Instagram for Law FirmsInstagram is the go-to place for over 1 billion people to share their photos, videos, and stories every single day. And as Instagram has grown over recent years, that’s left many lawyers and legal marketers with one very important question: How can we use Instagram to grow our law firm?

Well in this post, we’re going to dive dive head first into that topic and share:

  • How to create a clear Instagram strategy that meets your business objectives
  • How to post compelling content on a consistent basis
  • Growth tips to help you build an engaged follower base

Continue reading for our best tips on how to use Instagram.

Start with a strategy

Why are you using the channel? What are you hoping to accomplish? Who’s your target audience? Is it for recruiting purposes? Are you interested in building strategic relationships? With whom? What brand image do you want to project? Should you start with images or videos or both? How often should you post? Who in the firm can you use as evangelists for this effort? 

Just like you need an overall content strategy and social media strategy, you need one for individual channels. Have a documented strategy and identify your goals before posting your first image or video to Instagram.

Based on your strategic vision, you’ll need to create an editorial calendar for the images and videos you’ll post, including who’s responsible for posting and who’s involved with each effort. 

Tip: Look for your associates who are already active on Instagram and other social media platforms and make them part of your planning committee.

Share content

Similar to other social media platforms, it’s ineffective to simply advertise your firm and services. Rather you can use Instagram as another place to share your recent blog posts, articles, or videos if you have them! Just post a corresponding visual, CTA and link the post in your bio, if applicable, to drive your audience to your website to learn more.

Tip: Embrace emojis. This is a buttoned down channel, a place to have fun and show your personality.

Use a link service to show off multiple links

The one link in bio rule on Instagram limits you as a legal marketer from adding more than one link in bio or adding individual posts links. You must manually swap the bio link every time you want to promote a new blog post or campaign.

But you don’t have to worry about that if you leverage a link service like Campsite or Linktree. These tools enable you to link to more content and pages.

Show your law firm’s culture

How do you want your law firm to be perceived? Like Facebook, Instagram can be used to humanize your law firm. Sharing behind-the-scenes visuals of your office or doing short bios of lawyers can help potential clients trust your firm and gain an understanding of your company culture.

Just as important, Instagram can serve as a recruiting tool for new lawyers for whom firm culture is increasingly important.

Tip: Produce short video clips of a day-in-the-life of some of your associates.

Use trending hashtags

Instagram is known for being hashtag heavy. Therefore, it’s important to always include a few relevant hashtags in each caption. This will allow more users to see your post and you won’t feel like you’re just shouting into the void of the internet.

Tip: Don’t overpower your image with hashtags. Use two or three primary hashtags and add as many as you want in a follow-up comment. Your post becomes clutter free and is still discoverable when someone searches for relevant hashtags.

Related: How to Develop a Hashtag Strategy for Your Law Firm

Share quotes

By sharing relevant quotes (of your own attorneys or thought leaders) to motivate your followers, you boost engagement and encourage them to share your content with their friends. There’s no better way to talk about your firm by letting your employees share their thoughts.

There is a misconception that Instagram quotes are only used in a content calendar to ‘fill the gaps’ on your schedule. In truth, they help achieve much more than that. First of all, people love motivational quotes. Such content is short, witty, eye-catching, and can be very relatable to help everyone find much-needed inspiration and positivity.

Tip: Check out Canva Instagram Post Templates to beautify your text-based posts like tips and quotes.

Try Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories have a slideshow format and are only live for 24-hours (though they can be added to your profile as highlights, showing up on your profile even after the original Story disappears). When your law firm is planning to use Instagram Stories, consider using a mix of images and videos.

A good strategy for posting Stories is to craft content letting your followers know about fresh content posted to your newsfeed. Copy can be as simple as “Check out our new post.”

Tips: Tagging other accounts, e.g. @instagram in Stories is ideal for collaborators and influencer marketing and including hashtags and locations make your Stories more discoverable too!

Follow strategically

The fastest way to grow an engaged community is to follow other accounts…strategically. Law firms have a built-in advantage here. With scores to thousands of employees, many of whom have Instagram accounts, firms can quickly build a vibrant community.

Analyze success and build on it

Without taking a step back and analyzing what’s working and what’s not, marketing becomes a guessing game. You can read all the articles in the world about the best practices, but you will only find out what works for your audience through testing and measuring results.

Social media management tools can help, though. You can use them not only to schedule your Instagram posts in advance but also use social media analytics to measure their success.

Takeaway

Use your law firm’s Instagram channel to inspire followers, showcase office culture, and educate prospective clients. Don’t be afraid to get creative and share humorous content here and there. However, don’t overlook the importance of a solid strategy and method for measurement. We hope that these tips will improve your channel’s performance and help you attract new clients.

Contact us today to discover how we can help you achieve greater success through your social media marketing efforts. We have vast experience developing and executing revenue focused social media strategies that deliver real business results for law firms of all practice areas and sizes.

Updated and Republished from Jun 29, 2017.

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