Employee Advocacy vs. Influencer Marketing for Law Firms

In what seems like a weekly occurrence, we hear from law firms wanting to know how they can grow their following and reach on social media. While there are many way to grow your audience on social media, typically we recommend two main methods: employee advocacy and influencer marketing. Each of these has their own advantages and disadvantages. They can also actually work together seamlessly as part of a well-thought-out digital marketing plan.

Reviewing Each Option

Influencer marketing is when you utilize the power of an online influencer to promote your law firm and its services. While this is not always an endorsement, an endorsement is a type of influencer marketing. Influencers are thought leaders in a field or practice area with a reputation for being knowledgeable and well-respected. Thought leaders are considered authorities in their area of influence.

Advocate marketing, on the other hand,  relies on employees or others who have direct experience with your firm and its service. This type of marketing relies on a law firm’s employees sharing the content that the law firm is posting on its social media properties.Employee advocacy, also sometime known as social media amplification, consists of law firms encouraging their employees to share their experiences at the firm as well as sharing the content that your law firm produces.

The Best Scenarios for Each

While your law firm can use either employee advocacy or influencer marketing, or both, at any time, influencer marketing for law firms does have a key time and place. Generally speaking, influencer marketing is best for raising brand awareness or introducing a new practice area for your law firm. Essentially, you want to use influencer marketing at key points when you need to increase brand visibility.

By contrast, employee advocacy should be fairly constant, as it helps deliver a strong first impression of your law firm. Most importantly, that impression will include consistency, which is something potential clients definitely want. Another benefit of this type of marketing is that you’re able to exponentially expand your law firm’s reach on social media. Not only are you able to reach your firm’s followers, but all of the followers of your employees.

Because leveraging influencer marketing for law firms effectively is harder than employee advocacy, it is essential to understand the distinctions between the two. After all, you already have an existing working relationship with your employees, but you may not know influencers in the world of law. If that is the case, you need first to do research to scope out industry leaders and then convince them that you offer high-quality and effective services. As a result, they will feel comfortable putting their name behind your firm.

The Best Employee Advocacy Programs Connect with Influencers

Both employee advocacy and influencer marketing rely on avenues like social media for sharing stories and increasing the visibility of your brand. Sophisticated versions of employee advocacy programs will connect influencers and employees, making it possible to enhance the effects of each strategy. This connection could be as simple as one of your employee’s reaching out to an author of a recent article on a particularly interesting law topic to start a discussion and share content. As a general rule, influencers would much rather talk to people who are actually involved in a company, like employees or customers, instead of the media.

Takeaway

Whether influencers reach out to your employees (or law firm in general) or you reach out to them, everyone involved will benefit from a marketing approach that combines influencers with employee advocacy.