20 Key Social Media Best Practices for Small- and Mid-Size Law Firms

Being a small or mid-size law firm doesn’t put you at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing or social media. It just means you have to be a bit more creative with the assets you have because you have fewer pieces of content and news items to promote on social media.

There are advantages to being at a smaller firm because you have less bureaucracy to move campaigns forward, and the ability to be more nimble and innovative with what you post and how quickly you can bring it to market.

Here are 20 key social media best practices for small and mid-size law firms. Note all of these tools are free!

1. Only focus on the social media channels used by your clients and prospects. Don’t stretch yourself thin for no reason or because you think you need to have certain social channels. For most small firms, this will be LinkedIn and maybe Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. You don’t need to be on all of the channels.
2. Adjust the message for the social medium – so if you are using more than one social channel, you’ll want to edit your copy (and imagery) to make sure it is in the style and tone of that platform. One size doesn’t fit all.
3. Focus on creating high-quality, helpful, timely content written in client-centric terms
4. Tell a story in your social posts when you can to draw in the reader
5. Spend the time to build your social media company profiles – such as the about/bio sections and taking time to create compelling header imagery.
6. Create a social media plan (with an editorial calendar) so you can schedule/plan out your content
7. Reuse and purpose your high performing content – use your analytics to help you find this
8. Develop a hashtag strategy and keep a running list of the top hashtags in your area for easy reference
9. Follow the social networks of your competitors for ideas and intelligence
10. Proofread everything closely before posting (you can edit the text in a LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram post once it’s live but not a Twitter post. Note that you can’t edit a photo you’ve added to a post on any platform)
11. Use URL shorteners in each post so you can track engagement
12. Create custom images for each post that include your logo and key contact info – extra points if you can create an infographic, chart or other compelling visual to bring your content to life.
13. Vary up your content by using video and podcasts
14. Ensure your employees are trained in how to use social media – so you can tap into their valuable social networks and engage them to share your company posts with their connections
15. Take advantage of LinkedIn company page tools – such as posting events directly on your page, inviting your contacts to follow your page and periodically downloading your followers so you can make sure they are on your firmwide email list too.
16. Use evergreen posts to your advantage – these are timeless posts that are gifts that keep giving – such as client alerts or blog posts that don’t have an expiration date.
17. Create a social media series focusing on lawyers where you highlight their biographical information and link back to their bios.
18. Do the same with your key practices and industry groups, creating a practice spotlight series to ensure your followers know you do work in these areas.
19. Use holidays to your advantage throughout the year – there’s a holiday every single month that you can use to promote your firm and people and the good works you do for the community – from Women’s History Month to Veterans Day and countless others
20. Create a TBT (Throwback Thursday) or FBF (Flashback Friday) series where you post photos or firm history from the past – it gives you a great opportunity to reuse information that you already have

I was never happier than when I was the head of marketing at a small firm because I had a lot of freedom to do things that big firms wouldn’t normally do. If you are lucky enough to be at a smaller firm – use it to your advantage!