If you or your family law firm are not active on social media, you are missing a massive opportunity to promote your brand, drive potential clients to your website, and increase engagement. Here’s what you must know about social media marketing in 2021.
By Cathy Meyer, Social Media Expert
- Benefit’s of Social Media
- How to Start Using Social Media
- Get the Basics Right
Some family lawyers overlook the power of social media when contemplating marketing strategies for their family law firm. The thought of constantly tweeting, posting to Facebook or LinkedIn, liking, and sharing can seem time-consuming and low-priority, so it’s easy to dismiss the importance of social media. However, that dismissal could be a big mistake for your business.
With 72% of the public using some type of social media, family lawyers who are not utilizing social media are missing out on a large pool of potential clients. Even worse, as more and more of your colleagues move to integrate social strategies into their marketing plans, being a social media resistor could leave you looking outdated to prospective clients – if they even find you at all.
4 Ways Social Media Can Benefit Your Family Law Firm
Establishing your authority in the family law space on social media will direct online traffic and attract new clients to your firm. If it’s done right, social media can be an invaluable marketing tool for lawyers. Here are a few ways that social media marketing can help your family law practice.
1. Create Brand Awareness
People are spending more time on social media: 44% of consumers have reported an increase in personal social media usage. So a strong social presence helps you get your message in front of a larger audience and increase awareness of your family law practice.
2. Engage Your Target Audience
People use social media to not only connect with their friends and relatives but also to consume content and engage with brands and services. This makes it a valuable platform to engage your target audience and turn them into prospective clients. The right kind of content will get you the right kind of clients.
3. Attract Prospective Clients
Social media is highly effective for law firms to attract new clients. The American Bar Association found that 35% of lawyers who use social media professionally have been able to gain new clients as a result. Additionally, 49% of respondents in the previously cited Attorney at Work Survey have also been able to get new clients through social media.
4. Establish Thought Leadership
One of the reasons social media has been effective for attracting prospective clients is because it helps you showcase your expertise. You can use it to share valuable information that will help you prove your credibility and win the trust of your target client.
Where Do You Start? 7 Social Media Tips for Family Lawyers
Hopefully, you are now convinced that social media marketing is essential for family lawyers who want to grow the practices. If you wish to take care of it yourself, there will be a learning curve and it will take time, effort, and a small amount of money. If you go with an experienced team of family law social media marketing experts, it will require little time and effort on your part, but you will spend more money. No matter which route you choose, you truly cannot afford to miss out on this platform to market your services. Here are some of the essential ways to get started using social media for family lawyers.
1. Get the Basics Right
On every social media platform, you need to start with the basics. This includes:
- Choosing the right social media platform(s) for you. You might want to start out slow by focusing on the platform your target audience uses the most.1
- Creating a well-designed company page (not a personal page) that echos your website. Make sure to fully populate it with contact information, company/service description, and information about your practice areas.
- Setting realistic, specific, and measurable goals. For example, “Increase client acquisition by 10% within six months.”
- Knowing what you want to get out of your social media marketing efforts. Do you want to increase brand visibility? Maybe you want to attract new clients, or perhaps you just want to engage your target audience. Have a clear idea of what you wish to achieve through social media marketing.
- the power of social media What kind of content will you create? How often will you post?
2. Share Original Graphics with Useful Facts and Stats
Images play a critical role in social media marketing as most readers look at images before deciding whether to read the text. So your social content strategy should focus on creating visuals that will immediately attract and engage your prospects.
You can share inspirational quotes, useful tips for potential clients, state-specific legal information, and industry updates through original graphics that stand out. This is especially important if you’re going to use image-heavy platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
3. Monitor Conversations About Your Firm
One of the main uses of social media for lawyers is “brand listening.” You can conduct branded keyword searches on social media to look for content and conversations about your firm. This is a great way to understand what people are saying about you and how they might be feeling – for better or for worse.
You can even identify conversations where you can weigh in and demonstrate expertise, such as finding news and discussion about topics that are most relevant to your practice. If there is a controversy in the legal space, being aware of social conversations can also help you avoid being caught off-guard or getting negative PR.
You’ll be able to monitor these conversations in real-time and identify trending topics in your area. This can help you to gain valuable audience insights and to take the right action at the right moment.
4. Create Informative YouTube Videos
Informative YouTube videos are also a vital element in social media marketing for lawyers. Videos not only make your information much easier to understand but also allow you to inject your personality into the content. This makes them a lot more engaging than other content formats.
Plus, you’ll be appealing to the huge portion of the audience that prefers to consume video over text content. Make sure you regularly create YouTube videos to explain relevant topics, tell interesting stories, and discuss trending topics. You could even conduct interviews with industry thought leaders and use their clout to attract new viewers.
5. Share Valuable Blog Posts and News Updates
The best way to use social media for family law firms is to create engaging content that informs, rather than solely promotional content; relevant “edutainment” will win you more potential clients than a 10-page CV. The more credible and valuable information you provide, the better you’ll be able to showcase your expertise.
For example, potential divorce clients are likely going to want to know about basic divorce proceedings as they decide whether or not to hire a lawyer for the process, so start by outlining how the process works in your state.
There are hundreds of questions a potential client may have about the process of divorce and their specific case. You can use social media to reach those clients by sharing questions and answers common to most divorce proceedings, such as how long divorce will take, how assets are divided, how spousal or child support is awarded, what happens if you can’t agree on custody, and many other matters.
If you want more custody cases or high net worth clients, for example, then your posts should appeal directly to this audience.
When looking for a family lawyer, potential customers won’t make a decision about where to take their business based solely on your resumé. They probably came to your website to read a specific FAQ or blog post; if they find it useful, they will probably read another or watch a video before clicking on your attorney profile page.
It is crucial to share informative blog posts and the latest industry news with your social media followers regularly – at least daily (once a week/month just won’t cut it). And don’t limit yourself to content from your own website or blog: make a habit of sharing content from other relevant sources and reputable industry blogs, such as those written by the financial or mental-health professionals you recommend to clients.
6. Respond to Comments and Queries
Social media provides you with a platform to build connections and engage with your audience. People going through divorce and those looking to hire a lawyer feel like everything is an emergency, so they appreciate/demand prompt responses.
7. Hire Someone to Plan/Design/Post Your Social Media for You
Our experience shows that family law firms have been slow to embrace social media in their marketing because they have neither the time nor the marketing expertise to handle it.
A social media marketing firm specializing in family law will manage your social media accounts, update content, and track the results, leaving you free to focus on your practice.
They will leverage social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram. Family law social media marketing experts can create and manage a campaign that builds confidence by communicating your firm’s character and reputation to potential clients. When put in the hands of an experienced social media marketing expert who understands family law, popular social networking channels can become powerful tools for boosting your online reputation, running targeted paid advertising campaigns, and connecting with prospective clients.
If you or your family law firm are not active on social media, you are missing a massive opportunity to promote your brand, drive potential clients to your website, and increase engagement.
FAQs About Family Lawyers and Social Media
What happens when family lawyers don’t use social media?
First off they miss out on potential clients. There is a wide client base that can be reached by engaging on social media. Few family law attorneys put much thought into marketing and branding themselves and when they do that, they are standing in the way of their firm and their good reputation growing.
How does social media benefit family law attorneys?
As I said above, the number one way social media benefits family law attorneys are by bringing in prospective clients. There are other ways, though.
Social media brings awareness to attorneys and their knowledge about family law. When an attorney uses social media to his/her advantage they are showing prospective clients what areas they specialize in, how much knowledge they have of family law in general.
Using social media is like having a consultation with a client without having to meet face-to-face. Social media is highly effective for targeting prospective clients and shining a positive light on family law attorneys.
Where should a family lawyer start when it comes to social media?
They can either dive in feet first and take care of their own social media. Or, they can hire a marketing firm to do their social media for them.
Are there specific things family law attorneys should do once they start using social media?
Below is a list of the basic things that should be done if you’re using social media to prospect for clients and build your reputation.
- Share original graphics
- Create and share original videos
- Write and share blog posts and updates about family law
- ALWAYS respond to comments and queries on posts
1 Pew Research Center surveyed 1,502 U.S. adults from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8, 2021, to create “Social Media Use in 2021“, weighting the survey to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, education. According to this survey, the two most popular social media sites are YouTube and Facebook.
“… a vast majority of adults under the age of 65 say they use YouTube. Fully 95% of those 18 to 29 say they use the platform, along with 91% of those 30 to 49 and 83% of adults 50 to 64. However, this share drops substantially – to 49% – among those 65 and older.
“By comparison, age gaps between the youngest and oldest Americans are narrower for Facebook. Fully 70% of those ages 18 to 29 say they use the platform, and those shares are statistically the same for those ages 30 to 49 (77%) or ages 50 to 64 (73%). Half of those 65 and older say they use the site – making Facebook and YouTube the two most used platforms among this older population.”
Cathy Meyer is the Social Media Director at Divorce Marketing Group and the Managing Editor of DivorcedMoms.com. Before joining Divorce Marketing Group, she spent 11 years as a content curator, editor, and social media marketing expert for The New York Times. She is certified by The New York Times in both Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. www.divorcemarketinggroup.com
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