3 Little Marketing Hacks for Law Firms
Whether your firm is new or well established, marketing and engagement are often necessary to attract new business. There are many ways to get your name out there and get noticed, including use of social media, SEO (search engine optimization), and brand awareness. The following are three ways to help increase your exposure with images, Google Business Profiles for virtual firms, and your LinkedIn posts.
1. Post Links in Comments on LinkedIn
At ABA TECHSHOW 2023 Gyi Tsakalakis discussed how to get the most visibility for your social media posts. Though the algorithms can and will change, linking to an outside resource like YouTube, an article, or your blog, will not appear in as many of your followers and connections timelines. To boost your post, consider adding the link in the comments. Why? Platforms like LinkedIn don’t want to send readers to outside websites. The social media management application Hootsuite tested this theory in 2021 to see which posts would get the most engagement, those with links to outside content in the body or those with the links in the comments. On average, posts without links got 6x more reach than posts with links. While link-less posts had fewer shares, they received more reactions and comments. So, if you want to engage folks in your content think about putting your links to external sources in the comments.
2. Virtual or Hybrid Firm Listings in Google Business Profiles
Google Business Profiles (f/k/a Google My Business) are a terrific way to have your firm show up in search engine results, especially for local searches. Google Business Profiles are an important place to have a strong presence, especially if your firm has a brick-and-mortar office. However, for virtual practices and hybrid firms – those who practice out of their homes, use a street address from UPS or iPostal, or rent a mailbox and the occasional conference space at a co-working facility, your Google Business Profile is a little bit more difficult because of Google’s guidelines around the listings. Due to many bad actors trying to game the system, Google verifies your address with a postcard and will de-list your profile if they determine your address doesn’t appear to support in-person visits or is shared with many other businesses.
However, Google does have a way to list services, but there are some consequences. Your firm won’t show up in the local 3 pack for a local business search, but you can still have a listing. In the FAQs for Business profiles if you are a service area business: “Yes, you can have a profile if your business doesn’t have a physical address as long as you make in-person contact with customers. You can also have a profile if you’re a hybrid business that serves customers at your business address and visits or delivers directly to customers. You may also have a profile if you’re a service-area business that visits or delivers to customers directly, but doesn’t serve customers at its business address, like a plumber or cleaning service.”
If you are truly and only providing virtual services, you can set up a Google Business Profile though there are a lot of factors to weigh, especially if you are listing a co-working facility or a shared address. Google may hide or flag your business if it suspects there are too many similar businesses running out of one address or you do not meet the qualifications.
If you set up a Google Business Profile and have listed your home address but you don’t actually see clients at that address you can hide your address on Google Business Profiles. Here are instructions and some cautions. Add your service area under the location tab if you toggle off “show business address to customers”. Also link to your website.
If your firm wants to list a co-working facility it is possible, but there are guidelines to consider including whether there is signage, whether you receive customers (clients) during business hours and whether the facility is staffed by you or your team during business hours. Joy Hawkins from SterlingSky breaks down your options.
3. Create Graphics for Social Media and Your Website with AI
There are quite a few places to get royalty free images to use with your social media posts, though on the free sites you will need to read the fine print and understand the requirements. You can pay for image libraries, though you may still find some restricted usage. Even with all the image libraries available, you may not find the exact image you want to use to convey your message in the blink of an eye.
To design your own images you can use tools like Canva or Photoshop. However you may not have the time or skills to use design tools. This is where the emergence of generative artificial intelligence can help!
You may have eschewed the Bing search engine for Google, but take another look. Why? Bing has added ChatGPT type functionality so you can run a search by asking questions of the search engine. The search looks at the Bing index and links to the sources it uses to provide answers. Recently the Bing chatbot has added the Bing Image Creator to the mix.
Image Creator from Microsoft Bing is an integrated AI-powered image generator. In Bing Chat set your conversation style to “More Creative” and then type in a request like “create an image of a tugboat in high waves”. Once your images (powered by DALL-E) appear the AI suggests refinements like “make it more realistic” or “add some seagulls” or “change the color of the boat”.
You can make complex request like “Make an icon of a corgi typing on a computer looking surprised on a white background, pixel art”. Once your image is generated you can share it, save it, or download it.
Read the Terms of Service, which require that you have a Microsoft account (free or paid), and must be a signed in Microsoft Rewards user. Also read the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Why? Because we are in a brave new world and since Microsoft is leading the way with AI tools in many respects it will be good practice to think about the legal issues around content and images created by AI.
Even more powerful, the new Microsoft Designer lets you create and edit images with AI and your own photographs. You can save them, edit them, add text overlays, etc. This is not part of the MS 365 suite, so you will need a personal login. You can sign up for the waitlist.
Conclusion
Having a presence online for your firm, including a website and social media, helps to reinforce your message and brand awareness. Learn how to use it effectively to get the most out of it. While many tools are free, so get familiar with your options.