendar to ensure you have a plan for posting (at least once a week) will set expectations among your audience and help retain their following.
There are several simple tools available that enable you to create eye-catching graphics, edit videos, build a schedule for social media posts, and support idea generation for content. Try Canva for graphic design, CapCut for video editing, Hootsuite or SproutSocial for scheduling, and Google Trends and generative AI tools like ChatGPT for idea generation.
If you determine that you can’t commit to creating consistent, engaging content yet, you may still want to “reserve” a space on the platform for your law firm.
Create a profile with your law firm’s name, and fill out the relevant fields with contact information, your website and a short description of your services.
This way, your information will be available to those who use social media as a search engine, and your law firm username will be available to you if you want to begin posting on that platform.
So, Should I Join the Next Big Social Media Platform?
If you can successfully answer the questions above, you have the beginnings of a social media strategy that will lay a solid foundation for any platform you choose to join.
The world of social media will continue to evolve rapidly, but staying true to your target audience and goals will help you approach each new platform with a consistent, strong presence for your law firm.
Written by Marin McCall, Originally posted on Attorney At Work.