Raising Your Profile: The Value of Social Media Marketing

Social media is now more than just a nice addition to your online presence – it’s a must have.

It does more than allow you to update your clients about your firm. Social media is now a customer service channel, a way of boosting your firm’s credibility and an avenue through which you can market your firm.

In today’s landscape, it’s almost impossible to pursue a digital marketing strategy without including social media.

The advantages of social media

Using social media effectively can have numerous benefits. It lets you amplify your firm’s brand awareness, raising your profile to people who may not be familiar with your firm. With the right links to your site, your social profiles can boost your traffic and potentially help you capture more leads.

It also gives you the opportunity to get involved in discussions on topics you specialise in, highlighting your expertise and credibility to everyone else present.

Don’t forget that social media is more than just Twitter and Facebook. Your LinkedIn profile can help you connect with professional clients and colleagues, giving you the chance to showcase your insights and set your firm’s solicitors up as industry thought leaders.

We’ve put together some tips to help you get the most out of your social media accounts.

• Be consistent

Posting consistently will help you stay in front of people and give more people the chance to come across your profile. Creating a social media calendar is a good way of ensuring you’ll always have something to post about and avoid repeating the same types of content.

• Don’t always avoid controversy

If a controversial topic is trending and it’s about one of your service areas, you could gain publicity by getting involved. You can help educate users by explaining the legal facts of the matter. However, be careful of the riskier subjects because you don’t want to get in hot water.

• Highlight your profiles

Use your website to link back to your social media accounts. You can also include links in your email signature and social sharing badges to your site content. When visitors share your pages, their followers see it, giving you a wider audience.

• Make a plan

Before you start posting, you should think about what you want to achieve with your social media accounts. Set some goals and create a roadmap setting out how you’re going to reach them. This will help keep all stakeholders on the same page and give you a framework to adhere to.

• Monitor the right metrics

Ensure you’re looking at the right metrics when evaluating performance. Your follower count may be important to your firm but the priority is the kind of engagement that will help your bottom line. What’s your link click-through rate? Which pages are visitors landing on through social? How do your results change over time?

• Optimise your profiles

Set your profiles up to give you the best chance of success. Keep your bios and imagery consistent across all accounts so there’s no dissonance and people can easily recognise an account as yours. Explain succinctly what you can offer and make sure you’re linking back to the most relevant section of your website.

• React quickly

Social media may give your firm a platform to share its views, but it does the same for your clients. If they use social media to share any negative views or complaints, react quickly and appropriately. Take them seriously and make them feel like you want to help reach a satisfactory resolution.

• Showcase your team

Your team members can give your firm a sense of personality and warmth – hugely helpful if your clients are dealing with something potentially upsetting, like a personal injury claim. Showcasing the people behind the brand can help potential clients form a connection with your firm.

• Use the right platforms

Who you want to target will influence your decisions on which platforms to focus your time on. If you’re looking to target younger first-time buyers for your conveyancing services, you might want to look into Instagram, while Facebook and its increasing amount of older users could be a better match for your probate and Will services.