March 25, 2021

A Rundown of Instagram’s Features For Law Firms

When it comes to social media, Instagram continues to dominate with its photo and video sharing platform. One of the many subsidiaries of Facebook, Instagram has a billion users and is still growing. Let’s examine how you can reach potential clients and engage with current ones with Instagram’s spectrum of features.

Benefits

Primarily, Instagram can have three primary benefits for law firms:

• Effective Branding: Your Instagram page can be an effective branding tool. You can show your personality using photos and videos on your feed, as well as more dynamic features like Reels, Stories, Carousels, and more. These all add character and uniqueness to what you do and express your firm’s brand.
• Generating Leads: By attracting followers to your page through unique and informative content, you can connect with potential clients. Using direct message (DM), a follower may contact you if they’re compelled by your content and need your legal services.
• Community Building: One of the primary functions of Instagram is to build a community around topics in which you can help. If you’re working on cases that have a major impact on societal change or even personal stories that affected you or your team personally, people can rally around you and your work. Building a community means creating an engaged group of followers who will think of you first when relevant issues come up in their lives.

Instagram’s Features

Instagram has grown significantly over the past few years, with different post types and formats now available to users. Below, we’ll look into some of them and how you can incorporate them into your marketing tactics.

Instagram Reels

Reels are one of the latest and fastest growing features on Instagram. Instagram’s reels are 15-second looping videos to which you can add music and audio clips.

Reels operates similarly to TiKTok. They allow you to express yourself through clever image and video editing while entertaining your audiences in bite-sized clips. Primarily, this feature can show a more fun and laid back side of you and your lawyers to followers. It is most effective when targeting followers of a younger demographic.

To know how your Reels are doing, you can gauge popularity by getting insights on watch repetition and time. Generally, Reels work best if you’re looking to improve visibility. You can get followers that may have never heard of you because your Reels will show up on other user’s feeds, even if they don’t follow you.

Instagram Stories

Stories are fleeting videos and content that you can use to share short-term updates and highlights about your law firm to your current followers. Instagram Stories come with different effects and editing panels, allowing you to infuse your identity into the posts as well.

As with Reels, Stories can also work to improve your brand identity. However, they are slightly more versatile than that. These posts are ideal for fostering engagement by using polls, sharing quotes, news, and announcements, asking questions, and creating countdowns to events. Don’t be afraid to get in selfie mode as well and share quick tips, updates, or behind-the-scenes videos to help your audience become familiar with your firm’s personality and value proposition.

Instagram Live

Live sessions became especially popular in 2020. Instead of running a live stream on YouTube or Facebook, you can interact with your followers and even invite them into a conversation. This creates a split-screen effect and can be a great way to run a Q&A. You can allow followers to ask questions in real-time and answer them, providing value and building trust along the way.

Plus, you can publish your Instagram Live session on your Stories or as an IGTV video. The latter ensures that the live session remains in your feed for as long as you want.

IGTV Video

Video is hands down the best scroll-stopping media on Instagram. IGTV allows you to create a series of related videos that are saved on your profile. They can be highly produced or candid clips, depending on your firm’s voice, tone, and budget. Either way, IGTV videos allow your visitors to view saved video content in an organized library. Use this to your advantage by creating a set of videos and adding them a series, so visitors to your profile can learn about what you have to offer.

Carousel Posts

Instagram Carousel posts are a great way to achieve visual storytelling. If you’re looking to share tips or strategies with your followers, you can use Carousel posts.

Carousels have a simple swipe feature that works like a manual slideshow. As users swipe through multiple videos and images, you can walk them through a series of points and ideas. It’s up to you to come up with the order that will potentially resonate with your audience. For example, you may have a series of images with text that guide the user through steps they should take when they get pulled over for a DUI test.

Grow Your Following

It can be challenging to assemble a strategy to consistently grow your audience organically. For starters, pay extra attention to the quality of your videos and photos. Ensure that everything you put on your page is top-notch and attractive. Even if your videos are candid, make sure that you’ve thought through each post’s purpose and desired result.

Second, post often and consistently. Start with a few times a week and increase your frequency from there. This lets your visitors know that you are active and looking for ways to add value to their feeds.

Last, use relevant hashtags relevant to your firm. This helps you get discovered by people that don’t follow you yet. You can search for popular hashtags by typing in terms and seeing how many posts belong to the hashtag. Be aware of trending topics relevant to your firm’s practice and post in a timely manner to avoid falling behind the curve.

Instagram can be fun but also daunting. If you’re in need of a carefully crafted strategy designed to use the entire suite of Instagram’s feature, but simply don’t have the time to build it out, reach out to us for a consultation—we’d be happy to help.