Are you a new solo attorney or a small firm attorney looking to grow your practice? You may be overwhelmed by the prospect of having to build out your client base in such a competitive online marketing landscape. A comprehensive law firm marketing plan, including a social media content strategy, is essential for establishing a strong presence and connecting with potential clients. Fortunately, we’ll cover some of the basics in this marketing guide for new lawyers so that you can better understand the field of online legal marketing and how your own marketing efforts should be anchored.

For guidance on how to grow your practice through online marketing, contact our team here at Walker Advertising. By signing onto one of our branded legal networks, you’ll gain access to qualified inbound leads that can help you focus on what you do best — providing excellent legal representation — while simultaneously growing your law firm practice.

That being said, keep reading to learn more in this marketing guide for new lawyers!

What is the best way to market my law practice online?

There is no “best way” to market your law practice online. Developing a comprehensive law firm marketing strategy is critical to building brand awareness, attracting new clients, and promoting client retention. There are several different options when it comes to effectuating online legal marketing, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Your options include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• Email marketing campaigns (i.e., email blasts, regular newsletters, etc.)
• Paid advertising (i.e., search ads, embedded video ads, etc.)
• Organic written content on your law firm website
• Legal video content, in short and long formats (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.)
• Static text/image posts on social media (Instagram, Facebook, X, etc.)
• And more

As a general rule, comprehensive online marketing efforts work best — assuming that you have the resources to do so. That’s because many of these marketing strategies work better when executed together.

For example, suppose that you are having a team of writers create a high volume of organic written content for your law firm’s website (to capture search traffic for various legal keywords). A well-structured law firm’s website is essential for attracting clients and enhancing credibility. If you create video content for your social media profiles, you can embed relevant videos into your content pages too, thus maximizing the potential of your written content.

Further, you can promote written content on your social media profile, funneling audiences to your website. This cross-pollination effect is only possible if you are engaging in more comprehensive marketing efforts. As such, it’s a good idea not to think of law firm marketing strategies as dependent on a narrow “best way” choice.

Is it illegal for a lawyer to advertise online?

It is not illegal for a lawyer to advertise online.  That being said, there are a number of regulatory guidelines that apply to legal advertising, and you should take care to observe these restrictions, which are established by your State Bar.  Every state has different restrictions and requirements, so don’t assume that there will be universally applicable rules.

Fundamental Priorities When It Comes to Online Content Marketing

Most people familiar with online marketing have heard of search engine optimization (SEO), which serves as a crucial digital marketing strategy for law firms, enhancing their visibility in search results and attracting potential clients. Through keyword research and technical optimizations, search engine optimization can enhance content visibility and attract potential clients by improving how content ranks in search engine results.

But to succeed in today’s digital landscape, content has to be more than just SEO-optimized. Content that “goes viral” tends to satisfy certain requirements. Winning content is, broadly speaking, one (or more) of the following:

• Entertaining
• Informative
• Controversial
• Surprising
• Newsworthy

If your content does not have any of these elements — of course, there are levels to this, since some content could be loosely defined as “entertaining” but not really be entertaining as compared to the competition online — then it will generally not succeed in being broadly promoted via search or social media impressions. To understand why these factors are considered so critical these days, it’s useful to examine how social media algorithms have changed.

Social media algorithms have shifted to become more “engagement-focused.” Of course, clickthrough rates and view retention are still deeply relevant — and are in fact the most fundamental indicators of a piece of content’s potential success — but engagement metrics have become increasingly important.

For example, shares matter more than ever, particularly if they spark a sequence of multiple shares (i.e., the share leads to more shares), thus bringing in a number of users onto the platform to read/watch the piece of content. To maximize shares, the content has to have certain qualities in excess: a “shocking” video is much more likely to be shared than an emotionally neutral video. Given these new algorithm dynamics, law firms are best served by leaning into emotionally resonant content that surprises, shocks, or entertains.

This can seem counterintuitive, as it might not align with perceptions of professionalism for the law firm’s brand, but social media profiles tend to operate in a contextual vacuum — for example, Wendy’s social media profile brand is famously humorous and impolite, while the overall brand has always been family-friendly and polite.

Avoiding Selfish Content on Social Media and Why It Matters

Many organizations don’t realize that their social media content has a selfish tint that isn’t of particular interest to potential clients (or to any audience aside from those within their own organization). What sort of content is “selfish” in the context of social media? Consider the following:

• Behind-the-scenes content about the firm’s day-to-day work
• Content talking about the firm’s community engagements.
• Self-promotional content about the firm’s services and how your firm is positioned favorably vis-a-vis the competition
• And more

In essence, any content that is not designed to “meet the audience where they are” is selfish and ignorant of the way that social media algorithms actually work. To put it simply, social media algorithms don’t find an audience for your content — in reality, they find content for the audience. If your content is not built to serve the audience’s desires/needs, then it will not be promoted with broad impressions.

You often see this dynamic play out with large companies that attempt to engage in organic marketing via social media. They create content — even very well-produced content — that is not targeted at the audience’s desires or needs. You might see a soap company create content about their community engagements, for example. But is that content going to be of interest to the vast majority of people? No! Only the stakeholders in the company think it’s interesting or relevant.

The most important thing when creating content for social media is that your firm be aware of how interesting and relevant the content truly is to your target audience. Be extremely critical about whether you — if you were a member of your target audience — would actually click on and watch the piece of content you’re creating. Adopt their mindset to understand what content will work best.

How often should a law firm post on social media marketing?

There’s no hard-and-fast rule regarding how often you should post on social media — and every platform is different, too.  In truth, how often you post depends on a variety of factors, including the particular niche in which you’re operating.

A consistent marketing strategy is crucial for social media posting, as it helps in planning and maintaining regularity.

That being said, content consumption has shifted significantly in recent years.  Now, most users (on platforms like TikTok and even Instagram) are swiping through hours and hours of short vertical videos, and are less invested in each social media creator.  The “posting schedule” of these creators is therefore somewhat irrelevant to the audience, given these new consumption patterns.

Instead, the most important thing you can establish is a consistent cadence for uploading social media content.  This signals to the social media platform’s algorithm that your account is active and prevents your content from falling out of the algorithm’s promotional push.  So if you have limited resources, don’t worry too much about posting too frequently — your first priority should be ensuring that you post on a consistent basis.

What should I do if I don’t have the resources to commit to building out a comprehensive marketing effort for my law practice?

If you don’t have the resources (i.e., the team, finances, or schedule) necessary to execute a marketing effort, then you may want to explore some less-intensive alternatives for growing your law practice.

A well-structured marketing budget is crucial in ensuring effective marketing efforts. By allocating funds wisely, you can achieve your business goals and stay competitive in the legal industry.

Ultimately, your goal is to increase the number of qualified inbound leads that you have access to — these leads are prospective clients, and by evaluating their legal claims, you can decide which ones to take on.  The more (and higher quality) inbound leads you to receive, the more (and better-matched) clients you’ll be able to serve, thus growing your law practice.

Since growing your law practice is based on maximizing your inbound lead funnel — and directly engaging in marketing efforts to maximize that funnel is something that your firm simply doesn’t have the resources to commit to — consider working with an organization like Walker that has preexisting funnels.

At Walker Advertising, we operate a number of sub-brands (such as Los Defensores, FindLegal, and 1-800-THE-LAW2) through which we run comprehensive marketing efforts.  For example, for our Los Defensores brand, we run TV advertisements, online paid ads, social media marketing, and content writing, among other strategies.  Each of these efforts has allowed us to cultivate funnels through which we generate numerous inbound leads, which we then qualify and send over to law firms who sign up to our network.  You’ll receive a number of these qualified leads every month just by paying a fee.  In other words, you get to outsource your online marketing efforts to us, and just pay for the leads that you wanted to generate in the first place!

Contact Walker Advertising for Helping Growing Your Firm’s Client Base

Whether you’re a solo lawyer or are part of a larger firm with plans for expansion, it’s important to grow your client base in order to hit your revenue and client growth goals. Here at Walker Advertising, we can help. We operate a number of popular attorney networks — including our Los Defensores and 1-800-THE-LAW2 brands — through which firms are able to access leads for various legal claims. Promoting legal services through various marketing strategies is crucial for attracting clients and maintaining a strong online presence.

The leads we acquire through our various online marketing efforts — from social media marketing to targeted web ads — have been pre-qualified by our team so that you aren’t hassled by a flood of leads that are simply not relevant or actionable for your purposes. By accessing these quality leads, you’ll be well-equipped to select the best ones to grow your firm business. Additionally, maintaining relationships with past clients is essential for generating referrals and increasing brand awareness.

Contact Walker Advertising today to connect to a member of our team who can explain how our legal networks can help your firm business thrive in this ever-changing digital marketing landscape.

We look forward to assisting you.