Social Media: What Should Your Law Firm Be Posting
Over 70 percent of adults in the United States use at least one social platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or something else. With that many people using social media, can your law firm afford to not maintain a presence?
If you missed our previous blog, check out What Social Media Platforms Should Your Law Firm Be Using? to help you determine which platforms your law firm should be using. Social media is incredibly valuable and these days, if you don’t have a business page on at least Facebook, are you even legitimate?!
Once you’ve determined who your target audience is and what social networking platforms are the best to reach your audience on, the next question would be – what should your law firm be posting?
We seek to shed some light on your burning questions relating to posting on social media. Here we go!
What Should You Be Posting on Social Media?
Great question and we’re glad you asked it. Are you posting blogs to your website? Those are great to publish to social media as they provide relevant and value-driven information and also, drive traffic to your website.
Are there any law updates pertaining to your practice areas? Keep your current and potential clients informed of any new legislation. Has your law firm been featured in any new articles, interviews or even podcasts? Those are also great to push out to your social media pages.
What’s going on in the news pertaining to your practice areas? Links to relevant articles are great to post. Your law firm likely gets some frequently asked questions, consider answering some of those frequently asked questions on your social media pages. You could either make a simple post, graphic or even answer the question by going Live on Facebook or other social platform.
Looking for some ideas to bolster engagement? How about a joke?! Let’s face it, there are many legal jokes out there and showing your humorous side can also show your human side and can help you build a connection. If you were to join our Facebook group, “Legal Marketing Straight Talk”, you would see our own Jay Williams posts something funny almost every day. At least, he thinks it’s funny.
In our experience we’ve found the most engaging posts to be those of a more personal nature. Not that you should dive into your personal life, but rather posts about promotions, birthdays, meet the team, etc. Your current and potential customers want to relate to you and celebrate with you. That human connection is important to securing their trust and confidence.
How Often Should I Be Posting?
We recommend between 3 – 5 posts per week, though that isn’t set in stone. The number of posts your law firm should be making really depends on your goals. If you’re just trying to stay relevant and active, then 2 – 3 posts per week is plenty. If your law firm is trying to dominate social media and get ahead of the game with both paid and organic strategies, 3 – 5 posts per week is great.
The answer may vary based on your goals, but if you’re really not sure still, why not test it? Spend 30 days posting 2 – 3 times per week and the following 30 days posting between 3 – 5 times per week. After the 60 days go back and look at whether you saw an increase in engagements, followers, traffic, etc. If not, posting 2 – 3 times per week is probably fine for your law firm. If you are a client of ours, you can access your reporting dashboard 24×7 to see these results.
Why Is My Post Reach So Low?
Unless you’re paying for advertising, your social posts aren’t going to be shown to your entire audience of followers. Let’s look at Facebook to answer this question as it is the primary platform for the majority.
You have 100 followers on your law firm’s Facebook business page. Yet when you post some valuable content to your page your metrics show that you’ve only reached 20 people with only one or two engagements. So, why aren’t your posts reaching a larger audience? Facebook will only show your business page’s post to a small group of people. If people engage with your post it demonstrates that your post is relevant and so, Facebook will show it to another group of people. The more people engage with your posts, the more people your posts will be shown to and the more people you’ll reach.
Thanks to Facebook’s algorithm updates in recent years, your social posts are only going to reach about 1.6% – 2% of your followers – give or take a few depending on the level of engagement. This means that if you have 100 followers you can expect your post to reach 16 – 20 people without any engagement. Those number are the reason why you need to be creating relevant, value-driven and engaging content, to build your following and reach a wider audience organically.
Of course, if you pay to boost the post or to run any advertisements this can help you gain more exposure for your posts, page and law firm as well.
What Should Your Law Firm NOT Be Posting?
Just as important as what you should be posting is what you should NOT be posting. Knowing that without engagement your posts aren’t reaching many people it may be tempting to post off topic stuff like beauty trends or car hacks. They might be great for boosting engagement, but it’s the wrong engagement.
When you look to run advertisements on Facebook or social media, they give you the option to target your followers and those who interact with your page. If those engaging with your page are doing so because you are posting stuff unrelated to your practice areas, they are not likely to convert to clients. At the end of the day, that’s what social media marketing is all about – lead generation and bringing in new clients. There’s limited to no Return on Investment (ROI) on targeting the wrong audience.