Originally posted on https://rankings.io/instagram-for-lawyers/
A survey performed by Attorney at Work found that 25% of lawyers use Instagram regularly for marketing. Aside from that data, formal research on law firm use of Instagram is not readily available. So we wanted to figure out how attorneys are using the platform to build their brands and engage with potential clients.
Why are lawyers and law firms utilizing Instagram?
According to Instagram Business, its platform has over 1 billion users who are active each month. 80% of Instagram users follow a business. Pew Research found that Instagram is the third most popular social network behind YouTube and Facebook amongst US adults and that 63% of its users visit the site at least once per day.
App users love Instagram as well. Google Play lists it as one of the top five free apps with a 4.4-star rating from over 87 million users and the App Store lists it as number one in photo and video with a 4.8-star rating from over 13 million users.
How are law firms using Instagram to grow their practice?
In our guide to Social Media for Lawyers, we examined how law firms should review the guidelines and rules of professional conduct as set by the ABA and applicable local bar associations when it comes to social media usage. Take into account any rules that may apply to following other users, what type of content you can post to your Instagram account, setting up and maintaining a social media policy, applicable use of disclaimers, and advertising ethics.
As with most other social networks, you can use Instagram to build brand awareness for your law firm within your local community. Through the use of Instagram posts, Stories, and IGTV, you could put your law firm’s name in the mind of potential clients. That way, if they were ever in need of legal service, hopefully the name of your law firm would stand out as they start to research their options.
In addition, through Instagram advertising, you can use retargeting to remind potential clients that you offer the legal services they recently searched for on your website. It allows you to utilize a small advertising budget to potentially achieve a large result. Continue reading to get a comprehensive look at how your law firm can utilize Instagram to increase your reach.
How to Get Started on Instagram
Prior to setting up your law firm on Instagram, you may want to download the Instagram app from the App Store, Google Play, or Microsoft Store on your mobile device and create an account for yourself. Get to know Instagram on a personal level and use it like your potential clients would. But more importantly, get a feel for how different types of entities market themselves on Instagram.
Take some time to follow Instagram accounts for the people that inspire you. Follow the big brands that you respect. Follow a lot of local businesses you shop at or see on a regular basis. Follow the top lawyers and law firms that offer similar services from other states. Follow hashtags for your community, for your hobbies, and for things that excite you.
Once you’ve followed some accounts, take some time each day to look at the posts in your newsfeed. Watch the Stories at the top. Visit the Search and Explore tab. Watch some IGTV.
Get a good feel for what you like and what you don’t like about the Instagram community. Also notice posts from the layers and law firms you follow mix into the content from everyone else you follow. This will give you a sense of what to create for your law firm’s content and how it will flow into your follower’s Instagram experience.
How to Set Up a Business Instagram Account
To set up a business account on Instagram for your law firm, if you haven’t already, you will need to download the Instagram app from the App Store, Google Play, or Microsoft Store on your mobile device. You can create a new account using your Facebook account, phone number, or email address.
sign up for instagram
Instagram will allow other users to discover your law firm’s Instagram account based on this information. Therefore, you may want to use a phone number or email address that you know your clients have in their phones as a way to build your Instagram audience.
Next, Instagram will ask for your name and password. On the following screen, Instagram will show you the username they have automatically generated for you. You can use the link they provide to change it to match your usernames on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
Instagram will then ask to connect with your Facebook and phone contacts to find people to follow on Instagram. You can skip these steps until you are done customizing your profile. That way, when you start to follow your contacts, they will see your completed profile instead of a blank one.
Next, you will add your profile photo. You will need to download your profile photo from LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter to your phone’s photo album or skip this step and add it later. Once you are finished, you will be taken to your new profile.
Every new Instagram account begins as a personal account. If you already have a personal Instagram account, you can go to your account settings and tap on the link to switch to a professional account.
Instagram offers professional accounts for creators and for businesses. As a business, you can link your Instagram account to your Facebook page, choose the Lawyer & Law Firm category for your Instagram account, and add public contact information.
How to Customize Your Instagram Profile
The best way to make a great first impression with your law firm’s brand on Instagram is to customize your Instagram profile and publish a few great posts before you begin to connect with your target audience. To customize your Instagram profile, tap on your profile icon in the Instagram app and tap on the Edit Profile link.
edit instagram profile
To upload or change your profile photo, tap on your profile photo or the placeholder image and upload a photo that is at least 180px by 180px. This photo should match the image you use on other social networks so your fans and followers for easy brand recognition.
If needed, edit your name and username to match those used on your other social networks to stay consistent with your law firm’s branding. Then enter your law firm’s website URL.
Next, you will enter a 150-character description of your law firm in the bio. You can use this to simply introduce people to your law firm or to let people know what they can expect from your Instagram profile. Some law firms also use their bio to include disclaimers about advertising, legal advice, and typical results.
How to Add Local Business Details on Instagram
In the public business information section, you can edit the Facebook page linked to your Instagram account and account category. You can also add or edit your law firm’s contact details and edit which contact details appear on your public profile using profile display.
If you include your email and/or phone number in the public business information section, a contact button will appear on your profile. Instagram users who tap on this will be able to email and/or call you from your profile.
If you include your street address on your profile and make it visible, visitors to your profile will be able to tap on it to get directions to your law firm’s office.
entering your lawfirm address in instagram profile
They can also click through to your law firm’s location page if you linked your Facebook page to your Instagram account and if your Facebook page is set as a local business. The information on this page is pulled from what you provided in your Facebook page’s About section such as your business category, price range, website, and phone number.
about section of instagram profile
Instagram users that visit your Location Info can also see the latest photos that have been tagged to your location. This means that anyone on Instagram can take a photo and tag it to your location.
geo tagging your photos
As a part of monitoring your law firm’s social media reputation, you should review the photos that appear on your location info’s top and recent photos regularly. While you cannot remove photos that are tagged with your law firm’s name and location, you can review the photos, reply to comments, and privately contact photo owners as needed.
How to Create Compelling Instagram Posts
Once you have customized your Instagram profile, you will want to publish at least three photos or videos to your account before you start connecting with others on Instagram. These three posts should give your first Instagram account visitors a reason to follow you.
Instagram is all about creating visual appealing posts. Instagram’s ad inspiration page offers ideas on the types of content other businesses are creating to engage their audiences. They also offer three apps that you can use to enhance your creatives.
Layout – Allows you to take two or more photos or videos and organize them into a collage. Get it on the App Store or Google Play.
Boomerang – Allows you to take a burst of photos, which the app will stitch together to play forwards and backward as a GIF. Get it on the App Store or Google Play.
Hyperlapse – Allows you to take a handheld timelapse video without professional camera gear. Get it on the App Store.
You can also start by simply taking great photos using your smartphone’s camera. Or create professional graphics by using tools like Canva that allow non-designers the ability to generate customized images using hundreds of easy to edit templates.
canva for instagram
Suggested photo and video sizes for Instagram posts, as per Instagram Feed Ad design specifications, are as follows.
Square: minimum of 600px by 600px – 1:1 ratio
Landscape: minimum of 600px by 315px – 1.91:1 ratio
Vertical: minimum of 600px by 700px – 4:5 ratio
The maximum image size should be 1936px by 1936px, but you can upload larger and Instagram will resize it proportionally. While you only need the minimum resolution for mobile users, desktop Instagram users will appreciate the maximum image/video size.
Video posts can be up to 60 seconds in length. You can use your smartphone to capture great video too. If you are recording yourself speaking to your smartphone or camera, be sure to invest in a tripod, microphone, and a natural lighting ring. These three pieces of equipment help you create a higher quality video.
Once you have created an eye-catching photo or video for an Instagram post and saved it to your phone’s photo album, you can share it on Instagram.
Go to your Instagram app and tap on the plus icon at the bottom of the screen.
Select the photo or video from your library.
uploading photos to instagram
The icons at the bottom of the photo or video will allow you to remove the square cropping, add Boomerang video features, add a collage layout, or add up to 10 photos or videos into one post as a carousel.
On the next screen, you can edit your media with filters and image adjustments.
Then you will continue to the caption.
writing a caption on your instagram post
Your caption is the text that will appear below your photo or video. It can be up to 2,200 characters long and include up to 30 hashtags. Note that Instagram only displays the first one to three lines of your caption beneath your photo or video. Users will have to tap on the more link to view the rest when scrolling through their newsfeed.
best practices for captions on instagram
This makes the first 35 – 150 characters the most crucial part of your caption. If you want Instagram users to read the rest of a longer caption or follow a call to action, you must encourage them to do so within the first part of your caption.
Save anything that is not a call to action and your hashtags for the latter part of your caption. You can also add your post’s hashtags to the first comment of your post if you have a public Instagram account.
You can research the best hashtags to use by using Instagram search in the app or at instagram.com on your desktop browser. Search results for hashtags will show the number of posts for each hashtag plus related hashtags in most cases.
hashtags in instagram post
By including hashtags, you have the potential to reach the followers of a hashtag plus those who visit the most recent or top posts of that hashtag. You can also boost your law firm’s reputation by making your law firm its own hashtag.
personalized attorney hashtag on instagram
After you have crafted your caption and added your hashtags, you can add your location, and tag Instagram accounts that are relevant to your post. Hashtags, location, and tagged Instagram accounts can help your post gain the popularity to reach the Search and Explore tab of the Instagram app, helping new audiences discover your law firm.
You can let Instagram share the post to your law firm’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you haven’t connected your Facebook or Twitter account to your Instagram profile yet, you will need to do so before it can share your post to those accounts.
You can also configure advanced settings for your post, which include the option to turn off commenting. Once finished, you can publish your post on Instagram.
After you publish your Instagram post, you can go back and edit it at any time by visiting the post on the app. Tap on the three dots above the photo or video and use the edit link to edit the caption, add additional hashtags, or modify any other details.
The only thing you cannot change without deleting the post is the photo or video itself, so make sure that is perfect before you publish your post!
40 Examples of Instagram Posts for Law Firms
To get your Instagram started on the right foot, you may need some inspiration. The following are examples of Instagram posts from US law firms that have engaged audiences of over 1,000 followers. We have captured these posts on a desktop browser so you can analyze the use of captions, hashtags, and location tagging on each post.
are shared, the posts have the law firm’s website address for a potential client.best instagram lawyer8
Mekhtijev Law Firm in New York uses their brand color for Instagram Story highlights that cover press releases, closings, reviews, and awards for their law firm. These all make a great first impression for potential clients visiting the law firm’s profile. They can continue through to a collection of bright and bold images of the law firm’s people, places, and behind the scenes celebrations. best instagram lawyer9
Some law firms take a more minimalistic approach to their Instagram profile. As you can see with Baez Law Firm, the less information you include on your profile (the bio, the website link, the address link, etc.), the more your eyes can focus on the Follow, Message, and Contact buttons as well as the three rows of content. best instagram lawyer 10
Of course, unless the visitor knew about your law firm already, they wouldn’t know anything about what services you offer or where to find your website. A simple one line description and your URL isn’t too much of an additional distraction in exchange for a potential client converting from an Instagram visitor into a lead.
Education is a great marketing angle to use for your law firm on Instagram. Lexington Law uses Instagram as a platform for credit education and has built a sizeable audience through the use of Instagram Stories, IGTV, and standard Instagram posts. best instagram lawyer 11
As you can see, there are lots of ways you can approach Instagram marketing for your law firm through the use of standard Instagram photo and video posts, Instagram Stories, and IGTV. Take some time to decide what types of posts you feel best suit your brand and start creating compelling Instagram content for your law firm!