Being an attor­ney at a solo or small law firm has always come with cer­tain inher­ent risks and chal­lenges. To man­age your legal prac­tice and small busi­ness, you need to wear many hats and be able to suc­cess­ful­ly jug­gle com­pet­ing pri­or­i­ties. Today, these chal­lenges are even more pro­nounced. As you adjust to new ways of work­ing and serv­ing clients, you must also con­front shift­ing eco­nom­ic real­i­ties and make deci­sions on where to fun­nel your firm’s mar­ket­ing resources.

Thank­ful­ly, when it comes to dig­i­tal mar­keting, there are sev­er­al effec­tive and low-cost options. In our recent web­cast, Mak­ing The Most Of It: Opti­miz­ing Your Firm’s Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing In Uncer­tain Times, two sea­soned experts pro­vid­ed tips and advice for how small law firms can main­tain rel­e­van­cy and vis­i­bil­i­ty dur­ing this time and get the most out of their dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing efforts and invest­ments. Spe­cif­ic dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tac­tics and tools dis­cussed includ­ed legal direc­to­ries, social media ads, and blogging.

In this blog post, we answer four addi­tion­al ques­tions that were posed by attor­neys who attend­ed the web­cast. If you missed the live broad­cast, you can tune in to the on-demand ver­sion at any time.

Question: What’s the ideal length for a legal blog post?

Answer: When it comes to blog post word count min­i­mums, Find­Law rec­om­mends that a post be at least 200 words in length. How­ev­er, rather than get­ting too hung up on a post’s length, it’s best to think about the val­ue you‘re pro­vid­ing. Few legal top­ics can be dis­cussed in a mean­ing­ful way in less than 200 words. A key goal of your blog­ging strat­e­gy should be to pro­vide infor­ma­tion that is inter­est­ing and infor­ma­tive for read­ers. Keep­ing this goal in mind can also help you deter­mine if a blog post is too long. By nature, blog posts are meant to be short­er, easy-to-digest, and share­able forms of con­tent. There­fore, if you’re hav­ing a hard time keep­ing a post to under 1,000 words, it’s bet­ter to break it up into a series of two or three short­er posts.

Question What’s the ideal length for a legal blog post

Question: Where should firms publish blog posts?

Answer: A key attribute of a blog is that it pro­vides your firm the abil­i­ty to add new, unique, and rel­e­vant con­tent to your firm’s web­site on a reg­u­lar basis. Hav­ing an on-site blog is one of the most effec­tive ways to get search engines’ atten­tion and boost your firm’s online vis­i­bil­i­ty. A blog also pro­vides you and your firm a plat­form to dis­cuss top­ics relat­ed to your legal prac­tice – pro­vid­ing val­ue to legal con­sumers and posi­tion­ing you and your firm as thought leaders.

In addi­tion to reg­u­lar­ly post­ing to an on-site blog, you can and should share links to your blog posts via your firm’s social media chan­nels. Includ­ing a brief sen­tence or two syn­op­sis about a recent post and then link­ing to your blog via your firm’s Face­book, Twit­ter, and LinkedIn accounts helps boost engage­ment on social media and dri­ve addi­tion­al traf­fic to your firm’s website.

Question: If our firm is going to run paid advertising on Facebook, how important is it to have a robust firm Facebook page?

Answer: While build­ing a strong pres­ence on Face­book takes time, there are sev­er­al things you can do to quick­ly build and enhance your firm’s indi­vid­ual page. Make sure to com­plete as many fields on your firm’s Face­book busi­ness Page as pos­si­ble. In addi­tion to ensur­ing basic infor­ma­tion like your firm’s full and cor­rect name, address, web­site link, and busi­ness hours are list­ed – take the time to add pho­tos and spe­cif­ic calls to action. Pri­or to post­ing, shar­ing, and com­ment­ing, make sure to estab­lish a social media strat­e­gy and care­ful­ly think through your approach. When you feel com­fort­able that you have a han­dle on man­ag­ing your firm’s page and the relat­ed con­tent, you can explore paid adver­tis­ing options on Face­book. While paid ads can be a high­ly effec­tive way to pro­mote your firm’s ser­vices and con­nect with legal con­sumers, it can be chal­leng­ing to com­ply with Facebook’s adver­tis­ing poli­cies and fail­ure to do so may result in your account being shut down. To ensure the time and mon­ey you put into paid ads doesn’t go to waste, it pays to turn to a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing expert for advice and help.

Question: What is the best way to gain followers on Facebook?

Answer: When it comes to build­ing a fol­low­ing on your law firm’s Face­book page, dili­gence and per­sis­tence are key. Tai­lor com­mu­ni­ca­tions to dif­fer­ent audi­ences, i.e. one for cur­rent clients and anoth­er for busi­ness asso­ciates, invit­ing peo­ple to con­nect with your firm via Face­book. It’s also imper­a­tive to link to your firm’s page on your web­site and include a link to your Face­book page below your email sig­na­ture. You can also blog about how your firm is using social media to con­nect with cur­rent and prospec­tive clients. Once you start to build a fol­low­er-base, keep them engaged by reg­u­lar­ly post­ing and shar­ing con­tent that is rel­e­vant to your com­mu­ni­ty, prac­tice, and clientele.

SOURCE: Find­Law