Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking website. The Facebook platform makes it easy for you to connect and share with your connections online, and it has dramatically changed the way many people communicate.
As more and more people join Facebook, it has become easier than ever to share updates and experiences, not just on a personal level, but on a corporate level as well.
What does this mean for your law firm? It means that you can leverage this powerful social channel to increase the knowledge of your fans and ultimately garner more business for your firm. First, let’s discuss the difference between a personal profile on Facebook and a Facebook business page.
Personal vs. Business
Personal profiles are for individual, non-commercial use. They represent individual people and must be held under an individual name. One can follow profiles to see public updates of people you’re interested in but aren’t friends with.
Facebook Pages look similar to personal timelines, but they offer unique tools for connecting people to a topic they care about, like a business, brand, organization or celebrity. Pages are managed by administrators who have personal profiles; they are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your profile. Instead of following or friending a person’s profile, you would “like” a Page to see updates in your personal News Feed.
Why is Facebook Effective?
Facebook users often login multiple times per day as a part of their routine. They sometimes do so before even brushing their teeth in the morning.
Your fans may come to your page for many reasons, but most likely it’s because they are aware of your law firm. They want to learn more about the people in your firm and what knowledge and services they can provide. Having a Facebook page for your law firm gives you a tool through which you can talk to and get direct feedback from your target audience, almost like an ongoing focus group. You can use Facebook to build a trusting relationship with your fans by engaging with them on a daily or weekly basis. This social tool helps you stay at the top of their minds, so you’re more likely to win their business when the time comes for them to hire a lawyer.
A secondary benefit of Facebook is related to your own brand growth. Using Facebook’s analytics tool, called Facebook Insights, you can better understand which messages and conversations are earning attention from your fans. As a microcosm of your law firm’s target market, your Facebook fans can tell you a lot about what they want through their interaction, comments and feedback. Your fans’ conversations and feedback are crucial to the betterment of your engagement tactics and your brand practice as a whole.
Now, you need to know how to get those coveted “likes.”
3 Ways to Gain “Likes” for Your Firm’s Page
Facebook is an ideal platform for businesses to share promotions, special offers, and news-related items with their fans, and this is often what draws people to “like” a business page in the first place. While these kinds of sales and promotions may not have a direct implication for law firms, you can still use some of the same tactics to acquire fans of your own.
1. Personal Invitations: Whether you run a small family practice or a large corporate firm, the best way to get your Page in front of people is inviting your friends, family, and clients to “like” your page. Even if you don’t necessarily do business with all of them, their act of liking the page will generate awareness and buzz for what you’re doing. Plus, it will be seen by people in their network, who may then visit your page to learn more (and “like” it themselves).
2. Encourage Sharing: Facebook Pages are all about providing quality, useful content so that your fans feel like they’re getting something out of being a fan of your page. If you provide helpful tips, tricks, or other law-related information for your chosen demographic, chances are high that your fans will share your content with their friends. The average Facebook user has 130 friends, which means that even if you only have 100 Facebook fans and 10% of them share your content, that’s 10 more user networks that you get to reach (for an average of 1,300 more views).
3. Facebook Advertising: If you’re looking to build a following for your law firm quickly, Facebook advertising is fastest method because it puts your page directly in front of your target demographic. You can choose from their Promoted Posts or Sponsored Stories that can appear in the user’s sidebar or Newsfeed. You can set a daily budget or lifetime budget for these advertising methods depending on what your goals and overall budget are.
We’ll be delving deeper into each of these tactics in the coming weeks, but in meantime, what methods are you using to build and grow your Facebook Fan Page?
