Best Social Media Marketing Tips for Lawyers In 2016
Social media can be a very effective and affordable way to market your law practice. Here are some of my best social media tips for 2016.
VISUALS
Focus on visuals. Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.
Optimize images for each social media platform. Each platform has different optimal image size requirements. Instead of learning the optimal image dimensions for each platform and sizing them individually you can use the Magic Resize button from Canva, a tool that allows you to create optimally sized images for all the major platforms with just one click.
Tweet daily. If you’re not consistently posting content your followers will lose interest. Use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule posts so you don’t have to think about it.
Republish old content. The half life for the average tweet is only about 24 minutes. So even if you’ve tweeted content before, it’s likely that the majority of your followers have not seen it. Get more views by keeping old content in the rotation.
Use hashtags to get your posts noticed. The optimal amount of hashtags for Twitter is 1-3.
Don’t forget to schedule tweets for evenings and weekends. Followers will often have more time to read longer content on the weekends.
Follow other people in the legal industry. Share and engage with other people’s content relevant and interesting content. It’s a great way to make connections and lay the foundation for offline relationships.
Schedule multiple tweets for each blog post. Again, Twitter moves so quickly that one post isn't going to cut it. But it can be time-consuming to think of and schedule multiple tweets for each blog post.
Now I use a tool called missinglettr to do this for me. You connect your RSS feed and whenever missinglettr detects a new blog post, it will create a year worth of tweets by pulling quotes and images from your content.
Always use images - It’s a fact: tweets with images get more engagement. Buffer gets an 150% increase in retweets when they use images.
Mention people in your tweets. People feel special when you mention them in Tweets. It’s a great way to get on someone’s radar because they get notified of the mention.
Post photos and videos. Research suggests these are the most shared types of content. Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images.
Timing is everything. Test different times of day to find out when your fans are most active. Engagement early on increases the likelihood of the post being seen by more of your followers.
Respond to comments. It will keep the conversation flowing and increase the likelihood of comments in the future.
Post directly to Facebook. Facebook’s algorithms favour content published directly to the platform. And you can now schedule posts directly in Facebook so there is no real need to use external accounts.
Don’t use hashtags. It’s not necessary on Facebook and makes your post look spammy. However, you should make sure your captions have relevant keywords to make them easy to search.
Join or create Facebook groups. Facebook groups are an easy way to connect with people who share your interests. There are groups where you can connect to other lawyers or potential clients.
The key to success is to contribute meaningfully to the conversation and not to try to sell your services. Simply being helpful and sharing your expertise (without giving legal advice) will be enough to get people who need your services to come to you. If you can’t find your audience, create your own group.
Facebook Live is a quick way to get engagement. If you have a lot of followers but have difficulty getting engagement, start doing Facebook Live videos. All of your followers will be notified when you are live and the algorithm will put your video at the top of followers feed even after you’re done recording.
Use Your Cover Photo. Get people to sign up for your email list by using your cover photo to point toward your sign up tab.
Post a few selfies. On Instagram, photos showing faces get 38% more Likes than photos not showing faces. I can attest to this statistics as I get a third more likes when I post selfies on my Joleena Louis Law Instagram account.
Hashtags are life. The key to getting new Instagram followers and likes is using the right hashtags. Unlike other social media platforms, the more hashtags you use the better. The limit is 30 per post and I suggest using as many as possible. You can keep your caption looking clean by adding the hashtags in a comment.
Use trending hashtags. Take note of any trending hashtags so you can take advantage. This works really well on the social media holidays like “national dog day.”
Add a little humor. Instagrammers like to be entertained so funny memes and quotes get the most likes and shares. Keep it tasteful and relevant.
Don’t forget to add your location. When appropriate, don’t forget to tag your location. I’ve had restaurants, hotels, and other business repost photos that I’ve taken at their location. This usually leads to a boost on likes and followers that day.
Get personal. Instagram (and Facebook) are great places to show behind the scenes or personal photos. With Instagram stories it’s easier than ever to post day in the life photos and videos that won’t live on our profile forever. Let your followers get to know you!
Complete your LinkedIn profile. You’d be surprised how many people don’t have complete profiles or even a photo. It makes you look inactive and could affect your ability to make important connections.
Personalize your connection requests. Your Linkedin connections can be a valuable asset as long you only connect with quality people. That means not accepting every request. The best way to connect with LinkedIn power users is to let them know why you want to connect and how it can benefit them.
Engage. Build relationships and share your expertise by leaving thoughtful comments on articles shared by others. So few people actually comment on LinkedIn that a thoughtful response would stand out.
Create boards on specific topics. This will entice people to follow the board because the topic is specific and relevant to their search.
Promote your blog posts. Use eye catching images and an informative caption with relevant keywords to get more traffic to your blog.
Use Long Visuals. The most successful image size for Pinterest images are 600 by 1102 px.
Join Group Boards. Pinterest works best when you can get more eyes on your pins. By joining a group board, your pins will be shared with all collaborators who may be likely to share with their followers.
Group boards that allow collaborators to join will usually have instructions on how to be added.
Use Keywords instead of hashtags. The Pinterest algorithm penalizes hashtags so it’s best to focus on a descriptive caption that includes the words and terms that would be used to search for the topic.
Make sure your pins link back to (valid) URLS. Remember when uploading a photo to pinterest to link it back to your website or blog.
