Which Social Media Platform(s) Should Mediators Use?
With all of the different social media platforms out there, choosing which ones you want to market your resolution practice on can seem like a daunting task. However, with a couple of easy steps, you can make this decision a bit more straightforward and start marketing your mediation practice on social media today.
In this video, we’ll be talking about how to choose which social media platforms you want to use to market your mediation, arbitration, or litigation practices. Figuring this out will help you effectively leverage this relatively new technology to expand your outreach and client base.
(section 1):
The first step is figuring out your initial idea of your target audience. Who do you want your social media content to reach? If you’ve already figured this out and have a good understanding of this, feel free to skip to section 2 starts).
If you’ve had your own resolution practice for a while, you probably have a good idea of your own client demographic. Picture the typical clients that you help. How old are they? Are the majority of your clients male or female, or is there a pretty even ratio? You can even consider their occupations, interests, and education levels. Write this down, as this can help outline who accesses your services. Theoretically, if there’s a trend here, or if the majority of your clients are within certain age ranges, genders, and occupations, this can help form the basis of your target audience, because you know that your practice doesn’t ‘exclude’ these demographics.
If you’ve been on at least one social media platform for a while, make sure you’ve looked into the analytics. Most social media platforms include direct ways to check the demographics and activities of those who view your social media pages. They’re often labeled as either analytics or insights on the platform and can be accessed either directly in a given social media post or in your settings. Make a note of what groups view your social media pages most, as this can also contribute to your target audience.
You can also consider what you specialize in, and what specialties of resolution you practice most. Within these specialties, think of who is most likely to seek out services related to these specialties. For example, if you’re a mediator who specializes in construction dispute resolution, it would be fair to assume that clients of that particular type of dispute resolution would be either employed or involved in the construction industry in some way. You would then include this group in your target audience. This is usually not straightforward, so you could also look into market data. This can sometimes be accessed from online resources and statistics platforms, and you could also try attending webinars highlighting market trends within the resolution industry.
Mapping these factors out will probably help you get a good initial idea of what your target audience is. It’s not a perfect approach, and it may change over time, so once you’re on social media, make sure you routinely check your analytics to make changes if needed. There might be some trial and error, and we’ll discuss how to do this in later videos.
(section 2)
With this idea of your target audience in mind, make a note of this, and compare it to the user demographics and statistics of each of the major social media apps. If your target audience is mostly of a specific demographic, you’ll want to choose a social media platform that has a high count of active users within that demographic. In this video, we will be going over Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.
1. Starting with Twitter. This may seem like an unconventional choice, since it’s so notorious for placing limits on the number of characters in each post. However, there are a couple of situations where you might want to consider this platform as one of your marketing spaces.
First of all, Twitter recently increased the number of characters you could put in a tweet from 140 to 280, which leaves more room for people to get their points across. Additionally, Twitter is quite popular, and it has over 300 million monthly active users, and 206 million daily active users according to user data. Especially since users can retweet tweets, this might provide a lot of outreach to potential clients or connections.
You’ll want to consider the following facts about Twitter’s demographics:
It has a pretty significant gender disparity; according to 2021 data, 68.5 percent of users identified as male.
The overwhelming majority of users were between the ages of 18 and 44, and 28.4 percent of overall users were between the ages of 35 and 44.
Other data suggests that Twitter’s user base skews wealthy and college-educated, as well as those living in urban or suburban areas.
If these demographics align with your client base or target audience, you may want to consider using this platform for your practice.
2. Next, we’ll discuss Facebook. Facebook was the most popular social media platform in 2022, with nearly 3 billion monthly active users. Depending on your target audience, it could be a good idea to create a Facebook page to market your practice, but you’ll first want to consider the following market data.
1. There is a relatively equal distribution of male-identifying and
female-identifying users
2. Older generations tend to be more active on Facebook as opposed to other social media platforms, which can make Facebook a great platform if your target audience leans towards older age groups
3. Most users visit Facebook at least once a day for an average time of 20 minutes, according to 2020 data.
Facebook definitely stands out from the others in terms of active users and can be a good choice for older target audiences. However, if your audience is predominantly young adults, it may not be worth your time.
3. Instagram is another interesting platform that could be worth exploring to market your mediation practice. Over 1.22 billion people worldwide use Instagram monthly, which is certainly a competitive number. It also seems to be growing consistently; Instagram’s user count grew 5.79% in 2022, and it is expected to grow by around 5.47% in 2023. It is certainly not an obsolete platform, and the high count of monthly active users leaves the potential to reach many people.
Another interesting factor is the global use of the platform, as about 87% percent of Instagram users live outside of the united states. If you’re trying to expand the global outreach of anything, Instagram is a great place to do so.
Consider the following statistics here:
1. Instagram has a pretty even gender distribution, but there is a slightly higher population of male-identifying users than female-identifying users
2. Most people on Instagram are under 34 years of age, and 31.7% of the total Instagram user base is between 25 and 34 years of age.
3. Instagram has 58% more engagement per follower than Facebook, so the people that do see your page are statistically more likely to engage with it
Instagram has a steady growth history and potential, high engagement rates, a high count of monthly active users, strong global outreach, and a younger user demographic. If your target audience includes people within younger age groups, it could be a very valuable resource for marketing your practice.
4. Finally, we’ll discuss LinkedIn, which probably seems like the most obvious choice for professionals. Linkedin is focused on helping people make professional connections, and people can network, post content, and advertise on this platform. It’s definitely grown beyond just a job board, and nearly 135 million users use Linkedin each day.
If you’re looking to make connections, LinkedIn is a great option. However, it can also be great for marketing to businesses, and depending on your resolution specialties, this could help you amplify your practice.
You’ll want to consider the following market data points:
1. LinkedIn has more male-identifying users than female-identifying users, making up about 57 and 43 percent respectively as of January 2022. 2. Millennials, or users between 25 and 34 years of age, make up the majority of Linkedin’s users. Additionally, 20% of users are between the ages of 18 and 24, and 18% of users are between 35 and 54. On the other hand, only 2% of users are 55 and older.
3. LinkedIn has high conversion rates and high global outreach, and users that see a business’s advertisement on LinkedIn are about 6 times more likely to purchase from that business. Although statistics for the resolution industry specifically are limited, strong business performance could indicate a strong potential for effective marketing for your resolution practice.
With this being said, LinkedIn can be a high-engagement platform for marketing, and if your target audience is not only people over the age of 55, this could be a valuable asset.
References:
https://www.adrnotable.com/how-to-grow-your-mediation-practice-using-social-media/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/
https://wearesocial.com/uk/blog/2022/01/digital-2022-another-year-of-bumper-growth-2/https://www.statista.com/topics/751/facebook/#topicHeader__wrapperhttps://www.socialpilot.co/instagram-marketing/instagram-stats#:~:text=Instagram%20has%20over%201.22%20billion,25.31%20%25%20of%20the%20world's%20population.https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/linkedin-statistics#:~:text=Most%20of%20LinkedIn's%20Users%20are,2%25%20are%2055%20and%20older.
