LinkedIn is a powerful tool for law firms and lawyers. With over 740 million users, it’s a great way to connect with potential clients and grow your firm.
In this blog post, we will cover the basics of LinkedIn for law firms and give you some actionable tips to get started. We’ll discuss how to create an effective profile, how to connect with potential clients, and how to use LinkedIn as a lead generation tool. Let’s get started!
How do law firms use LinkedIn?
LinkedIn can be used in a number of ways by law firms. Some common uses include:
- Creating an effective profile.
- Connecting with potential clients.
- Generating leads and referrals.
- Building relationships with other lawyers and professionals.
- Promoting your firm’s services and events.
- Attracting new talent to your firm.
Each of these uses is important, and each law firm will have its own unique approach to LinkedIn based on its goals and needs. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most important things to keep in mind when using LinkedIn for your law firm.
You can also explore our legal marketing courses to advance your digital marketing skills.
Create and optimize your company page
The first step in using LinkedIn for your law firm is to create a company page. This page will serve as your home base on LinkedIn, and it’s important to make sure that it’s complete and accurate. Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your company page:
- Make sure to include a good profile picture and header image.
- Write a brief overview of your firm and what you do.
- Include a list of services you offer.
- Link to your website and other social media pages.
- Add recent news and blog posts.
- Showcase client testimonials or awards you’ve won.
Once your company page is set up, be sure to optimize it for search engines so that it will be easier for potential clients to find. You can use LinkedIn’s SEO tool or a third-party app like Moz or SEMrush to do this. Use keywords related to your industry, location, and practice areas to increase visibility.
Reach out to potential prospects
Once you’ve created your company page and optimized it for search engines, you’ll want to start building relationships with other professionals on the platform. To do this, simply go through your list of connections and follow people who work in industries that may have need of legal services (e.g., real estate agents). If possible, try to connect with someone at each company so that you can send them messages directly instead of using LinkedIn’s generic InMail feature (more on this below).
Once you’ve built up some connections within these industries, it’s time to start generating leads. To do this, you’ll have to use LinkedIn’s InMail feature or a third-party app like HubSpot.
With the changes made by LinkedIn in 2018, it is no longer possible to send messages directly through the platform itself (without using InMail). Therefore, if you want to contact someone on LinkedIn but don’t know their email address, chances are they won’t see your message unless they happen upon it while browsing the site themselves. However, there are several ways around this problem:
You can purchase an “InMail” package from LinkedIn which will allow you to send up to 50 messages per month for $50 USD each month ($30/month if paid annually). This is probably not worth it unless your firm is doing a lot of outreach on LinkedIn.
Alternatively, you can use legal CRMs to send messages through LinkedIn. This will allow you to see the email addresses of all of your connections, which makes it much easier to reach out to potential prospects.
Finally, you can try searching for the person’s name on Google or another search engine in order to find their email address. This may be less reliable than using an app like HubSpot, but it’s worth a shot if you don’t want to purchase an InMail package.
Once you have the email address of a prospect, be sure to personalize your message and make it relevant to their needs. Introduce your law firm, how you can help, and offer a free consultation or another form of value. Follow up on a regular basis to maximize success.
Optimize your personal lawyer profile
In addition to creating and optimizing your company page, you’ll also want to make sure that your personal lawyer profile is up-to-date and accurate. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Make sure to include a professional profile picture and header image.
- Write an overview of your experience and practice areas.
- List any awards or recognition you’ve received.
- Include client testimonials.
- Connect with other professionals on LinkedIn.
Similar to your company page, personal profiles can also be optimized for search engines with keywords as we discussed earlier.
Join and engage in LinkedIn legal groups
LinkedIn has a number of legal groups that you can join in order to network with other lawyers and industry professionals. These groups provide a great opportunity to share content, ask questions, and connect with potential clients.
To find legal groups on LinkedIn, simply enter “lawyer” or “legal” into the search bar and select Groups from the results. You can then browse through the different groups to see which ones are most relevant to you. Once you’ve found a group that interests you, be sure to join it and start engaging with its members.
Share and post content on a regular basis
In order to generate traffic and leads, you’ll need to be consistently sharing and posting content on LinkedIn. You can use the platform’s built-in publishing feature in order to write posts that will appear in your connections’ feeds (similar to Facebook).
Alternatively, you can share links back to articles or blog posts on your website with a short description of what they’re about. This is another way for people who aren’t connected with you yet but might find value from reading one of these articles if it shows up in their feed as well!
Run LinkedIn ads to your target audience
If your law firm or practice is looking to grow, running ads on LinkedIn can be an effective way of getting new clients. Ads are available for both companies and individuals and will appear in the news feed as sponsored content (similar to Facebook). There are many different ad formats that you can choose from depending on what type of campaign you’re trying to run (e.g., lead generation vs brand awareness). These include:
- Single image ads: these have only one picture with a caption beneath it. You can add up to three lines of text under this image if desired but must keep all copy within 75 characters per line so people don’t get frustrated reading long blocks without breaks!
- Video ads: These allow users who watch them until the end to click a CTA button that will take them to a landing page of your choosing.
- Carousel ads: These are similar to Facebook’s carousel ads and allow you to showcase multiple images and links within a single ad.
- Text only ads: As the name suggests, these are just text-based ads with no accompanying image.
LinkedIn also offers different types of targeting options so you can make sure your ad reaches the right audience. This includes things like job title, company size, or other interests that people have listed on their profiles.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to LinkedIn advertising, HubSpot Academy has some great free courses that can walk you through the process step-by-step.
Set clear goals and KPIs
Every law firm LinkedIn strategy requires goals and key performance indicators for the best results. Defining what you want to achieve on LinkedIn will help you better understand how to use the site and measure your success.
Some goals that firms have set for their LinkedIn presence include:
- Generating leads from potential clients.
- Building relationships with current and potential clients.
- Gathering market research data.
- Attracting new talent to the firm.
Each goal should have specific KPIs associated with it in order to track progress. For example, if attracting new talent is a goal, then some metrics could be number of profile views, number of connections made, or percentage of visitors who click through to the website. Make sure to use tools like Google Analytics and LinkedIn’s built-in analytics to measure performance.
Final thoughts on law firm LinkedIn strategies
In summary, LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful platform for attorneys to generate leads, build relationships with current and potential clients as well as other attorneys in their field. It also offers great opportunities for firms looking to attract new talent or gather market research data on what people want from legal services providers today.
