The law, or the practice therefore, is, at its heart, a business. Thus, like any business, the size, scope and engagement of your client base determines a legal practice’s profitability. Fully exploiting a customer base relies in part on the quality, speed and cost of the service or product provided by a business. The better, faster and speedy a service the more likely a business is to acquire customers. 

However, notwithstanding these aspects of business production Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, once stated that product design and quality are superior in function and outcome to marketing, citing that American firms were forced to waste money on advertising campaigns and marketing divisions as a way to account for the byproduct of having sub-par products and services. In order to out-sell each other, or sell at all, he claimed, American firms had to convince their clients that their products were not only good, but actually functioned. Jobs, in contrast, did not advertise much at all, and they certainly did not make assertions as to the quality of their products in any media. Instead, they relied on the inherent high-standard in their products to result in a free form of marketing – spread by word of mouth from consumer to consumer, a much more impactful vouching of quality. 

This is certainly an ironic sentiment from the acclaimed king of presentation and PR. Jobs’ words may have some truth to them. However, they should not be applied to all industries indiscriminately. The types of products Jobs was talking about were ones that were evident to consumers, devices that either worked or didn’t, they worked fast or they were slow. The proof was evident from even the first moments of usage, if not within a week of use. Further, like all things, these products’ quality was judged through comparison. How good is that firm’s device against this firm’s, often with neat and quantifiable specs for quick and straightforward comparison. 

By sharp contrast, the practice of law is not an easily judgable service. On one hand, the law is, by-in-large, opaque to those not trained and versed in its intricacies. This means that the quality of a solicitor or barrister’s performance is difficult to gauge accurately. Did the case lose or come to an unfavourable outcome because the quality of the advocacy or drafting was too poor? Or, was the case lost due to an unexpected and unprecedented judicial decision or are the circumstances of the case so unfavourable that it is effectively unreasonable. It is all too frequently forgotten that lawyers must play the hand they are dealt by their client and no amount of legal black magic and trickery can change base, and unfortunate, facts. Mainstream media regularly ignores this reality potrarying, what some might call a legal fiction.

Secondly, law is typically an incomparable science. The performance of any two or more firms or lawyers cannot be exactly compared in a strictly legal sense. Of course, how friendly or transparent they are can be judged. However, their technical legal performance is not practically reviewable by the client by reason of opacity, much less comparable. Moreover, in the uncommon event of switching between differing legal service providers on a same case, it is likely that the case will be in a different stage of its lifetime, such as settlement discussions of an appeal. As such, the goals and realities facing the new lawyer will be necessarily different, further obfuscating any chance of an accurate comparison.

A consequence of this asymmetry of provider to consumer information is that the only surefire way legal practices can really impress the quality of their services upon would-be clients is to market and advertise. Most large to medium size firms will deal with this issue by hiring a marketing head, an expert in the field, whose job it is to make the firm, and its constituent lawyers, seem approachable, likeable and, crucially, trustworthy. 

There are a number of mediums through which a marketing specialist can endeavour to achieve this. Perhaps one of the most effective, and the subject of this article is social media marketing. The term ‘social media’ refers to websites and other applications that enable a network of users to create and share content with each other in a manner that creates a sizable datastream. The efficacy of social media based marketing was illustrated in 2020, when a survey found that 80% of consumers stated that social media centric advertising significantly impacted their buying decisions. This is a trend that is set to continue, if not increase, with young generations increasingly forgoing traditional media streams 

Given this data, it would be easy to conclude that using social media for advertising purposes is a foregone conclusion. Afterall, many established titans of business, such as Amazon or Google, make great use of social media in the marketing of their products and services. It is curious then that the use of social media is a question that inspires hesitancy in most law firm decision makers. This is primarily due to an outmoded and erroneous concern that law is too serious and weighty to be advertised on social media. Indeed, many potential clients can be accessed through making use of social media advertising, such as the creation of company accounts/pages, the use of influences or algorithmically shown sponsored posts. It must be admitted that not all clients can be accessed this way. The boards of companies are unlikely, in their mutual deliberation, to greenlight the instructing of a firm based solely off a social media marketing operation. However, such social media marketing may well get a firm’s foot in the door, by exposing the firm to key players, such as the company’s general counsel. Alternatively, it must be remembered that private personal clients are also a huge part of the legal sector. These everyday people, who might need a last will and testament drafted, or a decree absolute obtained are just as susceptible to social media advertising, if not more so, than the shot-callers operating inside the structure of corporate clients.

The impact of social media on customer reach and acquisition means that these platforms, which are all too often relegated to the status of afterthoughts in a legal practice’s marketing strategy, should not only be considered a form of marketing software for law firms, but might even be considered the best legal marketing software. This does not necessarily mean that a firm’s marketing presence should be distinct from its legal practice management software as a whole. Indeed, marketing manager software, as incorporated into a larger legal technology solution, can and should have linked access to and management capabilities over a firm’s social media presence. This can lead to not only easier usage but also more exhaustive legal practice analytics, as future customer acquisition can be tracked through inbuilt analytics in social media platforms.  In this vein, a firm’s interconnected social media and legal marketing software can form an extended arm of the legal practices’ customer relationship management (CRM), with some platforms, such as Twitter offering the ability to communicate with potential and actual clients about non-specific event and opportunities, thus enhancing firm-client relations.

In conclusion, the potential rewards for law firms that accompany a presence on social media are myriad and valuable. It is for this simple reason that it is highly recommendable that a firm’s marketing division make use of social media marketing.

References:

[1] ‘Businesses Are Increasing Their Investments in Social Media As Consumers Use Social Media More Than Ever Before’ at https://www.forbes.com/sites/garydrenik/2021/04/22/businesses-are-increasing-their-investments-in-social-media-as-consumers-use-social-media-more-than-ever-before–heres-why/?sh=1c24f187156f

[2] ‘The Guide to Winning Social Media for Law Firms’ at https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-for-law-firms/

[3] ‘Marketing and Law: Everything You Need to Know’ at https://www.upcounsel.com/marketing-and-law

[4] ‘Social Media for Law Firms: 10 Best Practices’ at https://statusbrew.com/insights/social-media-for-law-firms/

[5] ‘Why Lawyers Should be Allowed to Advertise: A Market Analysis of Legal Services’ at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/144229843.pdf

[6] ‘How Should Law Firms be Spending their Marketing Budget?’ at https://strawberryforge.com/blog/legal/how-should-law-firms-be-spending-their-marketing-budget/ 

[7] ‘Marketing and the Law’, at https://www.rocketlawyer.com/gb/en/quick-guides/marketing-and-the-law

[8] ‘How to Use Social Media for Small Businesses’, at https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-tips-for-small-business-owners/ 

[9] ‘97% of Fortune 500 Companies Rely on Social Media. Here’s How You Should Use It for Maximum Impact, at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/366240

[10] ‘Choosing the right Social Media platform to Market your business’, at https://www.webheads.co.uk/blog/mobile-apps-vs-mobile-websites-for-marketing-2/