How to Audit Your Law Firm’s Social Media
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Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important marketing channels around. Every year, more law firms are signing up to take advantage of the many benefits social media has to offer.
But social media marketing isn’t a “set it and forget it” process. To get the most out of your law firm’s online presence, you have to continually optimize your approach—and that always starts with a social media audit.
Here’s what you need to know.
What Is a Social Media Audit?
Conducting a social media audit means making a thorough review of all your social media profiles in order to:
- Keep track of what works and what doesn’t
- Learn your overall strengths and weaknesses
- Highlight opportunities for improvement
- Gauge your return-on-investment for each platform
This is the first step to strengthening your law firm’s social media strategy. When done right, a social media audit will help you:
- Make more informed decisions
- Reduce unnecessary marketing expenses
- Generate more leads
- Increase audience engagement
- Establish social media best practices for your law firm
Then, by continuing to audit your social media on a regular schedule, you can track long-term growth and hone your strategy over time.
How to Audit Your Law Firm’s Social Media Presence
1. Organize Your Law Firm’s Social Media Accounts
Start by locating all of your social media accounts. This may include:
- Google My Business
Remember that your law firm may have “ghost accounts.” Someone may have set up accounts for your firm, then forgotten about them. Search for your firm by name in Google and on any possible platforms to see if any profiles you weren’t aware of show up.
Once you’ve found all your profiles, set up a spreadsheet with a list of every account. Create columns for:
- The platform
- The account username
- The password
- A public link to the profile
You’ll be adding some more columns, but this is a good start.
2. Check for Completeness
Next, look over your law firm’s profiles to see if they’re complete. Check to see if they all have:
- A profile picture
- A banner image
- A bio/about section
- Your contact information
- Your hours
- A link to your website
…or any other info fields available on each platform. Is the information accurate? (After all, it won’t do any good to have a phone listed if it’s the wrong number.)
Create another column in your spreadsheet where you can make a note of whether an account is incomplete, inaccurate, or both. Later, you can go back and complete them all with the correct details.
3. Analyze Your Brand Voice
Maintaining a consistent brand voice is essential for any law firm’s online marketing strategy. It’s not uncommon for prospects to look for you on multiple platforms, and if every profile is completely different, it can make your firm seem unprofessional or even dishonest.
So check to see if the “face” you’re presenting on each account is aligned with your brand. Are you using the same logo on every profile? Do your bios or “About” descriptions send the same message? Are your posts written in the same “tone” across platforms?
If any of your profiles seem to be out of sync with the personality you want to show the world, make a note of that in your spreadsheet.
4. Gather Data
Now you can get down to the nitty-gritty. Create more columns in your spreadsheet and enter some engagement metrics for each account. Include details like:
- Follower count
- Page views
- Average number of likes, shares, and comments on posts
- Average number of views on videos (especially for YouTube)
- Clicks through to your website
- Post impressions and reach
- Ad spend
As you enter this information, you should start to see which platforms are doing the heavy lifting in your social media strategy. This can help you understand which platforms are most worth your time and resources.
For profiles that are lagging, you can decide whether it would be better to work on improving them or erase them altogether.
5. Analyze Your Audience
Even if you have plenty of followers, it won’t help your law firm much if the wrong people are following you. Look into the demographics on each platform to see who is interacting with your account. Does your current audience fit with your ideal client profile?
If not, this is a good time to figure out why—and how you could fix it. In some cases, it may be that the platform itself isn’t suited to your target audience. In other cases, you might need to change your posting style to attract the right attention.
6. Calculate Cost vs. Return
Finally, you want to ask yourself how much your firm is spending on social media and how much value you’re getting in return. This goes beyond the mere cost of paid ads, and includes expenses such as:
- Premium subscriptions
- Marketing agencies
- In-house marketing teams
- Content creators
- Third-party analytics tools
- Photography
- Image and video editing software
- Miscellaneous apps
And of course, as a busy professional, time is money. So don’t forget to factor in the time you’re investing in your social media presence.
Then, calculate how much value your social media is actually bringing you. Armed with that information, you should have a better idea of whether your investments are worth it—and how you could get more bang for your buck.
When it comes to marketing, efficiency is key.
Begin Your Journey to a Stronger Social Media Presence
By regularly auditing your law firm’s social media, you can perfect your approach, save time and money, and get more out of your online marketing strategy.
Of course, running an effective social media campaign can be difficult on a single platform, let alone several. And without the right know-how, it’s easy to make mistakes.
If you’d rather let someone else take on the hassles, we’d be happy to help.
At Let America Know, we give lawyers across the nation the expert support they need to take their social media campaigns to the next level. Just reach out to us, and we’ll help you:
- Raise brand awareness
- Connect with your target audience
- Expand your professional network
- Grow your law firm to new heights
Click here to learn more about our done-for-you social media program customized for trial attorneys.