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.
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 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.
