With the advent of social media, digital marketing has become more accessible to the legal industry than ever before. However, with so many platforms and strategies available, it can be overwhelming to determine where to focus marketing time and efforts. A well-planned social media approach ensures that firms maximize their time and investment while generating meaningful interactions. Here are four concepts to help legal marketers formulate a well-planned social media approach.

1. Write Engaging Social Media Posts

Whether you’re posting thought leadership content, award announcements or covering an event that the firm sponsored, it is essential to write cohesive and compelling text to accompany it. Even if the content on the article itself is valuable, viewers on social media won’t know that unless they click through—and they won’t click through unless the text captures their interest.

Key Strategies:

• Be Clear and Concise: Social media users scroll quickly, so keep your copy short, direct and impactful. Utilizing 2-3 sentences can prove to be far more engaging than a post with 2-3 paragraphs.
• Use Actionable Language: Phrases like “Learn more,” “Find out how” and “Discover why” at the end of a post can encourage clicks and increase traffic back to the website.
• Highlight Key Takeaways: If you’re sharing an article, summarize the most compelling point to spark viewer curiosity. The point of the social post is to bring people back to the article, so it makes sense to highlight the most interesting sections.
• Optimize for Platform Preferences:Each platform has different ideal content, so tailor your text accordingly. For example, LinkedIn and X have vastly different character limits, so it is important to keep the 280-character limit in mind when writing text that will end up on X.

2. Utilize High-Quality Imagery

While having interesting and compelling text is a great start to boosting your social media presence and increasing engagement, high-quality photos and images are just as important in capturing viewer attention in a busy newsfeed. Posts with a visual aspect tend to have higher engagement rates than those without.

Key Strategies:

• Create Branded Templates:Templates that incorporate firm colors, fonts and logos help maintain brand consistency and reduce the time needed to produce future images. Ensure that image text is easily legible and written in a color with strong contrast to the background.
• Less is More: Blank or “negative” space helps to highlight the content being shared and improves readability throughout a design. An image can quickly become cluttered by adding too many words or graphics.
• Utilize Event Photos:If your attorneys recently had pictures taken at an event, be sure to use them. Social templates are key to crafting a distinct firm brand, but pictures can create familiarity and allow potential clients to see the attorneys that may be handling their cases.
• Ensure Accessibility: Adding alt text to images ensures they are accessible to individuals with visual impairments, improving the inclusivity and providing a small SEO boost to the post.

3. Encourage Traction Back to the Site

The ultimate goal of social media marketing for law firms isn’t just engagement—it’s about driving potential clients and referrals back to the firm’s website. By following all of the steps previously listed, it is possible to make a great social media post, but without linking back to the website, that is all it will be—a great social media post.

Whether it’s a news post or a recent event, including a call-to-action and a link back to the firm’s site gives viewers an easy way to learn more about the firm and most importantly, brings them one step closer as potential clients.

4. Understand How Visibility Works

While the goal of a social media strategy shouldn’t be to get tons of interactions, the level of engagement that posts see will affect their visibility to those who aren’t actively following the firm’s page. After publishing a post, be sure to share the post with attorneys and staff throughout the firm. Having members of the firm like, comment or repost things to their own page is a cost-free way to create that first bump in interactions.

Setting the Stage for Social Media Success

A well-thought-out social media strategy can help law firms build brand consistency and awareness, spread thought leadership to new audiences and drive meaningful traffic to their websites. By crafting engaging posts, utilizing high-quality visuals, strategically linking back to the website and maximizing engagement within the firm, law firms can create a social media presence that attracts attention and delivers tangible results.

Investing the time to learn and implement these elements will ensure that every post your law firm shares acts as a step toward stronger client connections and enhanced online visibility, instead of a waste of valuable hours.