Keeping Up With the Times: Grow Your Firm With Instagram

Five years ago, Instagram was born, instantly transforming the lives of thousands of tweens and teens. The Instagram application allowed them to take, edit, and share pictures with their network all in one app and with just a few simple steps. In 2010, if you were even familiar with Instagram you may have never dreamt that it would one day become a powerful marketing tool for your law firm, but the app has become exactly that in 2015 with the help of new features. Read on to learn more about promoting your legal services using the popular Instagram application.

Posting on Instagram

Posting on Instagram is quick and simple.
• Download or open the Instagram application. Use your Facebook credentials to log in or create an account if you don’t have Facebook.
• Select the camera and capture a photo.
• Follow the prompts to add interesting filters to your picture.
• Add a caption or some hashtags if you like. (Read on to find out why hashtags are necessary).
• Share your photo with the world.
You can also use Instagram to upload images, graphics, and memes that promote your firm.

Marketing Graphics

Which graphics might most effectively market your firm? Think about what you want to share with your potential audience…is it a statistic about your law firm, i.e. combined years of experience, success rate, customer satisfaction rate, etc? Perhaps it’s a simple statement designed to make your audience think about their needs and your role in obtaining them, such as “There’s a resolution to every dispute,” or “Divorce doesn’t have to be ugly.” Maybe it’s a photo of your state-of-the-art building or suite, a new member of your team, or a publication featuring your firm. Take full advantage of Instagram’s access to 200 million users by advertising your services, hours, successes, publications, and open positions.

Search and Explore Opens Doors

Instagram’s new Search and Explore feature is taking the business marketing world by storm. The opportunity to reach the right audience with your marketing is increasing exponentially as a result of Instagram’s upcoming search and explore capabilities. Law firms can prepare for the upgrade by posting in bulk and using hashtags in abundance.

Hashtags: A Marketing Must

Hashtags (essentially the pound or number sign on your keyboard followed by a word or phrase without spaces) connect similar posts or topics. Hashtags are vital in marketing as they increase the size of your audience and connect the audience of similar posts to your firm.

The whole process works like this: a user considering filing for divorce searches Instagram for posts with the hashtag #divorceattorney or #lawfirm. When your “Divorce doesn’t have to be ugly,” graphic lands in his search results (surrounded by aggressive divorce attorneys if you’re lucky), it speaks to him. He clicks on it, learns more about your law practice, and schedules an appointment.

Attorneys can also keep an eye on trending hashtags and “hashjack” to get their content exposed the largest audience. For example, if #fireworks is trending over the holiday, it may be a great time to post about your services or open positions with a #fireworks hashtag. Anyone who looks at posts tagged with #fireworks has now been introduced to your firm, instantly increasing brand recognition.

The Social Media Bandwagon

Many professionals are hesitant about “jumping on the bandwagon,” so to speak, but the truth is that social media has been in existence in some form or another for decades and in full swing since 2002. Failing to take advantage of the seemingly limitless marketing opportunities on Instagram and other social media platforms is failing to realize the potential of your small business.

Your potential customers can access all the information they need to make a decision about a product or service with just a few clicks of the mouse or taps on the touch screen. They don’t thumb through the yellow pages or check the classifieds when they’re looking for an attorney. If you want this audience to become your customers, you must reach them through digital means. And if you want to reach the vast majority of them through one avenue? Then social media is for you.

We would love to hear from you to keep the conversation going! Do you have a preferred method of social media marketing that has benefitted you more than you anticipated? Are you on Instagram yet? Be sure to follow me on Instagram so you can see for yourself that it’s a wonderful avenue for growing your firm, retaining clients, and staying in-tuned with the fast pace of today’s social media marketing world. Until next time, thank you for reading and continue to be enchanting!