Online reputation management for lawyers is one of those aspects that can make the difference in the turnover of clients. As with many other aspects of everyday life, those who need a service go online and verify its reliability through reviews from previous clients.
It doesn’t matter how successful you are: it’s valid whether you’re a novice lawyer looking to make a name for yourself or a lawyer with decades of renown. According to statistics, at least 70% of lawyers use social media to network or improve their reputation. A lawyer’s online reputation is one of the factors that most influences client loyalty when searching for the right lawyer for their needs.
For lawyers of any type, their online reputation can become a deciding factor in whether clients hire them, recommend them to others, and even trigger peers’ desire to collaborate. It’s important to note that most lawyers use their online reputation to acquire new work: a factor that has led even the slowest firms to modernize to work hard to improve their online presence, both officially through building adequate websites and unofficially through social media and interacting with potential clients.
Online reputation management for lawyers is similar to selling
In recent years, as previously mentioned, the legal industry has realized that managing a law firm’s online reputation is synonymous with success: while marketing isn’t a lawyer’s top priority, it’s now well established that focusing on this aspect means retaining clients long-term and acquiring new ones more easily.
Over time, the internet has become the primary medium for people to engage in any type of service, and a law firm that doesn’t have a website, can’t be rated online, or has negative reviews risks being continually rejected by potential clients in favor of firms that, from a marketing perspective, are more likely to be scrutinized.
If you’re a small legal firm, approaching the internet correctly can be extremely beneficial, given that your online presence is relatively limited. Building a website increases your online impact even more, fostering immediate loyalty among those who need your services. A professional Facebook page or Twitter profile should be up and running: they’re the first effective direct advertising tool. This way, your data speaks volumes.
Over the past few years, the importance of having an online presence has become increasingly evident, especially considering the increased use and management of social media by individual lawyers, who have increasingly started blogs and personal websites to introduce themselves to potential clients. To get an idea of how important it is to maintain a law firm’s online reputation, simply review the data from the latest ABA Techreport on the subject.
Lawyers who decide to take care of their online image use social networks in the following way:
- 69% for career enhancement and networking
- 56% to grow the number of customers and get to know them
- 39% for educational reasons
- 21% to investigate cases
- 4% for other reasons.
All this effort stems from the fact that the internet represents a practically infinite pool of potential clients seeking legal advice.
Building your social identity correctly
When considering lawyers’ online reputation, one of the first questions we ask ourselves is: won’t a social media profile lower my credibility rating? It depends on what you present to the public and what you write, both on your personal profile and on your signature.
Social media profiles are essential tools for effective social marketing and branding. To avoid ridicule, existing profiles should be modified or created from scratch based on elements consistent with the desired image. While it may seem exaggerated, a lawyer’s online reputation also depends on their relationship with social media: for this reason, the data made available to the public must be truthful, clearly presented, and formatted correctly.
The statistics speak for themselves:
- According to a study conducted by Rocket Marketing, 40% of small legal firms do not have online websites, a factor that makes those who do stand out from the crowd.
- Twenty-seven percent of respondents to the 2017 Techreport indicated that they had at least one client who came to them through their social media presence through professional accounts.
- Eighty percent of lawyers working in firms with more than 500 lawyers who personally maintain a blog obtain clients through their blog posts.
- Lawyers working in firms with 2 to 9 and 50 to 99 lawyers reported increasing their success in finding clients thanks to the blogs they maintained.
Being informed while preventing problems
Managing a law firm’s online reputation must be taken very seriously and entrusted to experts in the field: potential clients must be provided with information that can be verified without incurring future legal issues. Law firms must be careful about what they publish, emphasizing that any information shared online does not constitute legal advice.
The fact that certain precautions are necessary shouldn’t discourage businesses from cultivating their online reputation : customer reviews are crucial for maintaining a high standard that can attract more business, and this is where networking sites come in. The approach must always be the same: be thorough without sharing confidential information, always emphasizing that any opinion expressed should not be considered legal advice and that the opinion of one lawyer does not necessarily align with that of the entire firm. Therefore, language must be clear and concise, leaving no room for doubt.
Disclaimers should be considered sufficient, whether posted on your website, blog, newsletter, or social media, as protection from any accusations of non-compliance.
Take care of your brand, always and in any case
Regardless of the success of the firm you work for or whether you’re a new lawyer, you need to work on your online reputation if you want to acquire or retain clients.
To achieve this goal, you can rely on services dedicated to maintaining a law firm’s online reputation. Whether you work independently or hire a specialized team, the chosen approach should lead to the creation of a website that potential clients can consult and the opening of social media accounts through which they can establish direct contact with the firm.
If your law firm has an outdated online presence policy and is opposed to using social networks to improve your lawyer’s online reputation, it’s important for the individual lawyer not to be discouraged.
It’s possible to work on your personal brand. The rules developed by the firm generally leave room for individual activity, provided that disclaimers are included that clearly eliminate any liability associated with the signature. Obviously, in this case, a lawyer who intends to cultivate their online reputation must be very careful about what they decide to post and share online.
For the same purpose, you can use networking brands, always stressing first that any opinions expressed personally do not reflect those of the firm you work for, nor should they be considered legal advice.
Addressing negative reviews to improve
Customer reviews, as with any online business, are essential for building a law firm’s reputation. This also means addressing negative feedback. Furthermore, it’s important to ensure that nothing online contains your name or the name of your firm associated with unclear people or situations. Resolving these issues means removing such associations.
For texts indexed online, you should request their removal from search engine results by contacting the search engine directly. Alternatively, you should contact the source of the text and request its removal or modification.
Regarding negative customer reviews, it’s essential to address them directly by making a well-structured FAQ available on your website that demonstrates the effectiveness of your firm’s policies. You should also address reviews directly, whether positive or negative, making your presence felt, thanking them for their feedback, and addressing any issues raised by the client with the utmost professionalism.
Control every aspect of your reputation
Managing a law firm’s online reputation essentially means leaving no stone unturned, especially when it comes to publishing content outside the direct control of the lawyers or their representatives.
Clients must be put first, informed, and managed to the best of their ability, remembering that their legal satisfaction is important, but their informational satisfaction should not be underestimated either. Potential clients must be able to interact with and learn about the firm in order to decide whether to retain them.
If you want to attract clients to your practice, it’s important to develop a strong online branding strategy. This involves specific steps:
- Building a brand
- Building your credibility and audience
- Identifying the right opportunities
Building a brand for your online reputation
Regardless of whether you already have social media profiles or websites, it’s important to make sure the unique features of the internet work to your advantage. Translated into action, this means improving your presence by modifying or building upon content optimized for specific keywords that will boost your firm or name’s ranking in search engine results.
To succeed it is important:
- Check what the online search results for your name or brand are
- Clean up all those results that do not support the image you want to share
- Define yourself and your brand through a page that clearly explains who you are and what the purpose of your online presence is
- Act online based on the aforementioned declaration and in such a way as to demonstrate one’s preparation in the area of expertise.
- Your online image must correspond to reality.
Building credibility and a user base
Managing the online reputation of a law firm or individual depends primarily on maintaining its credibility: only in this way will it be possible to attract a larger audience of readers and potential new clients. To achieve this goal, you must:
- Write strategic and correct content on platforms and communities where interested people can read it
- Conquer third-party spaces where your business can be presented
- Use the statistics of your online material to explore the methods and success stories
- Use social media management tools to manage and publish quality content on your accounts.
- To achieve this, it’s essential to identify the right target audience and engage with the online pillars of this group, fostering dialogue and discussion between the parties. This can be done through existing channels or by agreeing to specific collaborations.
Identifying the right opportunities
Managing a law firm’s online reputation means not only maintaining the loyalty of existing clients but also seeking new ones, which is why establishing your reputation and integrity in the industry is crucial. Identifying the right growth opportunities is one of the key steps, and this means:
- Collaborate and speak at events organized by valid programs or institutions
- Collaborate in writing blog texts with other important and reliable sources
- Give interviews with credible and trusted interlocutors
- Carry out effective promotion that also includes active and passive mentoring.
As regards online presence, it is also important to implement a very specific strategy for working with your user base, which first involves:
- The production of content that satisfies your target audience
- Being active on social media or on your own website to show readers that you are genuinely interested in their issues
- Link building is the process of exchanging links between legitimate businesses to demonstrate and increase their credibility.
A perfect, advanced SEO strategy is essential, using specific tools to push your texts to the top of search engine results like Google.