LinkedIn for Lawyers – Marketing Tips and Strategies

Introduction

92% of businesses use LinkedIn as a part of their digital marketing strategy. It’s an effective channel for attorneys to increase traffic to their website, build authority, and generate leads. However, some lawyers and firms make the mistake of not actively using social networks like LinkedIn.

• They don’t understand how to leverage it properly or misunderstand its potential return on investment. This causes them to miss out on brand awareness, growth, and competitors slowly get ahead.
• If this sounds like your situation, don’t worry. In this article, we’ll be teaching you the 10 most effective LinkedIn lawyer marketing best practices for attorneys and law firms that will help you drive more growth.

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1. Optimize your attorney profile for internal and external SEO

• Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing pages and content for search engine algorithms like Google. This helps increase traffic, visibility, and brand awareness. However, SEO doesn’t only apply to websites. It can also be applied to social media profiles. This increases your visibility inside the platform when users search for attorney and law firm-related keywords. Your profile will also be ranked higher on search engines when similar queries are made through Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
• 92% of traffic goes to the first page of results on Google, as well. This means that you don’t want to be just good at SEO, you want to be the best. Learn more about our SEO services for lawyers if you wish to grow your legal practice through organic search.

• Guide readers through researching local attorney keywords and placing them effectively in their profile.
• Example of SEO’d lawyer profile

2. Make your attorney profile as detailed as possible

• It’s common for attorneys and firms to create generic personal and company pages. They fill out the basic information about themselves and their legal practice. However, this often doesn’t generate as much engagement and leads as they want. What’s the problem? This generic approach doesn’t often communicate the benefits of working with you, how your firm is different than competitors, or impact conversion rates.
• You can make your profile stand out from competing firms by taking advantage of the “About” description. Don’t make the typical mistake of writing a few lines of predictable copy.
• Explain the features of your legal services. What does it include and what specific industry do you help with? Describe how this translates into improving the client’s life and situation.
• Example of optimized attorney profile
• Then, ensure that your profile explains a unique value proposition. This is the part of your practice that makes it better and different than competing firms. Explaining this can increase conversions as it gives prospects a clear reason to engage with your practice versus another. It could be a unique service, your time in business, great customer service, or something similar.
• Example of firm with UVP in their profile

Complete the work history search of your profile to showcase the experience and success you’ve generated in your career. This is useful for showing how long you’ve had your firm and that prospects can trust your expertise. For example, here’s the work history of one of our clients at dNOVO Group, Matthew Jeffery:

• He includes his licenses & certifications, education, and experience as a barrister and solicitor. Want to learn how our digital marketing agency improved Matthew Jeffery’s search engine rankings, traffic, and conversion rates? Read the full case study here.

3. Post thought leadership content to leverage the organic algorithm

• Content marketing is essential for attorneys and law firms in 2021 and beyond. Content helps build trust with prospects, increase your reach, and stand out from legal practices that don’t publish anything. In fact, 86% of marketing departments take advantage of content marketing to increase brand awareness and 53% use it for generating sales.

• How can attorneys post effective content on LinkedIn? Firstly, we recommend that you share content you’ve previously published elsewhere. For example, your firm can promote blog posts, case studies, YouTube videos, podcasts, and other content on personal and company profiles.
• Secondly, it’s extremely effective right now to take advantage of LinkedIn’s organic algorithm. It rewards businesses and users that are very active by continually placing posts in front of more and more relevant audiences. This creates a snowball effect in which your reach continually increases until it’s thousands or tens of thousands of people every day.

4. Connect with the right people in your industry

• One of the most important components of social media and content marketing is attention. However, you do not want the attention of just anyone. You want to connect and be seen by the right people also known as your buyer persona. This is a personification of your ideal client or potential partners.
• Having this documented allows you to perform highly targeted marketing initiatives. Otherwise, it’s not uncommon for firms and attorneys to target too broad of an audience. This results in a lack of ROI, growth, and results from LinkedIn and other social channels.
• A buyer persona includes key elements like demographics, psychographics, questions, strengths, and weaknesses. Here is an example you can use as inspiration.

• Buyer personas can be created visually like the above example or documented in a spreadsheet. Use whichever medium is more convenient for your law firm but let us show you how to create one with Google Spreadsheets.
• Show readers how to create a buyer persona

5. Leverage both your personal and company pages to expand brand awareness an attorney

• A staple best practice on LinkedIn as an attorney is to leverage both your personal and company pages to increase how many prospects you reach. Some attorneys make the mistake of only using one or the other. For example, they’re very active on their company page but forget to use the connections and reach on their personal profile.
• If you follow the LinkedIn best practices we’ve covered so far, that will help your persona profile immensely. However, let us show you how to drive more growth with your firm’s company page.
• Show readers how to optimize company pages, create professional graphics with Canva, and generate engagement

6. Write great profile headlines that catch the attention or prospects

• 8 out of 10 people only read the headlines of content. 74% of them also pay close attention to the details of web pages. What does this mean for you an attorney on LinkedIn? It implies that you must go above and beyond to write effective sales copy.
• The messaging on your profile has to catch attention, deliver value, and push readers to take action. This might be to visit your law firm’s website, contact you for a consultation, or exchange their information for an opt-in.
• Let’s begin with the headline of your attorney profile. You can use several different strategies here.

Build authority and credibility with social proof
Use numbers and statistics to make results tangible
Leverage awards to build trust with prospects
State the benefits of working with you

7. Leverage legal LinkedIn groups to reach a wider audience

• Here’s an interesting LinkedIn best practice for attorneys that few take advantage of; LinkedIn has groups that enable you to reach thousands, tens of thousands, or more people at once. These groups are usually focused around one topic. They are priceless as an attorney as your firm can join groups related to law or other areas and answer questions.
• This builds trust, credibility, and authority. It’s also a great opportunity to share content you’ve published like blog posts, videos, or case studies. Instead of manually building up these large audiences from scratch, you are capable of leveraging them instantly.
• Show readers how to join legal LinkedIn groups and use them properly

8. Post original legal content on LinkedIn Pulse

• Content creation on LinkedIn increased by 60% in 2020. More companies and individuals are realizing the importance of content marketing on social media. It helps attorneys and firms increase reach, drive traffic to their websites, and book consultations with clients.
• LinkedIn has a built-in content management system (CMS) that you can use an attorney to post thought leadership articles. Click “Write article” under the status bar.

Add a featured image that is relevant to the article you’re writing. The headline and body can be edited by clicking the appropriate areas of the editor.

However, you might think, “What should my team or I write about?” and we’re glad you asked. We recommend using a tool like AnswerThePublic to get up to hundreds of content ideas in a few clicks.
Ideally, you should publish content about topics your buyer persona is interested in. Consider these things:

• What questions do your clients have?
• What struggles or problems do clients normally consult with you about?
• What do your clients want to learn?

These will serve as the foundation of your LinkedIn content strategy as an attorney. After all, you want the highest quality users reading your article with the most likeness of converting into a paying client.
Search for a keyword related to the topic you wish to write about on AnswerThePublic.

This will display prepositions, questions, comparisons, and other results related to your search.

We recommend switching to the “Data” as it’s easier to navigate through all of the information. You can also click “Download CSV” to get all of the results in a spreadsheet.

• Give readers advice on how to write a LinkedIn article that will generate results.

9. Use recommendations and testimonials as social proof

• Social proof is everything on LinkedIn and social media. It helps build trust, increase word of mouth, and generate conversions. In fact, 92% of people read online reviews as they are trusted 12x more than traditional sales copy. As an attorney on LinkedIn, you must take advantage of the recommendations section of your profile.

• Ask clients, business partners, and other people in your network to give you recommendations. You can also give recommendations to others to increase the likelihood they return the favour.

• Similarly, there is the “Skills & endorsements” section of LinkedIn profiles. You can choose skills that related to your law firm’s services which is beneficial for a few reasons. Firstly, it helps people on LinkedIn for your personal and company profile when they search for specific keywords. For example, this lawyer has skills like “Immigration Law,” “Legal Research,” and “Employment Law.”

• The number beside each skill is the number of people that have endorsed them for it. Ask clients and colleagues to visit your profile and endorse your skills.

10. Build authority with awards your law firm has won

• Have you or your law firm received awards? You can display these on your LinkedIn profile to show potential clients that you’re a trustworthy and recognized attorney.
• Add honours and awards to your profile by clicking “Add profile section.” Click “Accomplishments” and “Honors and awards.”

• Enter the title of the award, who it is associated with (you or your legal practice), the issuer, issue date, and a description. We recommend writing sales copy in the description that explains why you won the award. What is performance based? Were you recognized as a top firm in your area?