How Law Firms Can Use Instagram Stories

While the Instagram Stories feature itself is not new, it is still a largely untapped tool among law firms. Many brands regularly use the feature to promote their companies and products by posting fun photos and videos, creative infographics, and interactive content. With a little bit of inspiration and creativity, law firms can similarly leverage the marketing power of Instagram Stories to grow their online presence, expand their reach and differentiate themselves from their competitors. Here’s how it works: 

Reach a Wide Audience 

Instagram is creeping up as one of the most widely used social networks with 1 billion users per month. In particular, Instagram is widely used by millennial audiences – 71% of users around the world are under age 35. While there is a substantial user base of older adults, millennials are the most likely demographic to use “advanced” features such as stories. This can prove to be a useful demographic to target when recruiting talent, as millennials rely heavily on social media when starting their career search. Posting unique, original content to stories that showcase your firm’s culture and brand image will help attract millennial talent to your firm.

Increase Visibility

With recent changes to Instagram’s algorithm, it’s become more difficult for viewers to find your content – if they don’t frequently check your profile or engage with your posts, your posts get pushed farther down their feeds. However, since stories are viewed in a scrolling bar across the top of Instagram feeds, they are visible as soon as a user opens the app. As you add to your story throughout the day, it continues to pop up near the front of the stories bar, allowing viewers to stay up-to-date with your firm. 

Establish Authenticity 

Instagram Stories are spontaneous and creative in nature. That means you don’t have to obsess over choosing the best image and creating a perfectly designed post that matches the theme of your overall page. Instead, take the opportunity to show a truly authentic side of your firm with unpolished and on-the-fly content. Especially in today’s competitive digital landscape, social media users are selective in who they follow, and tend to be more drawn to brands they can relate to and perceive as “real,” and therefore trust. 

Tip: Remember that even when posting on a more laid-back platform, all your social media content should be professional and appropriate. 

Showcase Your Firm’s Personality

Highlighting the personable and human parts of your law firm will also help establish authenticity and grow your audience on Instagram. Post stories of individual attorneys on what they like to do in their free time or record videos of a firm event to show demonstrate the culture at your firm. Virtually invite viewers into your office space and introduce them to attorneys and other staff. There are a multitude of fun stickers, GIFs and filters available to add to your stories as well, to further humanize your firm and its staff. 

Engage with Your Followers

Engagement is often an overlooked part of social media. It won’t do your firm much good if you have tons of followers but most of them are uninterested, or worse, online bots. There are several features within Instagram stories that you can use to facilitate engagement with your followers. Use the “Question” feature to host Q&A sessions about the firm generally or with individual attorneys discussing a specific practice area or topic. The “Poll” feature is also a great way to directly ask your audience what kind of content they would like to see more of. 

Takeaway

Instagram, especially the stories features, can have far-reaching benefits for lawyers and law firms. Many are still hesitant or uncomfortable with using the platform generally, but once you learn the basics and develop a strategy that works for you, Instagram will become second-nature. If you want to learn more about Instagram for law firms, contact us today.