An influencer is someone who basically influences buying decisions or purchasing decisions for others. Influencers have gained a lot of traction, especially during the pandemic, with short-form video platforms such as TikTok or Instagram reels or Facebook videos, Facebook watch, YouTube shorts.

I mean, the list could go on with all of these different platforms that you are putting short-form content out there, but an influencer is someone who has a loyal following. Typically, when you think of an influencer, you think of somebody like Kim Kardashian or Beyoncé or Charli D’amelio. People who have a ton of followers and the number of followers doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a successful influencer.

What makes you a successful influencer is the quality of your network and the quality of your community, the quality of your followers. So micro-influencers, who only have a few hundred or maybe just 1000 followers, can sometimes be more impactful than these huge name brands that you see or these huge celebrity influencers out there.

Another term that is often used synonymously for influencer is a brand ambassador. Somebody who does not work for your company but will go out and sell services on behalf of your company or, you know, influence people to work with you work with your services. So lawyers, that being said, and law firms, I hate to break it to you, but at a law firm, lawyers are not the influencers. I will repeat, lawyers are not your influencers, law firms, your influencers are your clients and your referral sources, and your prospects. Your influencers are people who are outside the firm and do not work within the firm who help influencing the buying decision of your prospects or, you know, clients. And when I say buying decision, I mean they may recommend your firm to them, to another friend or family member or their followers on Instagram. 

So influencers are people that you really want to connect with on a very personal level who will help amplify your brand and spread brand awareness and raise awareness of your products and services and influence other people to buy them. After all, people do business with people, and when you’re looking around for services to buy or a service provider with whom to engage, then chances are someone is going to ask their friends or look to opinions from someone they know, like and trust before they actually engage you for their services.

That all being said, some very successful tactics that influencers use include some Instagram engagement tactics like collabs or takeovers. So I actually just authored a blog post for LISI that explains a little bit about what a collab or a takeover is, but essentially that is where someone else is posting on your company’s behalf.

For example, our lovely S.E.O-rangutan Seymour Links as seen behind me here, will take over the Legal Internet Solutions Inc. Instagram account and post his own pictures of his travels. That is a great tactic for firms to be using. Maybe have a client or co-counsel or someone take over your Instagram account for, you know, a predetermined amount of time. Maybe it’s just a couple of hours. Maybe they take over your Twitter account and do some live tweeting for you. Maybe instead of if you’re not comfortable with a takeover and handing your login credentials over to somebody who does not work for your company, or if your ethics guidelines do not allow for that, that’s where a collaboration can come in. And a collaboration is really powerful and impactful for both brands because it is one piece of content that you create together that then gets pushed out to all of your followers and the collaborators followers.

So, for example, maybe John Smith law firm creates this blog post with Smith and Smith LLP, similar names but this is just an example and these are not real firms I’m using as this example but say John Smith law firm puts his Instagram post up with this content that created and he invites Smith and Smith LLP to be a collaborator. That post will get posted to both of your accounts and pushed out to both of your sets of followers. And the influencer edge there actually means that even though that content was created by John Smith law firm, all of Smith and Smith LLP’s followers will see John Smith law firm’s name and say, Oh, maybe I should work with John Smith law firm.

You don’t necessarily want to do a collab with a direct competitor, but indirect competitors or your co-opetitors which means, you know, co-opetition fostering collaboration with your competitors. The word I use a lot lately, but your co-opetitors, your competitors that you can collaborate with, those are people who are great for fostering relationships and can become a long-term cross-referral source and cross-referral base.

Another tactic that influencers use that is a low-hanging fruit for law firms really is to hold raffles and contests for something that’s free and it does not have to be free legal services or something along those lines. When I say holding a raffle or contest for something that’s free, I mean tickets to a ballgame or tickets to the opera or bring them or get free tickets and bring people from your follower base to a sponsorship event or something like that.

Law firms almost always have season tickets to local baseball teams or, you know, I live in Boston, so I’ll use the Bruins as an example. Some law firms have season ticket seats to Bruins games, raffles, some of those games off and send them out there and then ask the winner of the raffle tickets to post a photo of them at the game and tag your firm’s accounts on social media in the post. That way they’re posting and saying, “Hey, thanks Smith and Smith LLP for sending us to the game. This has been really great!” and that generates, you know, some more engagement for your firm’s profiles. It can help you gain followers and it helps pique interest of the followers of that person you sent to the game for free. And they’ll see your firm and then want to maybe want to learn about your services. 

My last tactic that I’ll share that a lot of influencers use to hack engagement of their followers in their communities is to boost engagement through actually asking for it. You know, reach out to your network and say, “Hey, I just posted this Instagram post,” or “I just made this LinkedIn post.” But you can reach out to your small group of people who you know, like, and trust and say, “Hey, I just put up this post. I think it’s really great. I would love to help boost engagement and visibility. Would you mind interacting with it and interacting could mean commenting on it, liking it, or going as far as to share it with their own networks.”

Another way to ask for engagement is literally ask for it in the comment or the caption of your post. So say you’re on Instagram and you put a photo up or something straight up ask like, “What do you think of this?” Or “What do you think of this photo?” “What’s your opinion?” Ask the question and put that call to action in your content. And then people will actually interact with it. 

So those are just some quick tips for some influencer tactics that you can use at your law firm. You know, run contests, give something away for free. Work with your brand ambassadors and this is something I haven’t mentioned yet, but give away some branded swag, ask them to wear it out in public. Be a brand ambassador for your firm. Do a fleece vest or a jacket or an umbrella, something where your logo is going to be very visible and seen quite clearly. And then, you know, take it a step further, ask them to take pictures wearing that swag or using that swag with the logo clearly visible and tag the firm. And then the firm should then repost that photo on their own platforms so that the person who posted it will also get the engagement and the followers from it.

Anyway, that was a little bit of a digression, but in conclusion, and some of these tactics that are easy to implement for your law firm include brand ambassadors, give away that swag, asking for engagement on your post, giving that call to action. Ask for a like, ask for a comment, ask for a follow. Collaborations and takeovers; those have a huge following. And it’s a way to boost up each other and not just yourself. And then lastly, hold some contests. Give stuff away for free. You don’t have to give everything away for free, but just a little something just to, you know, boost engagement and then get more followers and more people will keep coming back hoping they might win the next time.

Thanks very much, as always.