In this article, we focus on social media for lawyers. We start with some statistics about social media that underpin their relevance. Next, we have a look at the different categories of social media that exist. We conclude with a selection of social media that are recommended for lawyers.<\/p>\n
In a previous article, we explained why social media matter<\/a>. They are a valuable marketing tool, even for lawyers, because they provide direct access to your target audiences.\u00a0 Legal consumers are online consumers and social media allow them to familiarize themselves with the lawyers whose services they want to employ.<\/p>\n And social media are extremely popular, as the following statistics illustrate.<\/p>\n A key concept in the metrics about social media users is the number of monthly active users<\/em> (MAU). These are the unique users who use a social media platform at least once a month. Based on these monthly active users, these are the 21 most popular social media platforms.<\/p>\n Now, many of those you may not be familiar with because they are mainly used in the Far East, and more specifically in China. Those are probably less relevant for most Western lawyers.<\/p>\n Not yet included in the list is Threads<\/em>, the new Twitter alternative that was launched by Instagram. In the week after it was launched on 5 July 2023, it already gathered more than 100 million users, which would put it near the top 20. But note that at the time of writing, Threads<\/em> is not available in the EU.<\/p>\n There are many different types of social media. To tell them apart, it makes sense to group them in different categories. The Wikipedia uses the following categories.<\/p>\n Note that in this overview the Wikipedia did not include messaging apps like WhatsApp<\/em>, Telegram<\/em>, or Signal<\/em>, while most other overviews do include them. Not included either are websites where people can ask all kinds of questions, like Quora<\/em> or Reddit<\/em>.<\/p>\n It is also worth pointing out that the boundaries between these categories are fluid and that they often overlap. Videos, e.g., are not only shared on video sharing sites, but also on virtually all messaging apps, as well as on most other popular platforms like LinkedIn<\/em>, Facebook<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n The annual reports by the American Bar Association<\/em> and Good2bSocial<\/em> reveal that by now most law firms are active on social media. Many are present on the most popular platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, and most have their own blog. The most important current trends are that a) more and more law firms are discovering short form video and start using those, and b) that firms who cater to multiple audiences are seeing the importance of market segmentation. In other words, law firms are learning it pays off to target different audiences on different platforms.<\/p>\n Online articles that recommend lawyers which social media to use are fairly consistent in their recommendations. The selection below is limited to those social media that are most relevant for lawyers, topic-wise and geographically. For most of the ones listed below, we have discussed them before in our blog articles.<\/p>\n When it comes to business networking<\/strong>, LinkedIn<\/a> <\/em>is the platform of choice.<\/p>\n When it comes to general social media<\/strong>, Facebook<\/a> <\/em>is the most popular choice. Recent statistics show that in the US more law firms are advertising on Facebook<\/em> than on LinkedIn<\/em>.<\/p>\n When it comes to messaging apps<\/strong>, there are more options. WhatsApp<\/em>, Instagram<\/em>, Snapchat<\/em>, Telegram<\/em>, and Signal<\/em> are all popular. Because of privacy concerns, Signal is probably most recommended for lawyers. Note that most messaging apps now also allow to create groups which can function as mailing list for updates as well as short newsletters. A WhatsApp<\/em> group can currently have 1 024 members, whereas a Telegram<\/em> super group can have up to 200\u00a0000 members.<\/p>\n Because online consumers like to know in advance who they are dealing with, photo sharing apps<\/strong> can provide them with a more human side of a law firm. Instagram<\/a> <\/em>still is the most popular platform, followed by Snapchat<\/em>, Flickr<\/em>, and Photobucket<\/em>.<\/p>\n Up until recently, the platform of choice for micro-blogging<\/strong> was Twitter<\/a><\/em>. But since Elon Musk took over, many users and advertisers have turned their back on Twitter. Several alternatives are available, like Mastodon, Threads, Tumblr, Bluesky, or, e.g., Post.news. Threads seems to be positioning itself as the main alternative but is not available in Europe.<\/p>\n For video sharing<\/strong>, there again are several options. For longer videos, YouTube<\/em> and Vimeo<\/em> are the platforms of choice. For short-form videos, TikTok<\/em>, Instagram<\/em>, and Snapchat<\/em> are currently most popular. Note, however, that for lawyers TikTok is not recommended because of serious privacy concerns. Several governments worldwide have ordered officials to remove TikTok from their smart phones.<\/p>\n Pinterest<\/a><\/em> still is the recommended platform for social bookmarking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n When it comes to question-and-answer forums<\/strong>, Quora<\/em> and Reddit<\/em> are the two main platforms.<\/p>\n That concludes our overview of recommended social media for lawyers in 2023.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sources<\/u>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this article, we focus on social media for lawyers. We start with some statistics about social media that underpin their relevance. Next, we have a look at the different categories of social media that exist. We conclude with a selection of social media that are recommended for lawyers. Some statistics about social media In … Continue reading Social media for lawyers<\/span> \n
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Categories of social media<\/h2>\n
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A selection of social media for lawyers<\/h2>\n
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