For the third year, legal practice website Attorney at Work has conducted an annual survey that reports on the social media habits, preferences and attitudes of attorneys. The latest survey, conducted in February 2017, gathered responses from 302 lawyers.

While perhaps not statistically significant, these responses are interesting to note in terms of identifying trends in the legal profession regarding the use of social media marketing.

The report found that:

• 96% of responding lawyers say they use social media

  • 84% use LinkedIn

  • 80% use Facebook

  • 59% use Twitter

• 70% of responding lawyers say social media is part of their overall marketing strategy

• Facebook is the most regularly used platform (48%)

• Platforms most successful for bringing in business: Facebook (31%), LinkedIn (27%), Twitter (5%)

• 67% handle all of their social marketing activities themselves

• 23% get some help with handling their social marketing

• 10% farm out their social marketing

• 38% use social marketing tools like Google Analytics, HootSuite, Buffer

• 94% of solos say they use social media, up 10% from last year

  • 82% of solos use LinkedIn

  • 78% of solos use Facebook

  • 60% of solos use Twitter

• 40% of all respondents use paid social advertising; 50% of those use Facebook ads

For solos and small firms, the goal of social marketing is lead generation and business development, pure and simple. How you get there is by building targeted relationships, providing solid content, and consistently adding value.