Since Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media platforms are free to join, shared media is one of the most cost effective ways for your law firm to connect and engage with its target audience. Much like owned and earned media, if your firm is using social media, it needs to be measured. However, measuring shared media requires more than just calculating your increase in followers. Of course, tracking those metrics is still important, but the goal of measuring your social media marketing is to determine what works, what doesn’t and how you can improve. Whether your firm has been active on social media for years or you’re just now getting around to creating a LinkedIn page, here are some tips on what to measure in shared media.
Influencer Relations or Brand Ambassadors
One of the main goals with social media is to share posts, articles, photos and other valuable content with as many people as possible. Since building a social media following can take time, partnering with an influencer or brand ambassador allows your firm to tap into a larger and potentially more engaging audience. In the most general terms, an influencer is someone with a large and loyal audience who posts on their personal account on behalf of your firm, while a brand ambassador grows their own brand alongside your firm’s as part of a long-term partnership.
Working with an influencer or brand ambassador can open a world of opportunities for your firm, but only if they are actually doing something. Partnering with athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods would have been a pointless endeavor for Nike if they didn’t perform (and excel) while wearing Nike products. As you develop relationships with these ambassadors, it’s important to keep up with those who are posting, sharing or talking about your firm to determine whether or not they can help you accomplish your goals.
Analytics Rating System
As any teenager will tell you, there’s no better feeling than a social media post generating a lot of likes, comments and shares among your target audience. In addition to their ability to make you feel good about the content you produced, these metrics are also vital for measuring the success of your firm’s shared media. Rather than tallying up all the numbers you can find on your firm’s social media platforms, assign a point system and focus on specific campaigns.
For example, let’s say your firm is promoting its personal injury practice on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for the month of October. As you share various articles, infographics, videos and other content with your target audience, keep track of the metrics with a point system that works for you, such as one point for a like, two points for a comment and three points for a share. Measuring those numbers against your social analytics for previous months provides a quick answer for determining the success of your personal injury campaign.
Unique Links and Landing Pages
When it comes to measuring shared media, think of Google Analytics as the Robin to your Batman. Through the use of unique links, your firm can calculate exactly how many people were driven to your website or another landing page from your social media posts. Since you only want to measure traffic from social media platforms, be sure that you don’t publish these unique links on any other content.
Links and landing pages aren’t the only unique offers you can provide to gauge your shared media performance. Everything from eBook and whitepaper downloads to email addresses and telephone numbers can be shared through a unique link to calculate how many people gained access from your social media posts. Measuring the number of clicks on these links in Google Analytics provides insights into whether or not your audience is engaging with your shared media.
Social Media Advertising
Regardless of how much time and energy was spent on its production, even the best social media strategies could use a little boost sometimes. This is why many firms utilize social media advertising, or paid social, as a means of reaching a new, targeted audience. With money involved, measuring the success of paid social campaigns is an important aspect of your firm’s shared media strategy.
How many clicks did your firm get on an ad? How did the number of clicks compare to the number of impressions? Did you generate any new leads through the ad? These are the types of questions your firm will need to answer as part of your shared media measurement. The world of paid social media can be confusing and expensive for beginners. As one of the cheapest and most user-friendly advertising platforms, consider starting with a Facebook campaign to get a feel for social media advertising before diving into the deep end.
One of the most important things to remember when it comes to shared media is that not every campaign is going to be a resounding success. Inevitably, there’s going to come a time when your firm’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn posts just aren’t resonating with your target audience. Knowing what to measure is the key to learning why and how to improve. If you’re interested to see how shared media can help your firm attract new clients and grow revenue, let’s connect.
