Social media

Rachel Tombs, founder of legal marketing and business development firm Orion Legal Marketing, outlines how law firms need to approach social media. (Updated 2 April 2024)

Many lawyers shy away from social media, worried about reputational and ethical risks or seeing it as a time-wasting stream of online idle chatter.

But the truth is, your law firm almost certainly already has a presence on social media, whether you like it or not. At the very least, you need to manage your reputation and ensure that partners and employees use social media responsibly.

More than that, social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram offer real opportunities to build your reputation and your professional network, and ultimately to bring new clients to the firm. In many ways, social media is the online version of networking – traditionally the lawyer's most important marketing tool.

"People do business with people, so use your social media profiles to share your professional insights and let people get to know, like and trust you. Social media is a level playing field for individuals to get involved, no matter what size firm you work for."
Luan Wise, marketing author and consultant

Social media opportunities

At its simplest, a social media presence makes it easier for you to be found online – by existing and potential clients, referrers and other contacts. And for anyone who has a LinkedIn profile and uses LinkedIn to instantly see who they are dealing with, and to make instant comparisons. Any lawyer who doesn't at least have a LinkedIn profile (with sufficient detail on it) may lack credibility. Similarly, any profile with out-of-date information will be less impressive than those that are kept current.

As one lawyer astutely remarked after his LinkedIn training, “I had no idea of the potential of LinkedIn – that it is a powerful, free database of every contact I will ever need to meet in my career if used correctly.” With 35 million UK users, you can use LinkedIn’s profile searching tools to identify your ideal clients and referral partners and connect with them.

Social media makes it easy to stay in touch with – and extend – your network of contacts with other individuals, organisations and your local community. What's more, you can use social networks to strengthen your relationships and build your reputation.

As a starting point, you can use social media as another channel for sharing information your firm already publishes elsewhere. A family lawyer might regularly add posts touching on different issues or commenting on recent articles in the news. A lawyer focused on a particular sector could share a weekly roundup of industry news and views.

And you don't have to restrict yourself just to the law. While lawyers are rightly concerned to maintain their professionalism, social media is also an opportunity to show a little personality and share your brand values. Your involvement with local community groups, charities and business networks is a natural fit for social media. And if it turns out that key contacts share your love of racing or travel, why not show a little of that online?

Social media allows you to engage with your connections rather than just talking at them. Following what your contacts are sharing helps you understand what interests them. It gives you the opportunity to comment when you have something helpful to add. As in the real world, listening and showing interest are powerful ways to build relationships.

Facebook, X, Instagram and Tiktok can all help to show the human side of your firm. This helps to build trust even with people who you have never met, which is so important in areas such as family law. In contrast LinkedIn is aimed at professionals, so for example it can help you to build relationships with the accountants and estate agents who are in a position to recommend your firm to their clients. LinkedIn is also a powerful tool for recruitment.

Even when you aren't connected, monitoring social media lets you see what influencers, competitors and potential clients are talking about. Used sensibly, social media can be a useful tool as part of background research and due diligence, and for monitoring your own online reputation.

"Social media is crucial when building your brand both personally and for the business. Does your profile mirror who you are in real life and what your business represents?"
Rich Dibbins, founder, Staxton Digital

Social media policy

Your social media policy should set out what activity you are expecting from your team, while also setting out guidelines for what not to do.

Those guidelines can turn out to be crucial, as Baker Small found out back in 2016 when a post by the law firm's Managing Director led to disastrous national publicity and then client desertions. While Baker Small remains the textbook example of what not to do, lawyers continue to get into trouble over social media posts.

On a more mundane level, the continual checking of personal social media accounts can be a major distraction in any office. So, you need to have a social media policy whether you decide to invest in social media or not.

Set out who is responsible for managing the firm's social media accounts.
Actively encourage fee-earners to have a full professional profile on LinkedIn. Get their agreement to use LinkedIn to support the firm's marketing efforts by sharing, liking and commenting on your posts.
Aim to limit personal use of other social media at work, unless there is a specific business reason for such activity.
Make sure everyone understands how inappropriate comments on social media can harm the firm. In particular, individuals should be made aware of the need to avoid inappropriate comments about clients, colleagues or work.
Make sure that any legal commentary provided on social media is restricted to broader insights rather than specific legal advice.
Note that what you post on social media is considered by law to be published content, even if it is shared privately.
The golden rule is to avoid anyone posting anything that they would not want to appear in a newspaper, or get used against you in court, or be read by your mother.

Further guidance on the ethical and regulatory issues that need to be considered is available in the Law Society practice note on social media.

Social media strategy

Your first step to deciding your own social media strategy should be to familiarise yourself with the key social media platforms. As well as LinkedIn and Facebook, have a look at X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram. Try to identify any local, sector-specific or other online networks where you might want to have a presence.

Think about your target audience – they will likely span different demographics who in turn tend to use different social media platforms. Understanding the different audiences is crucial when devising the strategy.

Check how other lawyers and law firms are using these platforms. Search for key terms that interest you to get an idea of who is active and what they are saying on which platforms. Seeing how others are using social media should help you decide what might work for you – and what you would be less comfortable with. Think about your own firm's brand and how social media could enhance it.

Decide what your key objectives are and which audience you are trying to reach. While some lawyers can use social media to directly reach potential clients, in many cases social media works best as a way of building relationships with referrers. Be clear about what you are trying to achieve and, if possible, how you will measure success.

Think carefully about how much time, effort and money you are willing to invest. Social media marketing is typically a 'slow burn', with a minimum of three to six months before it has a meaningful impact. Bear in mind that social media works best if you take the time to build a strong presence and engage with your contacts. You are better off using a small number of platforms well than spreading yourself too thinly.

"Involve all the key people in your firm in deciding your approach – from senior partners whose commitment is essential, to employees who may be given responsibility for your firm's social media accounts."
Paul Hudson,marketing director (Europe),Travelers

Avoiding potential pitfalls

Using social media well doesn't have to be difficult, provided you avoid the most common mistakes:

Self-promotion. Think of your social media posts from your audience's perspective. What's in it for them? A bit of self-promotion is acceptable if it establishes thought leadership, but too much and you will lose their interest.
Legalese. If you are using social media to reach clients and referrers, you want to share content that will interest them, in language they understand: "conveyancing" means nothing to most people selling their house.
Inauthenticity. Trying to create an image that isn't a realistic reflection of yourself and your firm is very difficult to maintain.
Oversharing. A bit of personality creates a much more engaging online presence than bland professionalism, but don't overdo it. Do your contacts really want daily updates on the football team you support?
Time-wasting. It's easy to waste time on social media, particularly if you get in a habit of endlessly checking updates for fear of missing out. Instead, establish set times: for example, schedule content on a weekly or monthly basis and check your accounts for interaction twice a day.
Inactivity. Dormant social media accounts and a failure to engage with connections mean that you quickly lose impact. Worse still, it can even be interpreted as a sign of a firm in trouble.

"Post an equal measure of business-specific content, general business content, and social content. Stick to what's of interest to your target audience, including how you can help them, while showing the human side of your firm."
Gavin Ward, director, Moore Legal Technology

Making social media work

Individual fee-earners may want to maintain their own social media presence, reflecting their personalities, interests and areas of expertise. At the same time, you may want to have social media accounts for the firm as well. Larger firms sometimes maintain separate accounts for particular practice areas or locations, or for graduate recruitment.

Use hashtags to highlight key words. For example, if a Midlands law firm did a post about divorce, at the very least they should use #divorce #birmingham #solicitor. By hash-tagging these topics, they are more likely to be seen by users who are interested in this information.

Having social media platforms can also help your rankings on Google, as the search engine should display all of your social platforms (if they are well optimised) as well as your website if you search for your firm’s name.

You may find it helpful to use external consultants to help set up and manage your social media. Specialists can be particularly helpful in handling technical issues such as setting up tools that make social media easier to use, making sure accounts have the right settings, and keeping up to date with new features.

Unless your own partners and employees have some day-to-day involvement, it can be almost impossible to create the sort of authentic personality you should be aiming for. Make sure that everyone involved has the time and inclination to be effective. If unenthusiastic staff see contributing content as a chore, the whole exercise can quickly get bogged down.

Create an 'editorial calendar', planning ahead for the sorts of content you want to produce as well as reacting to the news and whatever your connections are discussing. Each time you create a piece of content, think how you will share it across the different social media platforms.

Likewise, have a plan for how you will build your networks and a budget for promoting your content. Then regularly review whether you are hitting targets and getting a good return on investment.

Finally, regularly review all your social media profiles. Think about the sort of impression they make and compare them to your competition. Make sure they are achieving what you want and identify any opportunities to improve.

"Social media should be viewed as an extension of your offline networking efforts. Use social media to set up meetings with key individuals and to follow-up afterwards."
Ben Trott, managing director, Marketing Lawyers

Social media tools

There is plenty of choice when it comes to social media tools, and new ones keep appearing. Here are a few established tools to consider:

Hootsuite – which many firms use as their main platform to schedule posts, monitor accounts and run social media generally. The free version allows up to three profiles. An alternative platform is Sprout Social.
Google Trends – reveals what is trending and what keywords to target. All Hashtag does this for hashtags.
Storyclash – allows you to identify the influencers in your audiences, so you can then focus on them.
Twitonomy – gives an array of information on your Twitter accounts, as well as account management tools.
Planoly – helps with visual planning if you use Instagram.

See 'The best social media apps for small businesses' for a full list of tools and a review of each one.

Social media top ten

Don't stick your head in the sand – you must control your social media presence.
Be realistic about how much time and effort you are prepared to invest.
Focus on a small number of networks where you can build a worthwhile presence.
Share content that will interest your target audience; strictly limit self-promotion.
Allow some personality to show through to help differentiate yourself.
Actively listen and engage with your contacts.
Use a social media platform such as Hootsuite to create a listening dashboard and to centralise your social media accounts.
Encourage partners and employees to share postings using their personal accounts as appropriate.
Tie social media in with your other marketing activities.
Set measurable goals and monitor how well you are achieving them.

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