The state Supreme Court just handed down a big decision about independent contractors. An employment law firm writes a blog post about how the decision impacts its clients. The social media post linking to the blog includes #independentcontractors and #employmentlaw, as well as #uberdrivers and #ridesharedrivers.
A bankruptcy attorney is interviewed by a newspaper about her high-profile client’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. When sharing the write-up on social media, the attorney uses #bankruptcylaw and #bankruptcylawyer in the post.
A prominent legal publication named a personal injury firm to its list of Top Plaintiffs Firms for the year. In social media posts about the honor, the firm uses #toplaintiffslawyers, #personalinjurylaw, and #personalinjurylawyers.
#Why?
Including hashtags before keywords in a social media post expands the post’s audience. Hashtags group posts together by topic across a social media platform, allowing users who follow the hashtag or search it to find content posted by someone they don’t necessarily follow.
What is a Hashtag?
Hashtags began on Twitter, but the other social media platforms incorporated them soon after. By putting the hashtag in front of a word or a small group of words, it categorizes the post. For example, putting #familylawyer on a social media post about divorce law allows anyone who searches by the hashtag to see the post — even if the searcher is not connected to or a follower of the law firm on the social media platform.
There are generally four types of hashtags that law firms and lawyers use in social media marketing:
Content Promoting: Use social media posts that promote any law firm content, from blogs and articles to videos and press releases. These hashtags will usually be practice or industry-focused, using keywords that relate to the content.
Branding: Any social media posts that are about boosting the firm’s visibility could include hashtags related to the firm’s location, practice areas, the law, or a tagline if the firm uses one. Anything from #slclawyer for Salt Lake City to #fightforjustice could fall into this hashtag category.
Event Specific: Whether attending an industry conference, a community event, or even a firm-organized seminar, occasion-specific hashtags keep the conversation going before, during, and after the event.
Trending: If a law firm is lucky enough to have a connection to a trending topic AND notices it before the topic is no longer trending, that’s a rare opportunity to be a part of a popular discussion. Trending topics are usually about celebrities, sports, and consumer goods, which some attorneys can have a connection to. Other examples of potential trending topics for law firms include civil rights issues that are making news, court decisions, and even lighter trends, like the recent #ShareYourDream or the recurring #mondaythoughts on Twitter. These hashtags allow the firm to be creative and fun in showing its “human” side.
How Hashtags Help Legal Marketing
As mentioned above, the biggest benefit for lawyers and law firms who use hashtags in social media posts is expanded reach. This means that the content that the attorneys invested time and resources into developing will be seen by more people — and they will be the right people since they are seeking out that specific topic via hashtag searches.
In addition to boosting visibility, there are other benefits that come with having more people see a law firm’s content. For one, more visibility means more potential engagement — likes, shares, and comments. The social media platforms’ algorithms “reward” posts that receive higher engagements by having them appear higher and in more people’s feeds. Second, increased visibility and engagement often lead to more clicks on the social media posts’ links, which drives traffic to the firm’s website. This helps firm websites perform better in searches because, like social media platforms, search engines also reward more popular websites with a higher ranking in search results.
Best Practices for Using Hashtags in Legal Marketing
Use hashtags with both one-off content posts and campaigns. Whether it’s to promote a new practice or to attract new attorneys, thoughtful and well-researched hashtags help.
There are many schools of thought about the best way to incorporate hashtags into posts. Sometimes, the #hashtag appears before #keywords in the main post. Other times, the hashtags are listed as a group at the end. #likethis #orlikethis
Some experts insist that the camel case, where the first letter of each word is capitalized, is #TheBestApproach. Other experts instruct that all lowercase first letters is #thewaytogo.
Even still, some marketers advise not to include more than two or three hashtags per post while others may include a dozen.
All this advice may change depending on which social media platform is being discussed.
That being said, the best practice for hashtags is to pick an approach that feels comfortable and stick to it.
Finding the Right Hashtags
There are several ways to research and identify the right hashtags to use:
If attending an event or a conference, research to see if the organizers created a hashtag to use with posts about the event.
Think about the words or terms a potential client might use to find someone who provides your service.
Test out these keywords or terms by searching for them on social media platforms. Those that are popular or have a lot of followers are worth using.
There are some online platforms, including some that are free, that will test the popularity of specific hashtags.
As you identify hashtags that are popular or get results, be sure to capture them in a hashtag library for future use. Law firms with multiple practice areas or locations will often segment the hashtag library by topic.
Common Law Firm and Lawyer Hashtags
Here are some very common general, legal hashtags to get you started:
- #attorney
- #attorneys
- #lawyer
- #lawyers
- #attorney
- #lawyer
- #attorney
- #lawyer
- #law
- #lawfirm
- #lawfirm
- #lawfirm
- #lawyering
- #lawyerlife
- #legalhelp
