Many attorneys and law firms want to post on social media, but often don’t know why it’s important, what platforms they should use, or what their strategies should be. Emily S. Kelchen, founder of Kelchen Consulting, a former New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) trustee and past chair of the Young Lawyers Division, and Amanda Sexton, founder of FocusWorks Marketing, tackled these issues last week during the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education (NJICLE) program, “Social Media for Lawyers: How to Use it Effectively and Ethically.” NJICLE is the educational arm of the NJSBA.
The pair provided an overview of social media platforms, and discussed best practices, strategies and ways to track metrics. By using an example of a fictitious, small family law firm in New Brunswick, the speakers showed how to target an audience, develop a brand and voice, and use social media.
Some of the basic reasons an attorney would want to be on social media are to expand their presence and build their brand.
“As one person, you can only be in so many places. With [a digital medium], you get to actually be in front of more people at once. And you get to showcase your brand in a way that you wouldn’t normally,” Sexton said.
Social media allows for conversations and interactions with others that enables attorneys to show the personal side of their brand.
Attorneys should always keep their target audience in mind because it will be the reference point for all their messaging and activities on social media, Kelchen said.
Once a firm has determined its audience and brand, it needs to determine where it should be posting, which will most likely be on one or more of the “big four” platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
“You’re better off being active on one platform than posting sporadically without a ton of strategy on three or four,” Sexton said.
Kelchen and Sexton outlined the unique features of each of the platforms and discussed their pros and cons.
Some highlights:
- Of all the platforms, LinkedIn may be the most useful. Kelchen called LinkedIn a “high value” platform, although it has fewer users than other platforms and is still a “sleeper.” Good for business-to-business content, it is the best way to grow an individual network. Kelchen recommends creating personal and business accounts and spending five minutes a day on LinkedIn hitting the “like” button to celebrate friends’ and colleagues’ successes. You also can share company posts on personal LinkedIn accounts to gain traction, and vice versa.
“I’m very surprised and impressed by the sheer number of eyes that you can get on a [LinkedIn] post. Sometimes on a post, depending on the number of connections you have, you get 400, 500, 600 people viewing it, which typically on Facebook or Instagram can be very difficult,” Sexton said.
- Facebook allows you to connect with a wide network and turn your client base into a community, but it is difficult to expand your reach. It does provide an opportunity to post content and drive traffic to your website. Facebook requires extensive interaction and does not provide you with good traction.
- Instagram works best for images and videos, and attracts a younger audience. Hashtags work well with the algorithm but you cannot share links directly from a post.
- Twitter is good for posting company updates, posting live from conferences, connecting with thought leaders and high-profile people, tagging companies or customers in posts, and retweeting positive customer tweets. On the downside, it has limited reach, it can be hard to grow a network or gain traction, it has more of a viral feel and it has a limited character count.
“It’s not meant to be a sales pitch or used as a megaphone. It’s meant to be used as a collaboration, a conversation,” Kelchen said. “Our goal is not to go viral. Our goal is to have long-term, sustained business and reputation development.”
- Use the right hashtags (which help people find content) and let relevant people or companies know you are mentioning them by using the @ sign before their name (called tagging).
- Remember to respond and engage.
- Claim your firm name and personal name on every platform so people with bad intentions can’t malign your reputation, and so you can have the same name over multiple platforms.
- The rules governing attorney advertising don’t differentiate between traditional media and social media platforms. “When you speak on any of these platforms you need to be thinking about it like you’re buying a TV ad or putting an ad in a newspaper or on a billboard. The same rules apply,” Kelchen said.
The “Social Media for Lawyers: How to Use it Effectively and Ethically” continuing legal education program will soon be available for purchase at njicle.com.