Ten years ago, if you played a word association game, and you said, “shareable,” the word that most people would associate with it would have been “appetizers.” These days, everyone associates the word “shareable” with “content,” usually in the context of social media content. Especially now, when it seems like it has been eons since anyone sat at a table and shared appetizers with their friends, social media plays an even bigger role in keeping human beings connected to each other as a community.
It is even more important now than ever for law firms to maintain a presence on one or more social media networks, but unless you do it right, your social media endeavors can harm your law firm’s brand image more than they help it. The first step to enhancing your law firm’s image through social media is to hire legal writers to create great content to share on social media.
The 80/20 Rule
Social media and blogs have a different purpose, and their content should be different. Social media is for participating in the spread of information that is going around. If you flood your social media accounts with content about your own law firm, you will come across looking like, well, those people who talk about themselves on social media all the time. In general, 80 percent of the content you post on social media should be videos and links to articles created by someone else. You don’t have to say much about it except a brief comment about the legal issues it deals with. The other 20 percent of your social media posts can be news about your law firm or even pictures of events you have attended.
Choose Your Social Media Content Wisely
The thought process you should follow before you post a piece of content to social media can be expressed in the form of a flowchart. In summary, if you can change the format or images on the content you are sharing to make it more valuable to your audience, then do so. Posting frequently on social media is an effective strategy for competing for your audience’s attention, but if you post too often, especially if you are sharing silly or incendiary content, you will just annoy your audience, and they will unsubscribe from your content.
Choose Your Social Networks Wisely
Some social networks are purely for professional correspondence, while others deal in entertainment; if you are on both types of social media networks, only publish your “fun” content on the latter kind. Likewise, some social media platforms use hashtags, and others don’t. Choose just one or two social media platforms, study their culture carefully, and participate in them thoughtfully.
A Social Media Strategy Works Best When You Also Have a Blog
Having a presence on social media can be a great accompaniment to your law firm’s blog, but it does not substitute for it. Whether or not you have your own social media profiles, you can’t go wrong hiring Law Blog Writers to create amazing legal blog content that other people will want to share on social media.