LinkedIn for Lawyers

LinkedIn is an online professional network with more than 100 million active user accounts. It’s ideal for lawyers who want to grow their networks and connect with new clients. It’s budget-friendly, scalable, and easy to use, but like all online marketing, it takes time and effort to make the most of the opportunities LinkedIn offers. If using LinkedIn for lawyers and your firm is on your agenda for 2021, we’ll help you familiarize yourself with the platform and find ways to make it work for your firm.

Building Your LinkedIn Profile

If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn for lawyers or you’ve signed up for an account but you’ve neglected to put together a profile, this is your first step. It’s important to create a profile that resonates with your ideal client. This applies to your personal page and your firm’s page. If you haven’t already, invest time in identifying your target audience and what they typically need from you. This is a helpful exercise for all content creation and it’s a great starting point for any marketing plan.

Once you have a clear picture of your target audience, it’s time to create your profile. This page should include the keywords you’ve identified, information about your experience, your firm, and your practice areas. Link to your firm’s website and links to any publications or other content you’ve posted online.

For example, if you’ve been a speaker at a legal seminar, include a link to the video from the event. LinkedIn also offers the option of adding a Publications section to your profile to share any articles or books you’ve written.

Case studies are another effective tool for sharing experience and information with potential clients. You can include them on your firm’s LinkedIn page or your personal page. Showcase Pages are another way LinkedIn lets you improve SEO for your page.

Finally, it helps to create content that showcases our area of expertise or the practice areas of your firm. Content shared on LinkedIn should provide guidance and help to prospective clients on a basic level. Don’t think of LinkedIn as a sales pitch, but as a way to further build your firm’s brand.

Staying Connected through LinkedIn for Lawyers

Now that you have a content-rich profile you can use it as a tool to gain exposure for your practice. But to do so, you need to participate regularly. You do this by:

Liking and commenting on other posts
Posting updates about your firm
Participating in group discussions
Sharing other people’s posts
Sending messages to your connections

All of these things help you keep your profile active and build brand awareness. You’ll be considered a resource to other people and an expert in your field. Participating in group discussions is especially useful because it puts you in contact with people in the legal industry, both nationally and locally, so make sure you choose a few relevant groups after setting up your LinkedIn profile and join.

Leverage Your Network

The final step in creating the most valuable LinkedIn for lawyers presence possible is to leverage your network by reaching out to potential, current, and past clients. Invite potential clients to connect with you through other contacts. LinkedIn restricts blanket invitations to connect, so you aren’t able to aggressively contact strangers like you can on other social media platforms. However, as long as you have at least a second-degree connection to someone, you’re able to invite them to join your network.

You’ll also want to ask clients to provide you with testimonials on LinkedIn. Aim for at least three initially and then work on getting a system in place that ensures happy clients share their experience working with your firm.

These are just a few of the ways you can begin to implement LinkedIn into your online marketing efforts for your law firm. Once these systems are in place, you can move on to using other LinkedIn tools, such as LinkedIn Pulse or Updates. The goal is to create a plan that doesn’t use up a significant amount of your time but creates a steady flow of inquiries from potential clients and that gets you to stand out in your industry.

If you need help getting started with LinkedIn for lawyers or you’ve set up a profile and you aren’t sure where to go from here, we can help. Contact us to learn more about how LinkedIn can become one of your firm’s most valuable marketing tools.