#022 – Optimize Your Law Firm’s LinkedIn Profile
93% of attorneys use the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn can be a very valuable resource for your law firm’s marketing plan. The key to this success lies in a compelling profile. You must optimize your law firm’s profile on LinkedIn because it is absolutely a crucial asset for your business. Listen in to learn more!
SHOW NOTES
Some of the resources I visited about in today’s episode include the following:
Jump on my calendar to visit about your content marketing needs here!
Note: Link to websites may include affiliate links, in which I would receive a small fee or reward for the referral. However, please know I only provide referrals for companies and services I either use myself or believe in strongly.
TRANSCRIPT
The Legal Marketing Lounge
Hello, friends. Welcome back to The Legal Marketing Lounge. If you are a lawyer or have a law firm, you are probably on LinkedIn. If you are not on LinkedIn, you need to be on LinkedIn. LinkedIn may not be the flashiest social media site. I’m telling you, it’s my happy place. I love LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Profile Optimization
This is a professional social network and it deserves your law firm’s attention. I am not talking about just putting up a quick profile and being done with it. This is a place that can really skyrocket your law firm. I know you might be saying, “My potential clients are not even on LinkedIn. That is not where they hang out.” Just hear me out.
LinkedIn has been around for 17 years. This is a social media platform that is not going anywhere. It is the preferred hangout for lawyers. In fact, 93% of attorneys use the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn can be a very valuable resource for your law firm’s marketing plan. The key to this success, lies in a compelling profile. You really want to optimize your law firm’s profile on LinkedIn, because it can be a crucial asset for your business.
Why Should You Choose LinkedIn for Your Law Firm?
Before we go any further, I want to talk about why your law firm should even be on LinkedIn, and why this is even a big deal. Let me convince you. Chances are your law firm has probably already secured a profile on LinkedIn. Maybe you have a LinkedIn profile with your law firm’s name and that’s kind of it. You have to be using this free real estate to your advantage. Here are the reasons why not only your law firm needs to be on LinkedIn, but why you should consider optimizing your LinkedIn profile to be even more advantageous for you.
Build a Network
The first is to build a network. LinkedIn was designed for constructing a network. It is reported that every second that goes by, two professionals join the platform. This is huge! It is growing continually and exponentially. With your law firm on LinkedIn, you can join other attorney groups, and other LinkedIn groups. It can connect you with local bar associations. You can engage with law school alumni or colleagues. You can use LinkedIn to gather new clients from the connections that you build. Other lawyers can refer clients to you, if you do a practice area that they don’t. Every connection that you make on LinkedIn is an opportunity for a new referral and a resource for help and information. So the very first reason your law firm should be on LinkedIn is to build a very strong network.
Boost Your Reputation
The second reason is to boost your reputation. You know that prospective clients are going to be researching your law firm before they hire you. They will do a simple Google search. They will probably find your website. They will probably find your Google My Business page, and they will also find your law firm’s social media platforms. If you have a detailed profile that is optimized on LinkedIn, it shows that you are putting a very strong foot forward regarding how your law firm appears, throughout all of social media. It is just really important and it is a way for a prospective client to see who you are as a professional, on this professional social media platform. As a law firm, you can build a solid reputation in the digital world through LinkedIn. You can provide resources, information and showcase yourself as an authority. If a prospective client does go on to LinkedIn and sees you there, they can see that you are an authority in your field by the posts that you put on LinkedIn, and how you engage with other people’s posts.
Attract Potential Employees
The third way that LinkedIn can be advantageous to a law firm is that it can help you acquire talent. If you are a solo law firm, or a very small law firm, you may not be interested in this, yet. However, LinkedIn is really a perfect venue for attracting talent to your law firm, when or if you ever decide to grow. The LinkedIn platform can help you advertise open positions for free, to a huge network of professionals. Anyone interested can view your law firm’s employee satisfaction ratings, and other details just at a glance. Just so that you know, LinkedIn also allows people to leave you reviews. That is really important as well, not only for prospective clients or for other law firms that may potentially send you some clients, but also if you plan on acquiring talent in the future.
SEO
Another way that you can use LinkedIn for your law firm is regarding SEO. Everywhere you go online, every place your law firm exists online, is a place to use SEO to your marketing advantage. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. That means Google. Let us just be honest, that’s the search engine we are talking about. Google is attempting to take all the pieces that it understands regarding your law firm and put it together as a jigsaw puzzle. It is taking your website, your Google My Business Page, your Google reviews, your social media platforms, and putting them together to try to figure out what your law firm does and where your expertise lie. You can use LinkedIn to your marketing advantage. LinkedIn provides space for you to create and share keyword rich content. This material can be helpful to provide backlinks to your law firm’s website. It also provides information to Google. Google will show your LinkedIn profile for your law firm in a Google search if someone is looking for your law firm. It is very important to make this profile on LinkedIn optimized for all of that.
Engage Clients
The next thing that LinkedIn helps you with is engaging clients; both past clients and potential clients. Any one of us may unexpectedly encounter a legal problem, right? That is what happens in life. Your LinkedIn connections look at them as all potential clients. Even other law firms may send you clients, because they do not practice the same area of law as you do, and maybe they continue to see that you post really relevant informational and valuable articles. When they see that your LinkedIn profile is optimized, they will feel more comfortable sending you clients that
are in practice areas that they do not practice in. Just think that every individual who is browsing LinkedIn may also be searching for a reputable law firm in the area that you practice.
Seven Tips to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Now let us talk about seven tips you can use to optimize your LinkedIn profile. If your law firm has not maximized or optimized your LinkedIn profile, due to whatever reason, you are busy, you did not think it was important, you are not alone. You are not alone. There are many law firms out there that just simply do not take the time to optimize their LinkedIn profile. It is important for you to do so, because this will be just one more way that you can stand out against your competitors. If you are reluctant to devote precious time to social media because you are unfamiliar with the LinkedIn platform, I am here to tell you that LinkedIn is going to be your friend. It does not take much time to get past the basic profile settings and make your LinkedIn profile and your LinkedIn space, which is a customized reflection of your law firm and your brand.
If you are interested in law firm branding, I did a whole podcast episode on it. Your branding should be bleeding into all of your social media platforms and all of the content that you place on social media, including your profile. By taking the time to freshen up your profile and adding content, your law firm can really begin reaping the benefits that LinkedIn has to offer. Let us get right into these seven tips.
1. Go Beyond the Defaults
The first tip is to go beyond the defaults. To go beyond LinkedIn default settings, you have to add a banner and a headline to your profile. Your LinkedIn profile is like a virtual office. You should take time to personalize it like you would do any place of business or any online space you may have. If you do not know how to create a banner on LinkedIn, my suggestion is that you use a tool called Canva. It is canva.com. This is a free tool that will allow you to create some graphics, and it will even show you what the dimensions of a LinkedIn banner are. It makes it super easy for you to create a banner and headline specifically for your law firm. As you enrich and personalize your profile, just make sure to add relevant keywords, which are critical to all online content. A keyword is something that is a phrase. It is not just one word. It is a phrase that people are putting into Google to search for something. In this case, people might be searching LinkedIn for something. If you are a personal injury attorney, in Arizona, you may want to put “Personal Injury Attorney in Phoenix, Arizona”, as part of your relevant keywords. These keywords can help people find you on LinkedIn. Including these keywords will connect people with your specific areas of practice or any niche services that you might offer.
2. Maximize Your LinkedIn Summary
The second tip is to maximize your LinkedIn summary. LinkedIn has this area for you to share a summary of your law firm, who you are and what you do. Take advantage of this free real estate. There is a lot of it here. You can write a lot in this area. You can even add video clips to support your summary. There is ample room for you to highlight your accomplishments and expertise. Since this area can be lengthy, you do want to make it user friendly. Remember, a lot of people are looking at LinkedIn on mobile devices. Make sure you make it user friendly by adding bulleted lists, restful whitespace, and good spacing in between paragraphs. Insert keywords in here as appropriate. If you are not sure what to put here, go look at your own website’s “About Me” or “About Us” page, and you can even copy and paste some of that into your LinkedIn summary to help you along.
3. Include a Powerful Headline
The third tip is to include a powerful headline. Every company, every business, every person on LinkedIn has a banner. They also can have a powerful headline. A headline is like a tagline. It should draw individuals in to click on your law firm’s profile, then eventually, hopefully your law firm’s website. You should make your headline compelling. Listen, there is no rule that your law firm’s headline has to be bland and boring. This all goes back to your branding. Frankly, your headline is going to be the first thing that people see. Use this very powerful section to your advantage. Here is the downside. There is a 120-character limit. You have to be very concise and clear with this headline. You should include what you do, and the benefits of working with you as a law firm. You could be clear about the legal expertise that you offer, but just make sure to make your headline a true reflection of your law firm’s unique personality journey services that you offer.
4. Insert Strategic Visuals in Your Profile
The fourth tip is to insert strategic visuals in your LinkedIn profile. You should include either a professional photo, if you are a solo law firm, or a logo. Experts say that a quality photo or logo on LinkedIn is a key way to get found on this particular platform. You can add a banner photo to reinforce your brand. Again, you can use canva.com. All of that is going to make your LinkedIn profile more dynamic. You can even insert video clips and have a little elevator pitch about your services or a mini tour of your law firm’s office. There are a lot of ways to incorporate a wide variety of digital material into LinkedIn that are compelling visual components. This is going to make your LinkedIn profile stand out among other law firms who skip these steps. Also, potential clients can come and see this, so that they can feel like you have put the effort forward to really showcase who you are as a law firm on this professional platform.
5. Showcase The Extras
The next tip is to showcase the extras. Top LinkedIn profiles spotlight, not just a law firm’s professional persona, but they offer a bit of the personality side. Nobody knows exactly the algorithm of LinkedIn. We do not know. None of us know the algorithm exactly of LinkedIn or Facebook or even Google, but research does show that those profiles on LinkedIn that have extras, like videos or compelling photographs, do better than other LinkedIn profiles. You should really showcase everything that your law firm has done. List the organizations that your law firm supports, your volunteering, community involvements, list any awards you or your law firm may have received, and any media attention that your law firm has received or been involved in, make sure to include that as well. This material is not going to distract from your professional accomplishments. Instead, it is really going to highlight your law firm’s unique story. Again, this goes back to branding, as well. It is showing people who you are as a law firm and how you are different than other law firms. That is rewarded on the social media platforms for sure.
6. Join Relevant Groups
The next tip that I have for your law firm is to join relevant groups. You have created this profile. That is amazing. You have optimized it and taken the time to craft either written content or videos that really showcase your law firm. At this point, you want to then join relevant groups. Joining LinkedIn groups is really, highly recommended by everyone, me included. It is just one more way to connect on the platform with multiple people at once, that are in an area of interest for your law firm. Engaging in these LinkedIn groups is not just a way to self-promote, although it does allow you to do that. It also builds key relationships and provides a venue for you to provide leadership to others. Then those people may send you referrals.
There are plenty of legal groups out there. Find those which are relevant to your field, to your areas of interest, and to your practice areas. Experts say that groups on LinkedIn are one of the most effective ways to develop your business on LinkedIn. You can join up to 50 of them. That may change later on, but right now, you can join up to 50. It is important to interact. However, with your groups, you cannot just join a group and then do nothing. You have to interact as well, because if you remember, social media is not just about self-promoting or putting out your own articles. It really is about developing connections. That is the point of it. So start with just one or two groups. Add more if time allows. I will tell you that if you have an optimized LinkedIn profile, people are going to want to interact with you and your law firm even more, because they will see that you are taking this platform and your law firm seriously.
7. Request Recommendations
The next and last tip that I have is to request recommendations. LinkedIn offers a space to feature recommendations or endorsements. There is a great way to take advantage of this space and take the opportunity to showcase any recommendations or endorsements that you might have. Recommendations are actually featured under the job with which they are connected. Endorsements are placed elsewhere on your LinkedIn page, as well, but do not be reluctant to ask for an endorsement or recommendation or testimonial from past clients on LinkedIn. That will be a highly valuable part of your LinkedIn profile. There is a really simple way to do this. You can send a request in LinkedIn to anyone, and ask them for a recommendation. This is a really great way for you to optimize your profile, to showcase to others that you are an expert in your field.
Conclusion
A law firm can grow its practice and social media presence using the LinkedIn platform, but it’s really important to do that. You need to make your LinkedIn profile stand out among all of the other law firms and businesses. It is really key to go beyond the default settings, add details, video articles, recommendations and infuse your profile with your brand of your law firm in your personality, in order to attract attention from your target audience. This can help you get clients.
Let us go over this one more time. We all know why your law firm should be on LinkedIn. I’ve gone over that. The seven tips for optimizing your LinkedIn profile again are this: Number one – Go beyond the default setting. Really take the time to optimize and include content on your LinkedIn profile. You will be rewarded by the algorithm. The second thing is to maximize your LinkedIn summary. You have a lot of real estate. On this LinkedIn summary make sure to use it, so that potential clients can see you as an expert and an authority. The next is to have a very powerful headline; a tagline that sets you apart from your competitors. The fourth is to insert strategic visuals, which may include infographics that you can create in Canva or video. The next tip is to showcase the extras. Whatever you have done extra as a law firm in terms of charitable organizations, accolades, or awards, make sure to include that in your profile. Join relevant LinkedIn groups, where you can start to develop connections and build relationships, both with potential clients and other law firms for referrals. The last tip for optimizing your LinkedIn profile is to request recommendations and positive reviews.
I hope that I have convinced you to have a LinkedIn profile for you and/or your law firm. LinkedIn is really important for all law firms!
Thank you again for joining me in the Legal Marketing Lounge!