How Social Media Automation and Employee Advocacy Programs Can Help Your Family Law Firm

Social media automation and employee advocacy platforms help family law firms and attorneys save time and get a better ROI on social media marketing. These automations use helpful tools that organize social media activity, such as content and engagements.

Law firms often use employee advocacy programs for promotional purposes. These platforms generate content in automated formats that can easily be shared with attorneys and their employees. Combining the powers of social media automation with employee advocacy activities creates an effective flow of communication.

Those who need a family law attorney will likely first ask for referrals from trusted friends, family, or colleagues. Being active on social media with informative posts boosts the chances of being referred. Social media activity keeps family law attorneys on the mind of former clients, colleagues, and even personal connections. Potential clients are likely to vet a referral by looking at your social media profiles. An active feed with relevant information is attractive to prospective clients.

Social Media Automation and Employee Advocacy Benefits

If you want to execute a social media strategy correctly, it takes time and effort. This is especially true when considering the number of social media platforms available. This is a lot of extra time that most lawyers do not have, which is where social media automation and advocacy comes into play. Here are some other ways that family law firms and attorneys can benefit from automated social media and employee advocacy platforms:

• Scheduled publishing

Automated platforms allow you to schedule social media posts ahead of time. These platforms know when more users are likely to see the post and will let you publish accordingly. Even if one of these peak times occurs after work hours or on the weekend, you can rest assured knowing that your post will be published. A single parent looking for answers to custody problems late at night after the kids are asleep is more likely to see a family law firm’s post on a relevant court decision if it’s published during prime usage time.

• Batch publishing

With batch publishing, you can schedule multiple posts across all social media platforms in one session, making it easier to follow a content calendar and create a consistent content flow. Busy family law attorneys who might be in client meetings or court all day can set up several social media posts for the week in one session. Many lawyers find this much easier than jumping in and out of social media between client commitments.

• Data

Many social media and employee advocacy platforms generate stats like analytics for post impressions, reach, and engagement. Being familiar with audience preferences helps family law firms and attorneys produce more in-demand content. For example, if a post about senior citizen divorces received high engagement rates, this could be a signal to generate more content in that genre.

• Social listening

Social listening means to monitor ongoing conversations about the field of law, specific legal services, relevant topics, and even competitors. Typically, automated social media platforms allow firms to monitor specific names, words, topics, or hashtags across multiple platforms into one curated feed. Social listening can help firms generate ideas for additional content topics while flagging any problems before they grow.

• Build a team of brand ambassadors

When attorneys and staff share helpful content and client news, they are helping to boost the family law firm’s brand. Social media automation and employee advocacy programs ensure that there is plenty of information to share. Likewise, content performs better because it is being seen by more people. This was backed by a report from PostBeyond, which found that a company’s branded messages had a 561% greater reach when shared by employees as well as the company.

• Create trust

Consumers are more likely to trust information from someone they know or an individual rather than an organization. One study by Edelman has even shown that 63% of 18-34-year-olds trust influencers more than brands. Social media automation and employee advocacy ensures that your firm keeps up with these trends and stays in a trusted position.

• Recruiting

Family law firms looking to grow will reach more potential candidates through these platforms. This can help establish your reputation as an attractive place to work with consistent, positive social media posts from both the firm and employees.

• Increase website traffic

More social media posts that link to content on the firm’s website generates more visitors to the website.

Best Practices: Social Media Automation and Employee Advocacy

Here are some additional tips for implementing social media automation and employee advocacy programs:

• Take some time to review and respond to comments as well as go over the results you’ve found from social listening. Depending on how often you’re posting, this could take just a few minutes or a few hours several times a week.

• Always be aware of what you have scheduled to post and be prepared to unschedule it if circumstances change. You should also feel free to unschedule a post if a larger story dominates the news cycle that would be more fitting. For example, if social media is focused on a tragedy, like a mass shooting at a school, this might not be the time to post about your firm’s newest partner.

• Each social media platform has its own requirements for graphics, character limits, tagging, and things of that nature. They also speak to different audiences. Tailor your content to be appropriate for each.

• Provide training to employees on how to use the employee advocacy program and be sure training is included when onboarding process new attorneys and staff. This includes creating and referencing a social media policy so everyone is consistent with messaging, the firm’s value propositions, and social media etiquette.

• Incentivize employee participation through rewards. Consider gamifying employee advocacy and publicly acknowledging those who are doing their part as brand ambassadors.

• Above all, create a firm culture that makes attorneys and staff want to be employee advocates. Satisfied employees are more likely to speak positively about your firm, and as we’ve seen, word-of-mouth and internal culture go a long way in establishing your reputation.

There are also a few social media automation practices that family law firms and attorneys should avoid. “Automated” does not mean “artificial.” It is important that there are real humans behind the screen. This ensures quality writing and accurate messaging. It is also important to avoid using tools to buy followers. It is better to have a smaller number of the right followers instead of a wide range of irrelevant followers or bots.