You’re an expert when it comes to social media and you know all there is to know about posting and audience building on your firm’s Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn channels. Now what? Believe it or not, the fun doesn’t stop at those major social media platforms. The next destination in your online social adventure is one you might not expect- we’re talking about Reddit.
As I’ve written about before, Facebook’s advertising platform is growing at an exponential rate. In fact, Facebook says over 1.8 billion people use its social media platform every month. But to the social media advertising novice, Facebook’s advertising platform may appear to be a little overwhelming. In this we will discuss the different types of Facebook ads and the corresponding metrics you should pay attention to as they are running.
With millions of informational sources in the digital sphere today, the amount of available content can be overwhelming. For a law firm managing its own social media channels and blogs, sharing relevant digital content can establish the firm as an authoritative voice on specific topics – even when the firm is not creating the content itself. Finding that content, however, requires content curation.
For lawyers who remain reluctant to use social media, for reasons including an inability track return on investment via traditional means, the time has come to get over it. Greater social signals can not only drive inbound traffic to your website, but they can also help your law firm rank higher in search results. While some dispute the connection between social signals and organic rankings, social signals already impact search visibility.
In a recent file review at my office, I gave my team a primer on how I build audiences on social media across the channels that are most relevant to attorneys. Many law firms set up social media channels and some even share content on them, but if no one is listening is social media worth it? In most cases, the answer is no.
Most law firms utilize pay-per-click advertising through Google AdWords to target potential clients but have yet to jump onto social media advertising. While once thought of as “free marketing tools,” Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn have evolved over the last few years into stellar advertising engines.
Even if you aren’t on it, you have probably heard of Twitter. It is a free social media platform with a mobile app, website, and third party applications. Sometimes it gets a bad rap for its constant stream of updates, including “what I had for breakfast” posts. I maintain that the value of Twitter, and really all social media, comes with who you follow and how you use it. I’m a Twitter-evangelist. Why? Twitter trumps Facebook for engagement, audience building and search engine optimization. As a law firm on Twitter, it is perfectly acceptable to “talk” to someone you have never met. It puts the networking in social networking.
Stacey E. Burke