Social media tips for professional service firms

26th, Apr 2016

Are you taking advantage of social media marketing? There are lots of benefits, but it also takes time. Like all marketing, social media is a process of taking lots of small steps to build your presence and reputation. A recent Legal Marketing Association webinar offered some great tips for firms to help them make the most of their social media efforts.

1. Have a plan. Don’t rush into a social media campaign. Determine your priorities and goals. Build a strategy. Be clear about your message. What do you want to say? How do you want to be seen by others? Who are you targeting?

2. Do your homework. Look at what your competitors and clients are doing on social media. What kind of conversations and industry trends do you see? What are others saying about you online? Use this information to help determine your own strategy. Remember too that social media is a great tool for researching the needs and interests of your clients and prospects. It can help you be more proactive in your practice instead of waiting for them to come to you.

3. Build consensus internally. If you’re within a firm, not everyone will be equally supportive, but it won’t work if there isn’t some consensus. There needs to be advocates for social media within the firm to keep it going.

4. Focus on quality, not quantity. Yes it’s very important to be constantly visible on social media. Consistently sharing information is a key component in getting noticed and staying top of mind. However, quality matters a lot too. Better to produce really good material less often, than lots of mediocre stuff.

5. Measure results quantitatively and anecdotally. It takes time to see results. In developing your strategy, you need to decide what kind of results you are looking for (more new visitors to your site, time spent on your website, followers, likes/shares of your content, etc.). Then you need to make sure you measure those results over time. The numbers are important, but anecdotal results are also key. It may be great that your web traffic has increased by 20%, but it feels pretty good too when someone calls you to say they liked your article. Those personal stories can be great motivators and confidence boosters.

6. Provide training. Make sure you and others at the firm get appropriate training.

7. Help rising stars. The strongest benefits from social media may be seen by professionals who aren’t as well-established. Those who already have strong networks and reputations should still use it to market themselves. But social media provides an opportunity to new and lesser known professionals to develop their reputation as experts and grow their network.

For more tips on using social media, see Do’s and Don’ts of Using Social Media to Grow Your Business.

If you need help with your social media, contact us.

Tagged: social media, tips