Starting a Law Firm: Is Influencer Marketing for You?

In October 2022, I wrote about the rise of nano-influencers and how lawyers might use them to market their law firms.  Turns out, I was ahead of the curve.  As Forbes reports, influencer marketing is becoming more important than ever to boosting SEO.  The Forbes article recommends:

Ask the influencers you work with to link back to your website as often as possible while embedding anchor text keyword links to pass on their authority to your website.

A Harvard Business Review study published in November 2022 also confirmed that influencer marketing really does pay off.  The study found that on average, a 1% increase in influencer marketing spend led to an increase in engagement of .46% – but that number could have been as high as 16% if the company had optimized how they  allocated their budget.  In addition, as with the Forbes article, the Harvard study also corroborated that influencer posts with a link to the brand website  performed best.

Depending upon your market, working with an influencer could be a less expensive approach to building SEO than purchasing keywords directly.

Of course, keep in mind that ethics rules continue to restrict lawyers from direct payments in exchange for recommendations.  So consider other ways of working with influencers, such as providing them with a free legal product and asking for a review, or hiring influencers to speak at a law firm sponsored event and asking them to promote it. 

As with all other marketing trends, influencer marketing will grow saturated at some point and become cost-prohibitive. All the more reason to consider jumping on the trend now, particularly if you’re starting a law firm.