Social media marketing is more than likes and followers. It's about standing out from your competition and connecting with specific visitors to drive actual results.
Implement these ten essential elements to build a strong foundation for social media success:
1. Research
Knowing and understanding your audience is key in social media marketing. Buyer profiling and segmentation helps identify and relate to your firm’s ideal client. Tailor your content, messaging and services to the specific needs and behaviours of different groups. This will make your social media campaigns more effective at driving client acquisition and retention.
2. Strategy
Whether you want to increase your number of followers, boost referral traffic to your website, nurture engagement or drive more conversions, set realistic, measurable goals against which to measure KPIs.Your social media strategy, as part of your broader marketing strategy, should be a detailed plan of what your firm will post on which channels, when, and what content formats will be included. Aligning this to your brand awareness and business development objectives, you’ll have a concise roadmap of goals to be achieved through each campaign, whether it’s an ongoing, always-on brand campaign or tactical campaign driving specific actions.
3. Website and CMS
The foundation of digital success is a responsive design website that delivers optimal user experience across all digital channels. Built with modern technology your site should responsive design - adaptive to any size screen or device, be fast to load, easy to navigate, and really simple for you to manage and update. These are the key elements necessary for intuitive user experience on your site.
A simple, user-friendly CMS allows you to publish and edit content on your website and blog without requiring advanced coding or design skills. Depending on the complexity of your content and website functionality, there are a host of platforms that deliver responsive, intuitive, optimised websites that won’t break the bank or take months to build.
4. Branding
Inconsistency is confusing and looks unprofessional. Branding must be consistent across on all digital channels: not only visual and aesthetic components, but tone, style and format too. A strong brand with a well-structured communication plan helps differentiate your firm, lend authority to your content and increase client engagement and loyalty.
5. Content
Content is visual, informative and emotive. Plan how to best position your brand, inform your readers and provide an engaging user experience to your visitors through copy, thought-leadership articles, imagery and interactive content. Consistently publish, share and syndicate key content on your social media channels. We’ve seen so many law firm websites with brilliant articles and publications, wasted, because they’re not easily accessed, are not optimised for mobile, and not promoted…and definitely not presented in a visually appealing or engaging way.
Research and planning are integral to successful content development and marketing. A successful law firm website is has clear, relevant and keyword-rich content that delivers the right message with power and conviction. Content should target your audience, engage them and persuade them to take action.
6. Tools
With the volume, quality and frequency of content required to make your brand stand out, it’s impossible to do it all without essentials tools, especially on mobile. Determine what insights, functionality and support are required to improve your social media marketing efficiency and effectiveness, and select the best tools for each purpose.
7. Analytics
Keeping track of your marketing campaign measurements is crucial to understanding and monitoring your marketing ROI. We work with you to set up metrics, analyse data and define KPIs, providing insight into sustainable opportunities for growth.
8. Social Media Policy
Because you’ll want to encourage brand advocacy amongst staff, it’s important to develop a social media policy incorporating specific guidelines on who can post what, and how - content must be consistent and on-brand. Include an escalation procedure outlining how responses should be managed, and who is responsible for what type of feedback and content generation.
9. Team
To ensure your firm gets value out of marketing budget and resources, have the right collective skill and expertise between your in-house and outsourced marketing team. Get the right people for the job. Many skills may very well exist in your firm, but weigh up the time required to run a top notch digital profile vs your bottom line. And select partners who have good experience in your industry, capable in managing your full profile.
Few law firms are large enough to justify the employment of a full-time in-house design team, PR specialists, web technologists, strategists, content creators, marketers and event managers. One of the key benefits of outsourcing is that it provides small firms with access to the entire marketing mix with a team of support, rather than having to try and find one person with all the right skills - because they don’t exist! Outsourcing to the right partner has commercial benefit and offers flexibility - just be sure the team you select is the right fit.
10. Budget
Determining what you should spend on marketing will depend upon your goals, location, the size of your firm, the firm’s areas of practice and your expectations for the results of your efforts. The perfect marketing budget for your firm is completely unique - observing market trends, data and analytics will help you understand effective strategies for allocating budget, which are the most effective channels and where you see the best ROI.
When selecting a law firm, prospective clients look at track record, responsiveness and reputation. Establishing authority and thought leadership through social media is among the most effective online means to build your firm’s reputation and brand.
Are there any other digital media topics you'd like to read about? Let us know and we'll try and accommodate you in our next post!