As a society, we’ve become inseparable from our devices, and as consumers, we have expectations for the businesses we interact with on these devices. Combined, these patterns make social media an exceptional tool for building law firms.
In the legal world, for instance, 74% of consumers said they use social media to do homework on legal services. And 95% of consumers read online reviews before hiring an attorney. It’s the same for other industries – in healthcare, 72% of patients will only choose a doctor with a 4-star review or higher, and 41% of people said social media affects their choice of provider.
More than a communication tool, social media is a system with several advantages; you can manage your law firm brand, build public awareness, and acquire new clients all at once. These advantages arm you with incredible control to steer your law firm’s marketing and deliver an edge over the competition when done correctly. In terms of the bottom line, correctly executed social media brings your law firm a lift in monthly calls, reduced marketing costs, and improved perception and satisfaction with clients.
Let’s jump in and learn how to align your firm’s goals with social media metrics and understand both the customer journey and media roles.
Business Goals
At the end of the day, you’re trying to capture a larger market share—you’re trying to sell your law firm’s services. So how do we bridge the gap between social media metrics and your firm’s goals? Let’s identify the bottom-line impacts of your metrics.
Here’s what can be tracked on social media:
- general engagement (likes, comments, shares, clicks)
- audience growth (follower count, reach, segmentation)
- web traffic (referrals, time on site, conversions)
- brand awareness (mentions, sentiment, reputation)
- customer engagement (feedback, reviews).
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Yes, these are marketing metrics traditionally associated with digital campaign executions. But if you look closely, you’ll see how these five metrics align with business goals like increasing community participation, expanding your reach, driving more conversions (aka: cases signed), differentiating from competitors, and improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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Picture a funnel—at the top, branding appeals to a broad audience. If you want more brand awareness, you spend your money on media tactics that expand reach with content such as graphics. Expanded reach achieves more eyeballs, more people knowing about your law firm’s brand. When more people know about your firm, talking about it and even referring it to friends and family, your awareness grows.
Next in the funnel is interest—if you want more engagement, spend your money on ways to connect and incorporate heavier content like videos and articles. These are long-form content that require greater interest and frankly, effort on the part of your firm’s audience. The thought process is if they are going to a higher level of effort to learn about your law firm, odds are they have a significant interest and need. More than likely they were injured in an accident or have a situation requiring legal representation.
Once convinced, your audience reaches the final stage of the funnel—action—and becomes a client of the firm. This is the ultimate level of engagement, the hire. Create the perfect post or paid social ad with an effective call to action and your law firm’s phone will ring. Test multiple call to action messages so you can continuously modify for greater return.
The most important aspect of gaining traction in social media, is setting the right goals, and—as 101 as this sounds—ensuring they’re SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. Examples might include increasing your followers by 50% by your third quarter or increasing your landing page conversions by 20% by fourth quarter. If this is your first attempt at creating such goals, lowball if you need to, learn, and tweak, tweak, tweak.
About Roux Advertising
Eric Morgan is the President of Roux Advertising, a full-service agency that specializes in increasing law firm case volume through distinctive marketing and media campaigns. Roux employs a strategy-first approach to position law firms uniquely in the marketplace, crafting ad messaging, media buying, and analytics to generate brand awareness and drive qualified cases. Contact him at eric@rouxadvertising.com or visit rouxadvertising.com to learn more.
