Why Law Firms Can't Afford to Ignore Social Media Marketing in 2025
- Julie Fisher
- Jun 6, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The legal landscape has changed and social media keeps changing with it.
Potential clients aren't just searching Google for a lawyer. They are looking at websites, reading reviews, checking attorney profiles, scrolling LinkedIn and Facebook, and forming opinions about a law firm before they ever make contact.
Social media has become part of that evaluation process. And unlike many areas of marketing, social media marketing rarely stays still for long.
Think about what businesses were told about social media ten years ago. Then five years ago. Then last year.
Platforms have risen and fallen. Organic reach has changed. Video took over feeds. Algorithms changed what gets seen. Hashtags became less important on some platforms. Search behavior expanded beyond Google. AI entered the equation. Even the way people consume a single social media post continues to evolve.
Some of those changes have been major shifts. Others have been subtle rotations in a different direction. But three fundamental reasons for using social media have remained remarkably consistent.
Your law firm needs to be visible. It needs to build trust. And it needs to stay connected to the people who may eventually hire or refer you.
That is the part of social media strategy that doesn't disappear every time an algorithm changes.
1. Your Law Firm Needs to Be Found
Social media is another digital doorway into your firm.
A prospective client may discover you there first. Someone referred to one of your attorneys may look at LinkedIn before visiting the website. A business owner may see your commentary shared by another professional. A former client may come across your content months later and remember exactly who to recommend.
That doesn't mean social media has replaced Google. It means the path to finding and evaluating a law firm has become less linear. Your website, search presence, reviews, attorney profiles, social platforms, content and referral network now work together.
That makes a complete and active social media presence part of your broader law firm digital marketing strategy, not a standalone activity somebody handles whenever there is time.
2. Your Law Firm Needs to Build Trust Before the Call
This is particularly important in legal marketing.
People aren't adding estate planning, divorce representation or litigation services to an online shopping cart. They are deciding whether they trust someone enough to discuss a problem that may affect their family, business, finances or future.
Before contacting a firm, they are asking themselves questions such as:
Do these attorneys understand what I am dealing with?
Do they actually know this area of law?
Do I feel comfortable contacting them?
Does this firm seem credible?
Social media gives potential clients another place to answer those questions. It also gives law firms something a traditional attorney biography cannot always provide: context around the expertise.
An attorney can explain an issue, comment on an industry development, address a common misconception, participate in the community or simply communicate in a way that lets someone understand the person behind the credentials.
That is why being visible isn't enough.
Your audience also needs to recognize that you understand their situation.
For professional service businesses, social media is fundamentally a trust channel. Your audience is evaluating your credibility, expertise and whether you understand what matters to them before they decide whether to contact you.
3. Your Law Firm Needs to Stay Connected
Not every person consuming your content needs a lawyer today. That is exactly why social media matters. Law firms grow through relationships.
Former clients refer people. Attorneys refer matters outside their practice areas. Financial advisors, healthcare professionals, CPAs, consultants and other professionals become referral partners. Business owners remember attorneys they have seen demonstrating knowledge consistently.
Social media allows your firm to remain present between those conversations.
For many law firms, particularly those that depend heavily on professional referrals, this may ultimately be more valuable than chasing likes or follower counts.
A LinkedIn post may not produce a signed client today. But six months from now, someone in your network may hear:
"Do you know an attorney who handles this?"
And your name comes to mind. That is business development.
Social Media Strategy Is Not the Same as Posting
This is where law firms often run into trouble. They know social media matters, so someone gets assigned responsibility for it.
A paralegal posts when there is time.
An attorney shares an article occasionally.
A marketing coordinator creates a holiday graphic.
Someone decides the firm needs to post three times a week.
And before long, everyone is asking the same question: Is any of this actually working?
The problem usually isn't a shortage of ideas. It is the lack of a strategy connecting those ideas to the firm's audience, positioning and business goals.
My social media workshop addresses this exact problem: businesses are often already posting but don't have a clear playbook connecting what they say, where they say it and why they are saying it to an actual business outcome. That distinction matters.
A content calendar tells you when to post.
A social media strategy should tell you why the content exists in the first place.
The Content Has to Be About More Than Your Law Firm
Another common mistake is creating social media entirely from the firm's point of view.
We offer this service.
We won this award.
We hired this attorney.
We have 25 years of experience.
Those things have a place. But if everything is about the firm, eventually the audience stops listening.
Someone going through a later-in-life divorce isn't initially thinking: "I wonder which law firm has the most sophisticated content strategy."
They're thinking:
"What happens to the retirement accounts we built for 30 years?"
"Can I afford to keep the house?"
"What does my life look like after this?"
When your content recognizes the situation behind the legal need, your expertise becomes relevant rather than promotional. That is where social media begins doing real marketing work.
Law Firm Case Study: When Social Media Supports the Business Strategy
I saw the difference firsthand while leading marketing for a California elder and disability law practice.
The firm wanted to expand its referral network and strengthen client acquisition while maintaining the professional credibility required for a practice serving seniors and families navigating estate planning, Medi-Cal and veterans benefits.
The answer wasn't simply to post more frequently. We connected social media with the firm's broader marketing and business-development efforts through educational content, attorney thought leadership, email integration, community engagement and consistent relationship-building with referral sources.
Within six months:
Social media followers increased 200%
Page engagement increased 120%
Referrals increased 45%
B2B meetings with referral sources increased 122%
Those numbers weren't produced because we discovered a magical algorithm. They came from understanding who the firm needed to reach, why those relationships mattered and how social media could support larger business goals.
That is the difference between posting on social media and marketing through social media.
Your Law Firm Does Not Need to Be Everywhere
Another thing that has changed repeatedly over the years is where businesses are told they "have" to be.
Facebook.
Then Instagram.
Then TikTok.
Then video everywhere.
Then LinkedIn carousels.
Then short-form video.
Whatever comes next will undoubtedly arrive with someone announcing that every business must immediately start using it. No.
Your law firm social media strategy should begin with your audience and your business objectives—not whichever platform is getting the most attention this month.
LinkedIn can be particularly valuable for attorney thought leadership, B2B practices and professional referral relationships.
Facebook can remain relevant for consumer-facing law firms, community visibility and local audiences.
Instagram can help humanize a firm and provide a different type of brand connection.
YouTube can extend educational content and build longer-term search visibility.
Other platforms may make sense for particular practices and audiences.
The strategic question is not:
Where can we post?
It is:
Where do the people we need to reach actually spend their time, and what do they need from us there?
Algorithms Change. Your Social Media Strategy Shouldn't Chase Them.
This is one of the reasons social media marketing can become so frustrating. You finally think you understand what works and the platform changes.
Reach drops.
A format becomes more important.
Another becomes less effective.
New technology affects how people search.
The answer is not to ignore those changes. A good marketer absolutely needs to understand them.
But your entire strategy shouldn't collapse every time LinkedIn or Meta changes an algorithm.
The foundation should remain connected to your business:
Who are we trying to reach?
What do they need from us?
What do we need the marketing to accomplish?
That is much more durable than building a social media program around the latest tactic.
The Hidden Cost of "Someone Can Just Handle Social Media"
For smaller and mid-sized law firms, social media often falls into an awkward operational gap. The partners don't have time to do it. There isn't enough work for a full-time senior social media strategist. Someone internally gets assigned the responsibility.
And because that person usually has another job, social media becomes inconsistent or reactive. That does not mean the person is incapable.
It often means they have been given execution responsibility without enough marketing strategy behind it.
That is a very different problem. The result is often content that starts and stops, messaging that shifts, uncertainty about what should be posted and difficulty connecting activity to meaningful business outcomes. My workshop materials identify this as a strategy and clarity problem rather than simply a creativity problem.
Giving someone more ideas won't necessarily fix it.
Giving them better strategic direction might.
Social Media Should Support the Bigger Law Firm Marketing Strategy
This is ultimately the point. Your website, SEO, attorney positioning, branding, content, social media, referral strategy and business development should not operate as unrelated marketing activities.
Someone sees a LinkedIn post and visits an attorney biography.
A client reads an article, saves it or begins following the firm.
A referral partner regularly sees an attorney's insight.
A prospective client receives a referral, searches the attorney's name and encounters the same credible positioning across multiple digital channels.
Those touchpoints reinforce one another. That is what makes social media valuable.
Not because every post generates a lead. Because it helps your law firm remain visible, credible and connected while the buying decision develops.
Need Help Building the Strategy Behind Your Social Media?
For law firms and business owners who know their social media needs more direction, I now offer two ways to work through it without immediately committing to ongoing social media management.
Social Media Workshop
My two-hour Social Media Workshop focuses on connecting social media activity to business outcomes and building a stronger strategic foundation for the people responsible for executing it.
The workshop can be structured as a private 1:1 session, a law firm or business team workshop, or an online community event.
Because each format involves a different audience and delivery structure, workshop pricing is based on the session format rather than a single flat rate.
Social Media Blueprint Session
For a business owner managing social media personally or the employee who has been assigned that responsibility, the Social Media Blueprint is a private 1:1 working session designed to go deeper into the business's own social media program.
It is not a generic course or another stack of templates.
It is individualized guidance for the person who actually has to make social media work.
My broader Blueprint process includes strategic guidance around content organization, brand consistency, platform decisions, visibility and execution, but the work itself is customized around the business rather than handed over as a one-size-fits-all system.
Not sure which approach makes sense?
Start with a free strategy session. Tell me what you're doing now, what feels disconnected and what you want your social media marketing to accomplish. We can talk through your goals and determine whether a workshop, Blueprint session, or ongoing support makes sense.
No pitch. Just straight talk about what your law firms social media strategy actually needs.
Julie Fisher lives in Beaumont, California, and is the founder of Fisher Marketing Services LLC, a leading fractional CMO and marketing consultancy. Julie has over 30 years of B2B, B2C, and B2G account management, SMB advertising, and business development.Her experience includes more than seven years of in-house law firm marketing leadership, and she served as Chair of the Legal Marketing Association's Social & Digital Media Special Interest Group from 2023–2025, developing and overseeing educational events and roundtables for legal marketing professionals across the country.
Email me at juliefisher@fisher-marketing.com
Connect on LinkedIn: Julie Fisher Fractional CMO
