Social media can be a rewarding part of your law firm’s marketing strategy, but it needs ongoing input. Effective social media strategies take planning. They require effort to build a following and engage with your audience. All too often we see law firms with social media that was embraced with the enthusiasm of a new gym membership, only to be left by the wayside when things got busy or something more important came along. But it doesn’t have to be that hard. By scheduling your firm’s social media in advance, you can plan ahead and ensure that your firm maintains a meaningful presence on your chosen social media channels. Read on to learn how a social media schedule can work for your firm.
Giving your law firm’s social media a workout
Your law firm’s social media is like a gym membership – you will only benefit from it if you actually use it. And just like establishing a regular gym routine, it’s important to schedule your social media. For social media to be an effective part of your firm’s marketing strategy, you need to generate audience engagement and build your following. If you want to achieve your social media marketing goals, you need to establish a plan and stick to it.
One way to do this is to develop a social media schedule. Having a schedule can help you to stay on top of your social media and monitor progress. It can also help to avoid the embarrassment of social media that has been left dormant. Having a potential client find that the law firm claiming to be up to date last posted three years ago is not exactly a great endorsement. But even if that is your situation, a social media schedule can help get things back on track.
Establishing your social media schedule is easier than you might think. Here are some tips to help you plan your social media marketing well.
Strategies for scheduling your law firm’s social media
A good place to start is to decide which social media channels you will use. Then determine how often you will post and how often you will respond to others’ posts (that’s the engagement bit). Of course, you might like to enlist the help of others in your firm and share the load. Once you’ve made these decisions and allocated tasks, it’s time to put your schedule together.
Constructing your social media schedule can be as simple as setting up a table or spreadsheet. List activities against dates to be completed by and person responsible. One format that works well is to have columns for each date a social media activity is planned and rows for each social media channel. You might also like to include rows for the key topics you are planning to post on. Social media activities to include in your schedule are publishing your own posts and topical newsworthy items of interest to your readers and also responding to others’ posts and comments. It is also a good idea to schedule time to review your progress as you go along.
Building a social media schedule that works
The aim of your social media schedule is to avoid sporadic or haphazard social media posts by planning well in advance. Therefore, your social media schedule needs to provide for frequent activity over at least the next few months. Once things get underway, you can then plan six or even twelve months ahead. However, don’t forget to be flexible when you need to be. It pays to check your schedule regularly and make sure that any planned publications are still appropriate in light of current news or events that may not have been known when you planned your social media. Being flexible also allows you to add new ideas into your schedule that can tap into current trends and topics of interest around you.
Now your social media strategy is up and running. Your social media schedule is in full swing. You probably want to know if your efforts have paid off. Fortunately, there are a number of tools available to help you work it out. Many social media platforms include some level of analytics. They track and analyse your social media data to provide you with a snap shot of what is working, and what isn’t. These tools can even help you find the best day, time and frequency for activity to build a social media schedule that works for your firm and gets the results you want.
If you’d like to know more about how to improve your social media marketing, feel free to give me a call.
About the author
Peter Heazlewood
Peter Heazlewood is a management and marketing consultant, he specialises in helping law firms develop their practices using business planning marketing and performance reporting techniques refined in his own successful law firm. Peter lives in Sydney with his wife and is the father of five adult children.
