How Law Firms Can Use Personas for Social Media Marketing

Social media is an extraordinarily powerful tool for connecting with potential clients. But to get the most out of your social media marketing, your messaging must connect with the people you’re trying to reach. That’s where personas come into play. Taking the time to research, create, and implement personas will definitely supercharge your paid and organic social marketing, and could provide a big boost to your overall digital marketing efforts as well. Here’s a breakdown of how law firms can use audience personas:

What Exactly is a Persona? 

Also referred to as a buyer persona or ideal client persona, a persona perfectly describes your firm’s definition of a great client. But rather than representing one specific person, an audience persona combines the qualities, demographics, and concerns that characterize several potential clients you want to attract.

Personas are backed by extensive market research. While specific attributes may vary based on the markets you serve and your goals, a well-developed persona should always include: 

• Demographics like age, location, or gender
• Personal characteristics such as marital status or income
• Professional aspects including industry or even job title
• Interests, challenges, or common questions
• Their goals in a search for legal support

A firm with a narrow focus may only have one persona. However, practices that serve a wider scope of practice areas or industries will likely require a few. 

The Ways that Personas Enhance Social Media Tactics

Specific personas offer several benefits, including: 

Improved Organic Social Media Content

Having a well-defined audience persona will help you to create content that is engaging and relevant. Without this information, you may miss the mark with your posts or even turn people off. More valuable posts will help you to achieve measurable goals such as increased engagement and audience growth. 

More Effective Ad Campaigns

Audience research is critical for ad campaigns, whether they are a one-off or a complex funnel. You can use personas to create interest-based campaigns or fine-tune your custom audiences. By using research for ad targeting, you can find the most relevant social media users.

Increased Return on Investment

By learning how law firms can use audience personas with social media, you have the potential to improve your return on investment on your social media efforts. By catering to a specific audience, those that come across your posts are more likely to convert.

4 Steps for Applying Personas to Marketing Strategy

Developing an insightful profile of your audience segments will allow you to have a clearer picture of your potential clients and how to reach them. Begin by researching and then sorting each of your target audiences and developing relevant marketing for each. 

To ensure each persona will positively impact your social media efforts, follow these steps on how law firms can use audience personas:

1. Research personas

Research is arguably the most important step in this process. Use as many sources as possible to create the most robust profile. Try leveraging: 

• Existing client data – Use your CRM, email lists, and client support systems to pull information.
• Social media insights – You can dig into Facebook Audience Insights, Instagram Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, and website analytics.
• Direct feedback from clients – To learn more about what prospects are actually thinking, planning, and doing, ask them directly. You can send surveys, ask questions in social media posts, or conduct social media polls.
• Keyword research from tools like Google Search Console – This can show you which keywords bring people to your website.

2. Define Individual Personas

Once you’ve conducted all of your research, you can compile it into separate documents for each persona. Give each a name that makes it easy to recognize and remember. List the basic demographics, interests, challenges, and other characteristics of each persona. You’ll also want to include goals and potential objections. Summarize how your firm can help each persona. Some organizations even go so far as to create negative personas of clients that your firm isn’t a good fit for and shouldn’t serve. 

3. Create Audience Segments for Advertising

Once a persona is created, you can use it to build or update core audiences for paid social programs. You can also use specific information during the campaign creation process to develop custom or lookalike audiences. This will allow you to reach more relevant users. 

4. Develop Persona-focused Messaging

As you create paid or organic social media content, layer your audience personas into the workflow. Make sure to check posts against your personas before publishing. When you consider and review content, think about each post or ad from a persona perspective. For example, does a certain persona struggle with the challenges you mention? How would you expect them to respond to the messaging? If you have multiple personas, you may want to label each post to clarify targeting and ensure balanced coverage between audiences. 

Takeaway: 

Properly learning how law firms can use audience personas requires time, effort, and the right tools. But once you’ve made the investment, these ideal client profiles will prove invaluable to the creation of compelling content, improving ad performance, and communicating more effectively. 

Need some help? Our team can assist you with social media strategy to ensure you are getting the highest return on your investment.