3 essential social media tools for lawyers

It’s cheap, it connects your services to millions of potential clients and it offers the perfect place to build your brand through content, testimonials and interactive features. As such, social media is a fantastic tool for legal marketing. But with so many options to choose from, how to do you decide which platform offers the best return for the investment of your time?

This blog covers the three essential social media musts for lawyers. Combine these ingredients with a little time and patience and you’ll reap the rewards.

Twitter

As a lawyer, your every minute is precious. Twitter will keep your social media interaction short, snappy and to 140 characters. Being able to tweet on the go from your smartphone means that this social media channel offers exceptional flexibility and is very time-efficient.  It’s helpful to see Twitter as a conversational tool as effective use of Twitter involves dialogue. Lawyers can post questions, comments or articles on a particular area of legal expertise and interact with colleagues and clients to build an image of being very engaged with that particular area.

LinkedIn

In its most simplistic form, LinkedIn is an online resume. This certainly has benefits, however LinkedIn goes beyond the basic one-sided CV format to allow for sharing and discussion. As a lawyer you can promote your personal brand on the site, as well as being part of a larger company profile. As a professional networking website, LinkedIn allows you to see who your colleagues know, so that you can ask for an introduction if you want to contact them. It’s also possible to join interest groups to follow the latest news, thinking and opportunities in a particular area. Keep an eye on the discussions because people often post here to find out about particular services and there could be some business in it for you.

Blog

Whether you go for Wordpress or something entirely different, a legal blog is a great way to show that you’re on top of your game. Blogging should be an essential part of your law firm’s legal digital marketing strategy for two reasons. Firstly, it builds your brand by showcasing your expertise and proving that you are up-to-date with legal affairs. Secondly, it is likely to provide keyword-rich content for your website, ensuring that Google will rank your website highly when a potential client carries out an online search. Finally, going back to branding, blogging is a great way to get your voice out there. While it’s not as informal as Twitter, blogs tend to be quite personal and chatty in tone, which allows clients to feel a lot more connected to you. Remember – legal marketing is all about nurturing relationships and you can use social media to attract attention and retain it.