How to use social media to connect with your ideal clients

Although not everyone reading this article practices the same kind of law, the success of any social media strategy depends on the same principles:

• Understanding where on the marketing spectrum the dream clients fall.

• Determining what social media platforms and strategies to use to reach dream clients and build networks & relationships.

Below I build on a great article by Aaron George from Lexicata, which will help you profile your clients so that you can choose the right social media platform and strategy to connect with them.

What services are your clients looking for?

Lower-end legal services

Middle-class individuals and families tend to ask for “standard” legal assistance, such as uncomplicated estate plans, straightforward divorces and standard criminal law procedures. Also, these clients are often with a law firm for shorter time periods.

Here lower-end marketing strategies and platforms are the best approaches and these social media campaigns work best when they create instant personalised rapport.

Lower end social media channels, such as Facebook, Youtube, TikTok and Twitter, offer an opportunity to interact with potential clients in a personal environment and let you engage with your audience on a human level, establish trust, build recognition and create credibility.

LinkedIn campaigns are aimed at a professional audience in the B2B (Business to Business) space, while Facebook, Youtube, TikTok and Twitter help connect with young, upcoming professionals and families and are great for B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing.

Middle-end legal services

Higher-income groups can usually afford more complicated legal procedures, such as complex estate planning, family and criminal law cases, intellectual property rights, bankruptcy and litigation. This marketing tier also includes corporate work for small and medium businesses, which includes personal injury, employment requirements and contingency-based cases.

Because cases are more complex, the average lifetime value of clients increases considerably and, as a result, law firms have more predictable budgets available for marketing.

With bigger budgets, new options become available.

Try tapping into the power of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing. These can cost more but can lead to great returns.

Social media is a good way to extend and re-target the reach of advertising media like print, radio and TV. Also, higher-value clients often use other professional services like financial advisors, bankers, doctors and real estate agents. Because of this, it's important to form referral networks with other service providers, which your ideal client might need.

LinkedIn is a great place to build such networks because it uses connections between professional people to extend and build wider networks of trust.

High-end legal services

The last marketing tier to consider is legal services aimed at large companies. Relationships with corporates can be ongoing and lucrative. This audience is less likely to respond to mass marketing strategies, such as social media campaigns and advertising. Rather, work is gained as a result of your reputation, who you know and nurtured relationships.

Successful networking comes from meaningful introductions through current connections and rubbing shoulders with powerful decision-makers (and quickly establishing your credibility). One way to meet more potential high-end clients is hosting or attending the right events. For this, Social media can be immensely useful in earmarking events and gaining insight into the kind of events your dream clients prefer.

Large companies are careful of who they collaborate with. Creating content around important legal issues (relevant to the businesses you want to work with) or sharing case studies of work already done with their industry peers, subtly yet effectively showcases your expertise and trustworthiness.

Social media platforms are a great place to share your content with a wider audience, especially when they're made aware of an article from someone already in their network of trust.

Now what?

Once you've established where on the marketing spectrum your client base falls it's time to profile your dream client. Future articles will unpack client demographics and social media statistics so that you can make an informed and confident choice of social media platforms and strategies.

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