A Social Media Marketing Guide for UK Solicitors

As a constantly busy Solicitor firm in the UK, it’s likely that you will be frustrated by Social Media marketing and see it as just another expense. In this digital world we are always reminded of its power for businesses, but surprisingly few know how to use it effectively. But there are many reasons for Solicitors to use Social Media marketing, and they don’t have to be complicated.

As a business, you will fit into one of these categories: 

1) Non-user: your company isn’t on any Social Media platforms because you haven’t been convinced otherwise, or you haven’t had time.

2) Existing accounts, but no activity: you have had a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account set up to follow the times, but have never done anything with it.

3) Made a start: your company has an account set up and you have made a start with posting, but abandoned it due to busy workloads or use it occasionally.

4) User with no success: you use Social Media and post fairly regularly, but haven’t generated any new business.

5) User with successful results: you have business accounts on Social Media platforms, use them often for posting useful content, networking and engaging, and have gained lots of leads and enquiries.

If you really want to have a good Social Media presence without wasting money, you have to work to be in Category 5. This guide will break down how to get there without stalling your daily business.

The most valuable benefits of having a healthy and active Social Media marketing presence are:

• Increase engagement with customers and prospects
• Boost brand awareness
• Boost visits to your website
• Grow your email list
• Promote events and offers
• Quickly address negative PR
• Increase customer loyalty
• Attract new clients

Social Media channels were built to achieve all of these by linking you to just about anyone around the world. As a marketing tool it’s like networking; you have the potential to get referrals for hundreds or thousands of connections by gaining trust. You can do this through smart targeting and posting at the right time, in the right places and with an engaging, useful message/topic. Read the following steps to do this correctly.

Step 1: Decide which Social Media platform to concentrate on

The most popular options to choose from are Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn. Here is a summary of each one’s marketing approach. 

Facebook

• Family and friends orientated
• Start by gathering a group of ‘fans’
• Communication is focused on being fun and social
• Ideal for visual content e.g. images, videos
• Spread your message to over 800 million consumers

Twitter

• Build a list of followers quickly and easily
• Connect with new customers, partners or related associations
• Open network to communicate with anyone
• Used for promotion and posting useful articles, images and videos
• Over 53% of Twitter users mention companies/products in tweets

LinkedIn 

• Perfect for professional networking and joining industry groups
• 39% are business owners, managers or directors
• Communicate to show credibility and build a professional reputation
• Network with over 150 million professionals

Google Plus 

• Fastest growing social network
• A crucial part of Google’s algorithms and SEO
• Used to share/promote images, videos and articles
• Target specific groups of followers
• Get conversations going in Hangouts, events etc.

Step 2: Decide on WHO, HOW and WHEN 

With 93% of people expecting companies to be on Social Media and 78% of consumers trusting peer recommendations, it’s completely worth devising a Social Media marketing strategy using these three points.

Firstly, think about who will be responsible for Social Media posts. Ideally, it should be someone with fewer time-consuming responsibilities and who enjoys using it. Then consider how much time your employee will commit to posting, and when they will do it. Monitoring and measuring results will be much easier as a result.

Step 3: Understand how to write posts

As a Solicitor firm, the first thing to do is make sure legal and ethical factors are covered. Visit http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/advice/practice-notes/social-media/ to understand best practices on Social Media. Once you have done this, make sure to keep a checklist of the following: 

• Set up a Social Media policy at your company
• Treat every post as PR – useful, engaging and promotional 
• Maintain consumer confidentiality
• Don’t give out specific and detailed legal advice 

Step 4: Connect with current and potential clients 

If you want to build maximum trust and a good Social Media network, you must regularly connect with potential clients. By doing this you can gain more business through recommendations and referrals. On Facebook, ‘like’ other pages, invite people to like your page and give offers for ‘liking’ it. On Twitter, follow more targeted people and on LinkedIn, send connection requests, join groups and give references.

By posting on a weekly basis with useful articles, examples of client testimonials, advice/how-to videos, competitions, surveys etc., you will build much stronger connections with current clients as well.

Tip: A video is 50 times more likely to rank in Google and 90% of internet use is video-based. Video posts are very powerful for Social Media presence.

Step 5: Outsource

One of the best ways to master Social Media marketing is to outsource it to a professional digital marketing agency, such as The JDR Group. Having worked for Solicitors in the past, we recognise that you often don’t have time to keep up-to-date with Social Media trends and get return on investment. This is why we strive to understand your company and its goals, for maximum profit and results. 

Here are the reasons to outsource social media marketing to The JDR Group:

• Hand over responsibility to the experts
• See results faster and get more clients
• Cost effective
• Less stress for you
• Planned and targeted content
• Reliable measurement of progress
• Social media training days at The JDR Group 

There are steps you can take in-house to target then build relationships through Social Media, to get more business and profit. However, to guarantee a solid long-term strategy and performance measurement you should ask digital marketing experts for help.

Article by Laura Wootton