By Noreen Fishman 

The world of digital marketing is always changing. Strategies that aid businesses in achieving success in a given year might not in another. As 2023 draws to a close, we can assess the most popular strategies used by legal marketers. The main developments in legal marketing over the past year are summarized here.

Legal Marketing Trends

1. AI Drove New Opportunities, But Human Input Remained Crucial
Generative AI is reshaping legal marketing, which garnered much attention as a transformative force in 2023. Projections suggest the global AI market will exceed $400 billion by 2027, emphasizing its indispensable role for businesses. Over 80% of marketers, particularly in the legal sector, acknowledge AI’s positive impact, citing efficiency gains and increased creativity time. AI proves invaluable for quickly generating legal documents and referencing past cases. However, it’s not a one-stop solution for all writing needs; human editing remains crucial. The key lies in a balanced approach, where AI enhances efficiency, and human input preserves authenticity and quality in legal content.

2. The Social Media Landscape Experienced Upheaval
X (formerly Twitter) has brought significant turbulence to the platform in the past year. Daily active users dropped by 15 million from November 2022 to September 2023, partly due to a failed attempt to introduce a paid subscriber platform. Its controversial policies led to an increase in issues causing advertisers to withdraw, resulting in a 60 percent drop in ad revenue in five weeks. Efforts to improve X’s image proved insufficient as users migrated to alternatives like Threads, Mastodon, and Discord. X’s market share declined to less than 82 percent, while Threads gained nearly 20 percent. With a dwindling user base and financial challenges, the future of X remains uncertain.

3. Social Listening Was Essential to Success
Social listening is a powerful tool that tracks your brand’s online presence, monitoring social media channels, DMs, and discussions for feedback related to specific keywords, competitors, or industries. It provides insights into client sentiments and perceptions, analyzing social interactions and reviews across various platforms. Beyond brand management, social listening informs campaign strategies, measures effectiveness, and helps companies understand their position against competitors. It enables proactive engagement with the competition and aids in early issue detection, allowing teams to act swiftly. Ultimately, social listening offers valuable data for crafting appropriate messages and securing a more significant share of voice.

4. Video Became a Marketing Powerhouse
Experts once declared that video would be the marketing medium of the future. The future is here, then. There are no indications that the popularity of videos will decline. According to Google, YouTube reaches more adults between the ages of 18 and 49 than all cable networks put together. Additionally, photo and video posts seem to generate more engagement than other post types, according to social media platforms. Astute marketing executives will either partner with experts to create engaging videos or invest in internal online video capabilities. Many organizations used to view video as an afterthought, merely a means of repurposing other content, in previous years. The statistics from 2022 and 2023 show that video is a marketing powerhouse and content creation is essential. Amid the dominance of short-form video content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube has introduced YouTube Shorts, featuring 60-second videos. This format, ideal for capturing short attention spans, provides law firms an avenue to boost visibility and engagement. Repurposing existing Utilizing Shorts with captivating titles enhances discoverability, SEO, and audience engagement. Diversifying content styles contributes to brand authority and caters to various learning styles within the audience.

5. Thought Leadership Remained Crucial
Thought leadership was not a brief legal marketing trend, and every digital marketing channel has found its way to capitalize on this. However, one thing that has changed a bit in recent years is the necessity of thought leadership. Marketers have learned that there is much digital fatigue online and many challenges with marketing, and users are looking for content that is more educational, rather than promotional. Law firms that neglect to create thought leadership content will soon fall behind.

6. Content Personalization Has Become Key to Success
By no means is increased personalization a new trend in legal marketing, but it is still significant. More personalization and customization are becoming the norm across almost all digital platforms. Enhanced lead generation and engagement are the results of personalized marketing campaigns. Are you making the most of your digital platforms’ personalization features? If not, start exploring fresh approaches to include more levels of customization and segmentation. If you’d like to learn how to create great content more in-depth, check out this free eBook: The Law Firm Guide to Content Marketing eBook.

Takeaway:

There were a lot of exciting and dominating opportunities in marketing this year, which marketers will need to adjust to. In the upcoming year, key trends in legal marketing will only grow, including the use of AI, concentrating on video content, adapting to social media trends, and adding more personalization.

• This article was originally published on good2bsocial

To join our CITY LAWYER platform on WhatsApp, click here

To join our Telegram platform, click here 

COPYRIGHT 2022 CITY LAWYER. Please send emails to citylawyermag@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at https://web.facebook.com/City-Lawyer-Magazine-434937936684320 and on “X” (TWITTER) at https://twitter.com/CityLawyerMag. To ADVERTISE in CITY LAWYER or for Special Features, please email citylawyermag@gmail.com or call 08138380083.

All materials available on this Website are protected by copyright, trade mark and other proprietary and intellectual property laws. You may not use any of our intellectual property rights without our express written consent or attribution to www.citylawyermag.com. However, you are permitted to print or save to your individual PC, tablet or storage extracts from this Website for your own personal non-commercial use.