Automio CEO and founder Claudia King supports this, saying that employees should only be trained up to represent the brand as such if those employees have large enough audiences of the firm’s target market.

“Firms are better off having the law firm owner as the face of the brand and then hiring professional brand ambassadors/influencers with large audiences of the firm’s ideal clients. Training employees to promote the firm by sharing content online will help firms widen the reach of their content, as long as they teach employees how to build an online network of the firm’s ideal clients.  Getting employees to share content just for the sake of sharing with the wrong audience will lead to frustration and poor results,” she said.

“Many lawyers have built up a good-sized network on social media platforms like LinkedIn, but if you look closer, you’ll see that most of that network is made up of other lawyers. This won’t be useful unless your firm’s ideal client is a lawyer.”

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Brand representation in the age of coronavirus

COVID-19 has created a need, Mr Deverson stressed, to adapt even further to the digital age “to maintain, let alone increase, brand recognition”.

“Traditional models are becoming obsolete, however, ‘word of mouth’ remains as potent today as ever with the importance of a positive brand message, particularly to former clients that can act as referrers. Leveraging positive experiences that former clients have had with your firm is a great way to demonstrate your approach and expertise,” he said.

Ms King agreed, saying that even in this topsy-turvy year, “not many firms are doing effective content marketing, so if you spend some time getting the right employees sharing the right content to the right audience, your reach will exponentially grow. The result of this is more authority in your niche which leads to growth”.

“Firms that get their team members to promote the firm by sharing content online could quickly become recognised as the top experts in their niche – but only if their employees are sharing that content with the firm’s ideal clients. These boutique firms will become known as the go-to firm by their ideal clients. This will lead on to other opportunities, like speaking, podcasts, writing articles and books, and other business opportunities for the law firm owners,” he said.

Practical steps

“To ensure their message is delivered as if it were coming from them, they need to ensure their staff are equally passionate about the firm’s ‘Why?’; their reason for existence. A great brand ambassador is someone that has that internal ‘fire in the belly’ for your brand, akin to a consumer passionately advocating for one brand over another (like those that advocate iPhone over Android or vice versa, or even the passion for a particular sporting team),” he said. 

“A firm’s brand ambassadors must live and breathe the vision of the firm and communicate that effectively through all content. The only way this is done is for leaders of firms to bring their brand ambassadors into the tent and engage with them clearly about their intent, their vision, plans, the future and so on. An intimate knowledge for a brand ambassador is vital to ensure that the same message is communicated effectively.”

When getting employees to share content online, Ms King suggested, firm leaders need to get their buy-in and make it easy for them.

“Make sure you’ve clearly documented your firm’s inspiring vision, mission, core values and ideal client. Share this clearly with your team on a regular basis and get them excited and motivated. Some employees should be trained to promote the firm by sharing content online, but not all employees. Some people have naturally strong ‘influencing’ skills and others don’t,” she advised.

“Find out what your employees’ strengths are and if they have strong influencing skills, create a plan for them to build up their own network of the firm’s ideal clients and then give your employees the content you want them to share – make it super easy.”

Further considerations

When considering how best to utilise social media, law firms should “post for any reason or none”, Mr Deverson posited, noting that the key to an online presence is brand recognition.

“Yes, the posts should be ‘on message’ as it relates to your firm’s communications strategy, however social media posts can be, as I mentioned, for any reason or none and not necessarily about a legal topic. Try something jovial, like a famous quote, a funny event in your office, a milestone for a staff member or, better still, introduce your team… and I mean everyone (not just the partners),” he suggested.

“You can share your Google review feedback or do a quick FAQ piece on new legislation or regulations. There are so many ways to get your brand out there and recognised… so the key takeaway here is, simply… just do it!”

The traditional nature of the legal industry stops a lot of lawyers from wanting to put themselves out there, Ms King mused, but from a marketing point of view, people respond so much better to other people rather than faceless brands.

“So, to grow your law firm faster and create a more valuable law firm brand, having a person be the face of a firm is key,” she concluded.

“That key influencer should in most cases be the law firm owner. But I also believe we should play to our strengths, and if the law firm owner doesn’t have strong influencing skills, then it could make sense to train an employee to be the face of the firm (although there is risk around this person leaving) or professional brand ambassadors/influencers could be the way forward.”