Why Law Firms Should Begin 2021 with a Social Media Audit

Social media offers one of the most powerful channels for marketing today. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all have unique features and benefits that can help you engage with clients or interest new ones. However, social media certainly isn’t a “set it and forget it” process. Moving into a new year, it’s the perfect time to take stock of your social media efforts. Make a comprehensive social media audit a priority for your law firm as we approach the new year – here’s why. 

What is a social media audit?

It’s pretty much what it sounds like: a thorough review of all of your social media profiles to determine each profile’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s the process of reviewing your law firm’s metrics to assess growth, opportunities, return on investment (ROI) and what can be done to improve your social presence.

We recommend conducting audits either quarterly or yearly for the sake of tracking big-picture trends while giving yourself an opportunity to make timely changes.

How can you get started with a social media audit?

If you want to audit and improve your performance via social media, you need to get knee-deep in data. Knowing that law firms have different priorities, you’ll want to customize your social media audit based on your needs. 

Gather a report and pull the data from each platform and map it all in one place. Key elements to track are things like engagement metrics, publishing metrics, audience demographics, referral traffic, and channel specific metrics. You want to see if you can determine any trends such as popular pieces of content or noteworthy posts. 

Tip: If you’re using an analytics tool like HubSpot, honing in on your most important metrics is easy.

As part of the audit process, you also want to research your competitors on social media. Go through their profiles and see what topics get the most engagement from them and look to find gaps and opportunities where you can stand out.

A less data-intensive aspect of conducting your social media audit is to ensure that your social media bios are completely filled out and optimized. For more information, check out our past blog post: 6 Tips for Lawyers on Writing the Perfect Social Media Bio.

What are the benefits of a social media audit? 

A social media audit helps your law firm refocus your social media marketing on your business goals. An audit will show you how well you are performing, what should be changed, what your priorities should be going forward, and how well your team is equipped (or not) to make the most of social media.

There are many reasons to complete a social media audit of your law firm’s profiles.

• Help to reduce overhead spending: If you’re using paid social media but not getting the results you’re hoping for, you can reduce or reallocate funds. 
• Inform better decision-making: Once you know what’s working and what’s not, you can readjust your strategy and put more effort into areas that work best for you. 
• Increase engagement with your audience: If you know how to reach your audience better, you can spend more time doing those activities. 
• Provide best practices for social media: The person who is living and breathing social every day can help the entire team raise their game and ensure a stronger social strategy going forward. 
• Tell you where you stack up vs. competition: You can learn not only more about your own firm’s presence online, but what other firms are doing and what you might be able to learn from them. 
• Uncover more ways to generate leads: You may come across gaps for generating new leads and have a better understanding of how to implement those strategies on social. 

Takeaway

Social media audits aren’t a simple process. There are spreadsheets involved and lots of mining data from analytics tools. However, the outcome will be invaluable for your law firm as you gain insights into new strategies that will improve your social media ROI.

Are you interested in a professional social media audit for your law firm?

If you want to understand and improve the ROI of your firm’s social media efforts, contact us today about our expert Social Media Analysis and Audit Reporting Technology (SMAART™). We help law firms to be more impactful on social by providing a better understanding of performance overall, as well as tactical recommendations for improving.