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Why Paid Social Does Work for Law Firms

by Justine Abbate • January 24th, 2020 • Social Media | Blog

paid social media marketing for law firmsIn the past, paid social media marketing for law firms did not make sense. Just a few years ago, this type of marketing was considered a waste of money since organic social media marketing was sufficient. Simply creating social media accounts and being active on them used to be enough to reach your audience, gain brand awareness and generate leads.

However, the landscape has changed over the years, and that is no longer the case. Now, it makes sense to include some element of paid social media marketing in your law firm’s advertising.

Exploring Advantages of Paid Social for Law Firms

The benefit of paid social media is that it allows you to present your message to people that don’t follow you directly. Law firms that take advantage of paid social advertising will notice several key benefits. This starts with the fact that it only takes minutes to set up your ad on LinkedIn or Facebook, so you can start seeing a return on investment (ROI) right away.

The ease of using social media ads also extends to the timeline; you can run an ad for as long or as short of a time as you want. There usually are no minimum commitments of the extreme nature you will find with TV ads, making it easier to stick to your budget. This also lets you stop the ad campaign if it is clear that it has not done anything for you. Each platform uses the pay-per-click (PPC) payment model. This means that your firm pays only if the user takes the action you want. Unlike conventional advertising, this lets you engage with niche markets at a discount. After a few ad cycles, you can refine your targeting to drive greater results and ROI.

One of the most crucial factors of paid social is the ability to target your audience. Instead of having to display your message to everyone, paid social also allows you to direct your message to a narrowly defined audience. While most social networks offer the ability to promote your content through paid advertising, each platform has different advantages.

Paid Social on Facebook

In 2018, Facebook announced that its algorithm would prioritize “meaningful interactions” from friends and family over content from brands. Thus, paid support on Facebook has become crucial for firms looking to make an impact on the platform.

If your law firm is targeting consumers, Facebook might be the right choice to start a paid social campaign. Facebook has an average cost per click ranging from about $.20 up to $2.00. With high competition, bidding can go much higher, but these are the prices you’re likely to find in general. Overall, Facebook’s major plus is the ability to laser target advertising to the consumer audience you want to reach. On the platform, you can define your audiences based on location, demographics (gender, education, income, etc), interests, connections, and behaviors. You can also target your message to people who have already shown interest in your firm, whether they’re contacts from your CRM system, email lists or people who have visited your website.

Paid Social on Instagram 

On Facebook and Instagram, the targeting criteria is the same. Similar to Facebook ads, using paid social or promoting a post will lead to more exposure for your firm, as well as more control over who can see your post. AdEspresso recently found that the average cost per click (CPC) for Instagram ads in Q3 ranged between $0.70 and $0.80. 

Paid Social on LinkedIn

While LinkedIn can be a bit more expensive than Facebook when it comes to advertising, it’s the number one contender when it comes to paid social for law firms targeting corporations. LinkedIn’s biggest advantage is the ability to reach business professionals. If your firm or company targets businesses or professionals, you’ll be able to get your messages in front of the decision makers at companies all over the world. You can target specific professionals based on their job titles, their companies, seniority, industries, location and several other criteria. The research conducted from our Social Law Firm Index reveals that 30% of AM Law 200 firms are using paid LinkedIn for brand awareness and lead generation

Paid Social on Twitter

One clear advantage of using paid social on Twitter is that your content will appear directly in your target audience’s newsfeed, whether they follow your firm or not. You have the ability to disseminate your message to people based on their interests or topics of conversations they’re actively participating in.

There are multiple types of Twitter ads to utilize, we suggest trial-and-error to establish which format works best for your firm but we see the most success with sponsored content. Twitter Ads run in an auction. You can decide how much you will pay for each interaction, such as a new follower or a click to your website. You can also use automatic bidding, this determines the best bid cost based on your budget and goals. 

Two considerations to make when executing your paid social strategy on Twitter: 

  • An AdAge Survey ranked five online advertising platforms in terms of importance by ROI. Google was the clear winner, followed by Facebook, and then Twitter.
  • Twitter claims that Promoted Trends provide a 22% lift in brand conversion, 30% lift in positive mentions and 32% lift in retweets.

How to use Paid Social

To get the most from paid social for your law firm, work toward a few key goals. You may want to increase your brand awareness with something like a short video. While paid social campaigns can be cost-effective, they do require a well-thought out strategy and on-going management to ensure the success of the program and to deliver a high return on investment. In order to extract the value out of your paid social media campaigns, you need to choose the proper targets, craft smart ads and set an appropriate budget. 

Takeaway

To ensure that your firm’s social media content gets the screen time it deserves and to really move the needle, law firms should consider paid social media strategies. While organic promotion of your law firm’s content on social media was once enough to gain brand awareness and generate leads, the saturation of businesses in the digital space has increased the need for paid social media marketing for law firms. Paid social is sponsored content that is used to increase your firm’s presence. At its core, paid social media allows you to reach people who may not follow your social accounts directly but fall within your target demographic. This allows law firms to expand their content’s reach and generate new clients. 

If your law firm needs help implementing a paid social media strategy, contact us for a free consultation.

Updated and republished from October 22, 2018

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