How do you measure the success of your law firm social media campaigns?
Measuring the success of social media activity remains a key challenge for many lawyers. Getting hard facts on the number of new leads or the impact on the bottom line as a result of using social media is something that many simply don’t or can’t do. This is because they think it is too difficult, have not set aside enough time / resources to do so, or have not designed their social media campaigns with measurement top of mind.
With the increasing social media options available, it is easy to try different things without tying them together or measuring how each actually achieves the goals you have set. However, if lawyers fail to see how social media can help them attract more leads based on positions of authority within specific niches or, even worse, they see it as a waste of time, then it is hard for them to commit the resources needed to make it work.
The first thing you need to do is ask yourself what you want to achieve using social media . Do you want to:
- Simply generate leads that you can follow up?
- Convert specific leads into sales with, ideally, a well-designed, systemised communication and nurturing strategy?
- Increase awareness about a specific issue as a way of raising your profile and differentiating yourself from your competition?
Whatever the goal or multiple goals you set yourself for your legal services business, you need metrics in place to measure the success of your social media activities. This means you also have to think carefully about the specific activities you take and how you tie these to other. more traditional, marketing activities.
There are two stages to measuring the success of law firm social media campaigns:
- The first concerns the tracking of audience numbers, unique site traffic and social monthly impressions (i.e. the number of mentions of your law firm on various social media platforms);
- Next, and more importantly, is to track the number of people that then take specific steps you have outlined in your various calls to action. This could include signing up for content or seminars, registering for free consultations or, even better, buying products or services from you.
Many lawyers that start using social media focus on the first step and wonder why they don’t get more leads even when their audience appears to be getting larger.
The key factor that differentiates law firms with successful social media strategies from their competitors in terms of business growth is the focus on conversion – the link between the two stages above.
Conversion is improved when law firms focus on making sure they are thoroughly prepared before launching themselves into any marketing or social media activity. This gives pointers as to the type of information that needs to be provided and shared, using social media to attract leads and direct prospects to take specific action.
