Social media trends for law firms in 2022
Of course, we can’t tell you precisely what’s going to happen in 2022. The social media landscape is huge and, more importantly, fast! The traditional platforms will likely survive through the year but what new platform’s lie just over the horizon is anybody’s guess. So, with that mini caveat in mind, what do we “think” are going to be the better social media platforms for law firms to consider?
You cannot be all things to all people
So, here are just a few of the platforms available out there to sell your wares and spruik your existence: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube (OK is it a social channel or a search engine?), Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Tumblr and so on.
Unless you’re a behemoth of a company (which pretty much excludes most Aussie law firms and definitely excludes those we choose to work with), you’re really only going to concentrate your efforts on two or three of these. You may dabble in others but, just like high performing firms concentrate their services on what they’re really good at (so they can deliver optimal results), those same firms need to concentrate their online promotion in places that also deliver optimal results for the firm.
So, choose your social platform(s) wisely. It’s important to remember you’re a law firm (selling services), not an e-commerce store with 50% off discounts every second week. Your ‘customers’ may need you once or twice on average, in their life time. Your ‘product’ is expensive. For you, it’s all about building your brand, embedding trust and driving home your expertise.
What works well for e-commerce is not always (and often never) going to be what is worthwhile for your firm. So, beware the digital marketing agency selling your stats and promises based on their e-commerce (or other emotional tug industry) experience.
Our top 3 social media platforms for law firms
Another mini caveat here; this post is primarily aimed at B2C firms. That is, those delivering their services directly to individuals.
Facebook continues to lead the flock in terms of engagement and monthly active users but it’s being heavily chased down by TikTok (which saw the most app downloads worldwide for 2021 and the second most in Australia for 2021 with the first being…. Zoom!). But, as a general rule, we’re not recommending TikTok for our firms (at least, not just yet).
In January 2021, over 77% of Australian internet users were on Facebook at some point. This trend has not abated in recent times with over 16 million active monthly users in Australia with the largest age demographic being 25-39 years old (6.1m) followed by 40-55 years old (4.1m).
So, with audience size and age demographic alone, it’s certainly considered a good place to be for B2C law firm brands to make an appearance.
We then add the relatively cost-effective advertising platform which delivers your ads not only across Facebook but also Instagram and Messenger. With branch awareness campaigns in particular putting your firm’s name out there in record numbers, Facebook should definitely be on your ‘social media marketing’ agenda for 2022.
LinkedIn reports having over 10 million registered users in Australia with just over half of them logging in each month; not too shabby.
In our view, LinkedIn provides a two-pronged approach for B2C Aussie law firms.
Firstly, every user on LinkedIn is also an individual who may need your services at some point. Secondly, many users are in positions/roles where they need to build referral networks. In many instances, that referral network needs lawyers. Not only should your firm be regularly sharing experience, expertise and accolades, but it should also be encouraging all its lawyers and senior support staff to do the same.
YouTube
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world and in Australia (Jan 2021), it out-performed Facebook (by about 1%) on the most visited platform.
Video content is not high on the agenda for many law firms. For many smaller firms, production of the content is resource heavy and can be (comparatively) costly. All that said, it’s slowly on the rise and your production does not have to be Hollywood quality.
It’s primarily about the expertise and experience you’re sharing in an easy-to-digest manner. We’re by no means suggesting a slap-dash approach will do the trick. If you have no one in-house you feel can convey the right image for your firm, you could consider animated content, including creating characters that you use across all your videos.
Videos about the people, your firm’s values, how you work are great foundation pieces. But often what people are after are “how to” videos. So, remember to consider those when planning your approach to a YouTube channel.
We’re strong proponents of video content across your website, on your own YouTube channel, and importantly, shared regularly on your social media platforms.
You can use your video content across your native social media platforms but it also works incredibly well in, for example, Facebook advertising campaigns. Video content is not going away anytime soon and if the last several years are anything to go by, it’s only going to increase in popularity.
But… people want fast and immediate nowadays. So, plan your video content to be engaging, informative and super importantly, short. You can learn more about creating your video content in our previous blog ‘Seven tips for creating video content for your law firm’.
Some extra platforms for law firms to consider
In Australia (Jan 2021), over 55% of internet users aged 16-64 were Instagram users.
The big thing to understand about Instagram is that it’s a ‘visual’ platform; more imagery, less words.
Firms (and individual lawyers) using Instagram successfully, will often curate their content to be visually pleasing, more personalised and more about ‘who you are’ than ‘what you do’. It’s therefore, not for everyone.
Whereas often firms can ‘cross-post’ for Facebook and LinkedIn (and even Twitter to an extent), meaning they can share the same content across different platforms, more often than not, you probably want to craft unique content for Instagram.
This of course, requires more resources; more time, more skills (or more accurately, the right skills) and sometimes more expense.
We have clients who use Instagram but we don’t provide the service ourselves. This is because we truly believe it requires a more personalised approach; it has to be done from the inside. As much as it can be great for some firms (and individual lawyers), remember not to confuse ‘likes and loves’ of your posts (your images) for a brand engagement or the potential for profitable work.
At the beginning of this post, we said the bulk of our content was geared to the B2C firms. Well, this one’s for them too but probably even more so for B2B (commercial/corporate) firms. It’s reported that 82% (worldwide) or B2B content marketers use Twitter for organic content. This outranks B2C company use which sits around 53%. (Note, these stats are not specifically for law firms).
Twitter relies heavily on ‘conversations’ and substantial sharing of content. Simply broadcasting several tweets a day with no interaction (no shares, no comments leading to ongoing conversations) is not going to be worth it.
As with many social media platforms nowadays (as opposed to the early days), but possibly even more so with Twitter, ‘likes’ are 100% vanity metrics.
In 2022 (and even well before now), your Twitter time and effort needs to concentrate on carefully curated content.
Remember, you only have 280 characters (of which 22 are used by any shortened URL you include) plus your image(s) or video, to succinctly convey your message.
If done well, Twitter can be an excellent platform for building your brand’s expertise and experience. We do, however, strongly feel it is best suited to the B2B law firm.
What about Google My Business?
Is it a social media platform? No, but maybe, sort of.
GMB is not strictly a social media platform but it can be used in a similar way. It hangs off the Google search engine. So, when someone searches Google for their family lawyer, if your GMB listing is well optimised, you’ll likely appear high up in the results.
The bit that acts similarly to a social media platform, is the ability to add ‘posts’ to your listing; as often as you like.
For B2C firms, those posts you add to your GMB listing can be almost the same as (if not identical) to the same content you’ve already curated for Facebook and other platforms.
If your firm is not on Google My Business by 2022, you’re missing a whole lot of potential traction.
Learn more about the importance of GMB for your law firm and how to get started today, in our blog, ‘Why is a Google My Business Page important for my law firm?’
Need help with your firm’s digital marketing strategy?
We help SME Australian law firms improve their digital performance from their website (new builds, re-builds and SEO), to Facebook advertising campaigns, organic social media management and direct marketing initiatives.
Get in touch for a free consultation.
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