What are the Best Ways for Law Firms to Use LinkedIn?
Do you want an easy way to keep your firm to top of mind with professional referral sources? LinkedIn is the platform to do that. As the Chief Strategist of a marketing firm devoted to helping law firms grow their business, I want to share three ways we use LinkedIn to keep our clients ranking high with their referral networks.
Why is this important? For most law firms, professional referrals can be the best source of new high-quality clients. And every law firm needs new clients.
Take Advantage of LinkedIn Profiles
The first thing you should do on LinkedIn is complete your personal profile. Make sure that all information is up-to-date. Do you have a new headshot? Include it. Your website should be in there, and you need to fully complete the bio section.
Take full advantage of the opportunity to share information that could create a potential connection with clients. Provide details about your education, speaking engagements, publications, charitable work, all of the details that round you out as a professional. These details help establish your credibility as well as giving your online profile more personality. Your professional contacts can feel more confident about referring clients to you the more they know about you.
Once you’ve fully developed your personal profile, make sure your firm has a profile. LinkedIn provides places for pictures, invitations for employee contributions, and other ways to create a cohesive professional presence on the platform.
Add More Connections
The second thing you should do on LinkedIn is add more connections. If you haven’t been focusing on LinkedIn—or even if you have–you might only have 100 connections on the platform. But you may have 10,000 connections in your database or customer relationship management (CRM) files. LinkedIn provides an easy way for you to bulk upload all those contacts and add them as LinkedIn connections.
Making those people LinkedIn connections provides a great way to stay connected to your referral sources beyond email. Many people who might miss an email message from you might notice a message sent via LinkedIn—and vice versa, of course.
Participate Thoughtfully in the Dialogue
Social media–including business-focused social media such as LinkedIn–centers around a series of dialogues. I like to think of it as a cocktail party before a business dinner, with running conversations that keep going whether you’re in the room or not. When you come to the party, you might as well pay attention to and participate in the conversations or it’s not worth the effort. Read posts from your contacts, and leave comments. Share information, whether a blog you wrote or an article belonging to someone else that you found helpful. If you or your firm won an award, this is a good place to post a short announcement. You can brag a little, but be sure to compliment your colleagues on their successes as well. It’s not just about you—it’s about how you interact with others.
Maintain Top of Mind Awareness with LinkedIn
Your professional network, including those all-important referral sources, can be easily reached through LinkedIn. These strategies offer some of the best ways to stay top of mind with your referral network.
At LaGrande Marketing, we help law firms take advantage of a variety of efficient and effective methods to grow their practices. If you’d like to talk about how we could help you establish or maintain a strategy using social media or other platforms, just give us a call.