The Good2bSocial 2023 Social Law Firm Index

On November 30th, Good2bSocial released its 2023 Social Law Firm Index, which examines how Am Law 200 firms adopt and apply digital marketing in terms of brand building, engagement, and business development. The Social Law Firm Index analyzes each firm’s presence on the internet and across social media. It also evaluates their social usage to extend thought leadership and engage with clients and constituents. These factors are reduced to numerical measures, weighted, and incorporated into an algorithm to develop each firm’s rank on the Index.

Good2BSocial uses proprietary research to measure reach, engagement, and marketing performance on platforms including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, thought leadership, and podcast production.

“This year, we saw a lot of firms focus more on specific campaigns and also begin to invest in marketing technology,” said Guy Alvarez, CEO of Good2bSocial. “Firms have also started paying more attention to the analytics to to understand what campaigns have been successful and guide their next actions.”

Click here to download your copy of The Good2bSocial 2023 Social Law Firm Index.

Key Findings

This year’s key findings include:

AI trends

We can’t talk about 2023 without talking about AI first and foremost. This dynamic technology made its mark across various industries, and legal marketing is no exception. With markets projecting the global AI market to hit upwards of $400 billion by the close of 2027, it’s clear that generative AI is becoming an indispensable tool for businesses worldwide.

Demise of Twitter/X?

In the year since Elon Musk has taken over X/Twitter, it’s fair to say he’s brought more chaos, and the numbers show that. In November 2022, Twitter had nearly 260 million daily active users, but as of September 2023, that number has dropped by about 15 million. As of September 2022, Twitter held almost 100 percent of the microblogging monthly user-market share but as of September 2023, X’s market share dropped to less than 82 percent.

YouTube Shorts

With the continued rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels, short-form video content dominates social media. Creating short-form video content for your law firm and personal brand is a great way to grow your visibility and generate more engagement. Now, YouTube has an easy-to-adopt feature called YouTube Shorts. With a maximum length of 60 seconds, these videos force you to keep the topic tight and help you catch the eye of people with short attention spans.

Social Listening

Social listening tells you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about your target audience but were afraid to ask. It monitors your brand’s social media channels for any feedback and DMs of your brand or discussions regarding specific keywords, competitors or industries. The tools allow you to build a solid understanding of exactly what clients and prospective clients think about you by analyzing what they say on social channels. 

Top Ranking Law Firms

The Overall Top Five Firms demonstrated the greatest comprehensive adoption, integration, and use of digital marketing, social media, and thought leadership content to market and grow their practice. The firms topping the list are:

1.  Latham & Watkins
2.  Mayer Brown
3.  Greenberg Traurig
4.  DLA Piper
5.  K&L Gates

Our 2023 first-place winner, Latham & Watkins, has a clear and simple mission – to provide content that adds value. Using that goal, they successfully connect with their audiences across multiple platforms in an integrated approach.

Latham creates and delivers its digital content in a way that is engaging to their audiences, producing value-added insight and using digital channels strategically to deliver it. They’ve learned the most important content focuses on what matters to the client, prospective client or recruit. Latham constantly adjusts and tweaks their content based on the platform and their engagement to ensure they reach the appropriate audiences in meaningful ways.

Takeaway:

The Good2bSocial 2023 Social Law Firm Index rankings are based on a proprietary methodology developed to assess the effectiveness of each firm’s use of social media and digital marketing. Our analysis is further informed by the depth of our experience working with law firms, our familiarity with current trends and conditions in the marketplace, and best practices used across digital marketing channels. The full report, including overall and individual channel rankings, along with feature stories on the top-ranking firms in each category, is available here for download.

If you need help with your social media strategy or if you’re looking for ideas on how to improve your firm’s performance on social media, contact us for help today.