Getting Started
Before you start posting to your blog or social media, consider why legal consumers go to law firm’s social profiles. FindLaw’s research indicates that legal consumers on social media want to:
- Know that you are an expert in your area of law.
- Get to know your firm.
- See that you care about your community.
FindLaw provides services that focus primarily on that first objective by demonstrating your expertise in your practice area. But only you can truly give legal consumers what they’re looking for in terms of getting to know your law firm and demonstrating your connection to the community.
Engaging Your Potential Clients
With just a few minutes each day, or 15 minutes once a week, you can make a powerful impact on your firm’s social media success. Here are some recommendations for how to spend just 5 minutes each day building your brand on social media.
Day 1: Post an update to your professional social profiles about something going on in your firm. This could be something like thanking your employees for attending the firm holiday party, a personal update about a staff member such as a new baby or wedding, or letting people know that you’ll be sponsoring a local charitable event.
Day 2: Post a link to something you find professionally interesting on your social profiles. This could be a news article discussing recent legislation, or a colleague’s latest published work. Be sure to include a brief description of your take on the link you’re publishing.
Day 3: Check for reviews of your law firm on Google+, Facebook and other review sites. Respond to any new reviews. Not sure how to respond, be sure to check out FindLaw’s review management guidelines.
Day 4: Post another relevant update from your firm. Try asking yourself one of these questions, and then post the answer:
- What happened yesterday that my law school friends would find interesting?
- How many clients have I helped in the last month? How did I make their lives better?
- What’s going on in the news that relates to my practice? What’s my opinion about that news?
Day 5: Comment on a social post that you find interesting. Be sure to comment from your professional page, not your personal one. Keep your comment professional, but don’t be afraid to provide an opinion. Consider responding to posts about recent news stories or even other law firm’s analysis of a certain situation.
The great thing about this posting schedule is that you can repeat it each week without any of your post becoming stale.
If you’d rather spend 15 minutes once during the week, rather than commit to posting every day, try writing one post for each day, and then schedule them to publish throughout the week. The Social Media Training page includes a video that describes how to schedule posts out.