Social media presents personal injury attorneys with a wealth of opportunities to expand their practice and connect with clients.
Getting started with social media for lawyers can be challenging, but a well-executed strategy can unlock the door to long-term success. Attorneys can harness social media for brand building, to generate leads, and even increase website visitors.
Social Media for Lawyers Guide
What Are the Best Social Media Platforms for Lawyers?
When you approach social media with a clear understanding of its purpose and a well-defined target audience, you're on the path to success.
By recognizing who you want to reach and your goals, you'll be better prepared to maximize your online presence and reach your ideal clients.
Identify Your Target Audience & Platform
One common mistake lawyers make in marketing their firm online is trying to be everything to everyone across all platforms.
This approach often leads to inconsistency and diluted messaging because most lawyers just try to copy and paste their content across every platform. Failing to realize that you need to create the type of content people want to consume, and those vary from platform to platform.
Without a full team of marketers to back you, consistently posting the right type of content across every platform is just too time-consuming.
Focus on the One Platform Where Your Audience Is Most Active
Start by asking yourself what demographics you're targeting and what pain points you can address. The answers will guide you in choosing the right platform and tailoring your content to your target audience.
Different social media platforms attract different kinds of users. Find out what the top performers like you are doing that resonates with their audience (they don't have to be direct competitors).
- Where do they post content?
- What medium(s) do they use (text, image, video, etc.)?
- How often do they post content?
- What does their top-performing content all have in common?
Knowing this can help guide your own decisions and provide a foundation for your own unique and effective approach to social media marketing.
Don't be afraid to try different types of content until you figure out what works. Just don't try it across multiple platforms.
Setting Up Your Social Media Accounts
Setting up your social media profiles is the first impression you'll make on potential clients, colleagues, and anyone seeking legal expertise. Whether it's LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or your personal Facebook page, your profile must exude professionalism and credibility. Here's how to establish a solid foundation for your social media channels:
Tips for Creating Professional Profiles
Whether you're creating a personal account or a business page for your law firm, you should make it personable. Use a high-quality, professional headshot. This isn't the place for casual selfies or group photos. A professional photo conveys trustworthiness and authority. You can also utilize the cover photo space to further illustrate your brand. This could be the law firm's logo, a high-resolution image of the office, or something symbolic of your practice area.
Wherever possible, use a consistent and professional username (ideally your name or your law firm's name) across all your social media platforms. Consistency across platforms helps with brand recognition.
Messaging & Brand Consistency
Craft a clear and concise bio that highlights your expertise, practice areas, and what sets you apart. For instance, “Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer in Boston specializing in car accidents, medical malpractice, and wrongful death cases.”
This should go without saying, but make sure your contact information, such as email address, phone number, and office address, is easy to find and up-to-date. Most platforms allow you to add a direct link to your website.
Include links to your firm's website, your LinkedIn profile, notable publications, or any other relevant professional profiles. This enhances the credibility of your law firm and offers a pathway for visitors to learn more about your legal practice.
What to Include in Your Bio to Attract Prospective Clients
Include keywords relevant to your practice area to improve searchability. Think about the terms potential clients might use to find a lawyer like you.
You should also maximize your digital real estate by highlighting any awards, certifications, and significant cases. Mention your years of experience and any specialties within your practice area.
Use your bio to subtly communicate empathy and client-centered service. Phrases like “dedicated to advocating for...” or “committed to providing personalized legal solutions...” can resonate well. A brief mission statement or tagline can also succinctly communicate your firm's ethos. Something like “Your trusted partner in navigating complex legal landscapes” can provide a professional and personal touch.
Common Mistakes That Lawyers Make in Social Media Marketing
With those basics out of the way, it's crucial to recognize common mistakes to avoid in your social media marketing efforts.
Addressing these pitfalls can help you streamline your approach and strengthen your law firm's online presence.
Struggling with Being Too Formal or Informal
Many lawyers struggle to find the right level of formality when they start posting on social media.
Lawyers spend a lot of time writing formal legal documents that require a certain tone of voice. Once you're in that groove, it's hard to break out of it. But that's not how writing for people on social media works.
Steer clear of legal jargon, opting for relatable language instead. Unless you are defining a term to educate your audience, you're better off using a simpler term. Incorporating personal stories from time to time can also help you connect with your audience.
Your target audience's preferences also play a part in determining how formal you should be.
You can find the right balance by experimenting with your posting style. Pay attention to reactions to your posts and social media engagement metrics. When you start getting attention from the type of people you want as clients, you're getting closer to an effective communication style for your audience.
Posting Content Inconsistently
Maintaining a consistent posting schedule can lead to more potential clients and improved visibility. The more frequently they're exposed to your content, the more familiar they'll be with who you are and what you do.
Sticking to one social media platform at first can help since you'll only have to worry about posting there.
To further avoid falling into inconsistency, use social scheduling tools. Many social platforms have native scheduling features that allow you to add posts in bulk to post on specific dates. If that's not enough, third-party tools like Hootsuite and Buffer may be more useful.
By scheduling your posts, you'll have a regular flow of content even when you're too busy to post manually.
Focusing on Selling, Not Educating
One of the biggest mistakes personal injury attorneys make on social media is concentrating on self-promotion and selling their legal services.
People turn to social media to connect with friends, be entertained, or learn. They don't join social networks to be sold to. Attorneys who focus their content on their own services, achievements, and set themselves up for disappointment.
Lawyers who create educational videos and entertaining content their audience cares about will see greater success.
To improve your law firm's brand, should shift your focus to educating your ideal client. Create content that addresses common concerns, explains legal processes, and offers legal tips to attract clients closer to the top of the funnel. Save your bottom of the funnel messaging for targeted ads.
Steps to Launch a Strong Social Media Presence
With those common pitfalls in mind, you're ready for social media success.
Following the steps below, you'll be on your way to implementing a targeted social media strategy.
Step 1: Determine Your Social Media Goals
Defining clear social media goals is crucial for personal injury attorneys.
To start, outline the primary objectives for your social media marketing campaign.
For example, your goal might be generating awareness and demand with potential clients. Or it may be developing a referral network with other lawyers.
Regardless of your goal, it should follow the SMART framework. Goals that stand up to these criteria are more likely to be well-defined and actionable.
Once you have established your goals, you'll need key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and measure your progress.
KPIs for social media can include metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, website traffic, and lead conversions. Reviewing your KPIs during your campaign allows you to make adjustments to your tactics. Doing so helps you stay on track to achieve the goals you set.
Step 2: Create a Content Strategy
A well-defined content strategy allows personal injury attorneys to consistently deliver relevant, engaging, and valuable content to their audience.
To get started, sit down over the course of a weekend and put together 40 posts that all revolve around 4-5 strong opinions you have about your field that you think your audience should know.
Once you do that, you have 40 days of content. And you can reuse them in the future by saying the same thing again but in a different way.
Next, develop a content calendar to plan and schedule your social media posts.
Make sure your content strategy aligns with your social media goals and includes a mix of content types. To cater to your audience's preferences, this includes formats like text posts (without linking to your blog posts), infographics, videos, and podcasts.
Finally, maintain a balance between promotional and educational content.
To build a stable following, aim for a ratio of 1:10 in favor of educational content. Remember, people don't use social media to be sold to. Bombarding them with promotional content will overwhelm them and turn them away.
By offering the kind of content they care about, you can better connect with your audience and improve the chances of them remembering you when they need help.
Step 3: Join an Accountability Cohort of Other Professionals
Professional networking with an accountability cohort can help you stay consistent with your publishing cadence.
As our good friends over at Ship30 say, “Writing alone is hard. Writing with a community is easy.” Don't be surprised when you make some unexpected lifelong friendships as a byproduct, either. Time and time again, we've heard cohort members of Ship30 say, “I came for the writing, but I stayed for the community.”
To find a legal community, seek out online groups, forums, or professional organizations.
Look for groups where personal injury attorneys gather to discuss social media marketing strategies, challenges, and successes. You can find groups like this on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or dedicated legal forums.
Simple Upgrades to Turn Followers into Paying Clients
While you establish your social media presence, you'll continuously refine your social media marketing strategies. To accelerate your growth, you might consider some of these options.
Use Live Events to Fuel Your Content Engine
Law firms can use live events, such as webinars, workshops, community involvement, and Q&A sessions as content sources for their social channels.
Using content from events creates a steady stream of material to share with your audience. Turning live events into short video posts or as seeds for future content can save you time and resources. It also provides opportunities for real-time interaction with potential clients.
This can help attorneys demonstrate their expertise while learning more about their audience's wants and needs.
To implement this strategy, start by identifying topics relevant to your audience and organize live events around those themes.
After the event, reframe the ideas you talked about into various formats. Live events can fuel content types like video clips, infographics, and text posts. Consider using event highlights to further engage your audience and as a source for new content ideas.
Don't Be Afraid of Getting Controversial
Tackling controversial topics can help personal injury attorneys stand out from their competitors.
By presenting well-reasoned arguments and fostering open discussions, law firms and attorneys can demonstrate their thought leadership and create a strong online presence. By differentiating yourself from other law firms, you can spark meaningful conversations and encourage audience engagement.
Asking thought-provoking questions can stimulate dialogue and encourage your audience to share their opinions.
Possible controversial topics for personal injury attorneys could include:
- The impact of tort reform on personal injury cases
- The role of social media in personal injury cases
- The ethics of aggressive advertising in the legal industry
- The pros and cons of settling out of court versus going to trial
You can create content that encourages audience interaction by carefully presenting your stance on controversial issues. At the same time, law firms can showcase their expertise and approach to the law.
Partner with Other Influential People
Collaborating with well-known people in the legal industry or related fields can help law firms grow their own social media audiences.
When you collaborate with others, you can expand your reach, enhance your credibility, and gain access to their audiences. These partnerships can improve brand awareness and lead to new followers, more clients, and an increase in referrals.
To establish a collaboration, identify influential people who share your target audience and have complementary expertise.
Once you've found some potential partners, reach out to them with a collaboration proposal, such as for a legal podcast interview or to co-host a live event with you. If the partnership aligns with both of your social media goals, you have a new avenue to create fresh content for your audience.
You don't have to limit yourself to only contacting other legal professionals. Possible collaborators might include:
- Doctors
- Physical therapists
- Chiropractors
- Mental health professionals
- Insurance experts
For example, law firms might collaborate with a medical expert on a joint webinar discussing the impact of personal injuries on mental health. Or they could write a guest post on a popular legal website to share insights on emerging trends in personal injury law. Another idea could be collaborating with a former insurance adjuster to help your audience understand the tactics used by insurance companies after a car accident.
Best Practices Moving Forward
The simple upgrades aren't the only thing that can elevate your marketing efforts. There are a few best practices that can help you establish and build a lasting presence on social media.
Stay Up-to-Date on Legal and Social Trends
Social media — and lawyers' relationship to it — is in a constant state of change. If you want to succeed in marketing yourself on social media, you'll need to keep track of your audience's habits and needs. You'll also want to stay current with the rules for advertising your law firm.
Sometimes, a new social app emerges (like Instagram Threads), and people flock to it.
Think about the rapid growth of TikTok. It went from a niche app to having over a billion people on the platform in just a few years.
People moving to a new platform can be an opportunity for law firms. It may open up new types of content that wouldn't have worked on older services. Your audience could be more receptive to your messaging on the new platform.
It's not just emerging apps to look out for, either.
Social media algorithms change often, and so do people's tastes. If you find that some types of content no longer perform, it may be time to adjust your tactics.
By keeping an eye open for changes, you can decide whether you need to shift with people's habits.
Ethical Considerations and Social Media Advertising
Lawyers also need to consider their ethical responsibilities on social media. While attorney advertising rules don't change as often as social media platforms, it does happen sometimes.
Make sure that the marketing material that you put out into the world complies with your bar association's rules and steers clear of potential ethics violations. Some states have very strict rules on what they consider advertising. Knowing what those rules are ensures that your marketing efforts are both effective and ethical.
Create a Social Media Workflow that Works for You
Maintaining an effective social media presence isn't a set-and-forget activity. Some law firms utilize content calendars to plan and organize posts, but inevitably, your social media efforts will also likely require manual tuning and activity to remain relevant.
Example of a Social Media Lead Generation Workflow
Daily Tasks:
- Check and respond to comments and messages.
- Monitor mentions and reviews.
- Post real-time content or news updates.
Weekly Tasks:
- Review analytics to track progress.
- Engage with industry groups and relevant content.
- Schedule posts for the upcoming week.
Monthly Tasks:
- Conduct a comprehensive review of your social media performance.
- Adjust your content strategy and ad campaigns based on analytics insights.
- Plan major content themes or campaigns for the following month.
By actively managing and monitoring your social media presence, you ensure that your organic efforts remain effective and aligned with your firm's objectives. This diligence helps maintain a professional image, foster meaningful client relationships, and ultimately drive the growth of your practice.
How to Track Your Performance and Adjust Your Tactics
Getting started with social media marketing takes some experimentation. Over time, you'll figure out what's working and what isn't. Tracking your performance will allow you to get a handle on this faster than a trial-and-error approach and ensure that your social media efforts yield results and your online reputation remains stellar. Here's how to keep your social media activities in check:
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
If you set your KPIs at the outset, this is where they'll come into play. Determine the KPIs that matter most for your practice, such as engagement rate, follower growth, click-through rate (CTR), and conversions. Regularly review these metrics to gauge your social media performance and ROI from your digital marketing efforts.
Built-In Platform Analytics
Each popular social media platform offers built-in analytics tools to monitor your performance. Use Facebook Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, Twitter Analytics, and Instagram Insights to track engagement, reach, and follower demographics. You can also use Google Analytics to understand how your social media traffic converts on your website and correlates with search rankings. Track which social accounts are driving the most traffic and which pages users are visiting.
Third-Party Social Media Management Tools
Social media tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social provide more comprehensive analytics and allow you to manage multiple social media accounts from a single dashboard.
By tracking metrics like engagement rates and follower growth, you can start to assess how effective your posts are. Social media apps have built-in analytics features you can use for these data-driven insights. If that's not enough, you can use third-party tools like Sprout Social or (on LinkedIn) Shield App. They offer insights on engagement rates, the best times to create social media posts and the effectiveness of your content and paid ads.
But insights from analytics software aren't the only tool at your disposal.
Any new or prospective clients that come to you can give you valuable insights, too. For instance, you can add a field to your contact form asking anyone who submits it how and where they found you. If you start to see a trend in people citing social media as a source, you'll have a better idea of your actual performance.
Going over the data will show you patterns, trends, and areas of success or weakness.
Based on your findings, you can adjust your tactics. You might end up experimenting with posting frequency, adjusting audience targeting, or even cutting out certain types of content. By keeping up with the data and making adjustments, your marketing efforts will become more effective over time.
Elevate Your Personal Injury Practice through Social Media Mastery
Embracing social media is essential for personal injury attorneys looking to connect with their audience and grow their practice.
By finding your target audience, being consistent, and focusing on educating rather than selling, you can build an audience of potential clients. By understanding common mistakes, you can avoid the pitfalls many attorneys fall into. Using the simple upgrades above, you can level up your practice's outcomes.
Success in social media marketing comes from persistence, continuous learning, and adaptation. With dedication and the right approach, your personal injury practice can create a steady stream of new clients.
