How Professional Service Firms are Using Instagram: Best Practices for Law Firms

Did you know that Instagram has over one billion users and counting? In fact, the fan following, growth and engagement of Instagram is more than Facebook and Twitter combined! Instagram can be a valuable vehicle for your law firm to market its services, grow your practice, recruit new talent, and interact with clients. Incredibly, Instagram is a free service.

Successfully marketing your law firm on Instagram, as with other social networks, requires building an engaged following and positioning yourself as part of the online community. To do so, you need to offer unique and offer top-quality content. In the past, we have highlighted unique law firm instagram accounts. Today, we are featuring professional service firms who excel on Instagram. Emulate these firms and embrace and apply their techniques to your own, successful Instagram following. 

@deloitte

Deloitte, is one of the “Big Four” accounting organizations and the largest professional services network in the world, both by revenue and number of professionals. With such a massive network, it comes as no surprise that Deloitte has a verified Instagram account with a large following of 113k.  Its feed is filled with video posts that showcase its market reports, employees and the ways in which the company commits to driving societal change and promoting environmental sustainability. Deloitte’s profile also includes a curated collection of Instagram Stories Highlights featuring employee takeovers and various campaign initiatives. Highlights are a cool feature that allows you to place permanent stories on your account and highlight moments exemplifying exactly who you are and what you do.

Deloitte’s feed documents its significant efforts to benefit workers on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Efforts include making masks for police officers and healthcare professionals, and creating a volunteer service, GroceryHero, that delivers groceries to healthcare workers in order to limit their exposure to the virus.

Deloitte has multiple handles for customized marketing messages. Its separate handle, @lifeatdeloitteus, highlights employment opportunities, education support and employee testimonials. 

@ey_global

Ernst & Young provides assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services to clients across the world, as documented in their Instagram bio. They have built a consistent Instagram theme for their feed and done an excellent job branding it.  Every one of their posts contains consistent color schemes, fonts, descriptions and logos. E&Y opens each post with a brief description of its contents, giving the view a great introductory summary prior to clicking on the post.  They also use hashtags, leverage geolocation features, and tag people and profiles in their posts.  These are excellent tactics to increase reach. E&Y also uses a branded hashtag, #BetterWorkingWorld, in their bio and on each of their posts, and encourages employees to do the same. The firm-wide hashtag allows users to search for E&Y related posts and find other employees, thus creating a sense of community for their 280,000 person-wide network. 

@lifeatpwc

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a multinational professional services network, delivering world-class assurance, tax, and consulting amenities. The professional service firm’s handle, “lifeatpwc,” is well reflected in their Instagram account, dedicated to giving their followers a day in the life of PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is a great way to inspire employee advocacy and acts as a useful recruiting tool for potential new hires. 

PwC’s Instagram feed is a model of creativity that depicts their employees, culture, and careers, which is an impactful marketing tactic on Instagram especially. The feed is made up of informative, yet friendly and engaging content at all times. Their content is dedicated primarily to their staff, with posts of their team seen at various professional and charitable events happening year round. PwC also has a well developed collection of Instagram Stories Highlights, providing important announcements, updates, and other exclusive content on major political and social events occurring throughout the year. 

@mckinseyco

McKinsey & Company has over 179k followers on Instagram and is one of the most trusted advisors and consulting firms to many of the world’s largest businesses and institutions. From their bio you can click on the live link #McKCareers, which leads to a hashtag page that includes tagged posts with branded hashtags. The branded #McKCareers hashtag within their bio is a great way to share their community and invite others to participate. Followers get a glimpse into McKinsey “life and knowledge”, with photos of staff from around the world sharing how their professional and personal life experiences improve the world around them. The firm’s Instagram account serves up an inspiring blend of firm news, motivational quotes, and descriptive graphs and statistics. Every week, McKinsey posts “the Shortlist,” a campaign dedicated to providing insights and new ideas on timely topics. With these posts, they pose questions on current events with a link back to the insights contained in their bio. None of McKinsey’s posts contain too many hashtags, which can make content look spammy and unprofessional.  To make use of Instagram’s 30 hashtag maximum, the firm posts related hashtags as comments to the post. 

@bcg

The Boston Consulting Group is an American management consulting firm. Known as one of the three largest employers in management consulting, the firm has over 90 offices in more than 50 countries. BCG leverages its more than 90k followers on Instagram by providing valuable insight and expertise. Their page is extremely professional, with posts dedicated to extensive research shown through various graphs and tables, motivational quotes, and tips on how to improve one’s well-being and work ethic. From a more aesthetic and structured standpoint, BCG shows their commitment to consistency through their curated feed content with uniform branding, color schemes, fonts, descriptions, and logos. Each post also provides a brief description of its contents prior to the viewer clicking on the post to read the caption. Their Instagram account is text heavy and information focused. BCG also exhibits insights into their company culture and employees’ lives with their separate handle: @bcg_life. Some of their recent posts picture their employees with their families in Chile and other parts of the world, talking about settling into the new remote working reality.

@kpmgus

KPMG is also one of the largest professional services networks in the world, with offices in 147 countries with over 220,000 employees. The firm has over 66k Instagram followers and a unique, professional aesthetic to their feed. They post a number of times per month and use a mix of video and static image content to present their messages. KPMG’s expertise lies in their ability to help organizations negotiate risks and perform in dynamic and challenging environments.  This is well represented through their authoritative feed content. A majority of their posts share articles and insights to educate and inform their audience. They also use Instagram Stories Highlights to depict their employees speaking at events or on topics related to their field of expertise, e.g. cyber security, taxes, etc.

KPMG has a separate Instagram account to represent their Family for Literacy (KFFL), a program whose mission is to provide new books to children in need: @kpmgsfamilyforliteracy.  They also have a number of Instagram accounts dedicated to recruitment in different countries throughout the world, e.g. @kpmg_us_careers or @kpmg_china_careers. KPMG’s career Instagram accounts provide a snapshot of their work life, with “a day in the life” posts and employee takeovers. These feeds do a great job of expressing cultural diversity within their offices. KPMG successfully uses their career accounts to create a sense of warmth and connection to attract aspiring talent.

Takeaway

These professional service firms know how to use Instagram to showcase and market their brands, recruit new talent, and demonstrate their knowledge and experience in an engaging and interactive way. They have built compelling Instagram accounts, sure to catch the attention of new followers and help them achieve a number of marketing goals. Law firms can look to these major players on Instagram to pick up marketing ideas and strategies that will help them establish their own meaningful presence. 

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