A Lawyer’s Guide to LinkedIn Marketing: 9 Best Practices

According to information published by LinkedIn, executives rate the platform as their number one choice for professionally relevant content. In the B2B world, 80% of social media leads come from LinkedIn. Those are important findings, because they solidify LinkedIn’s position as a critical component of digital marketing for professional services like legal. In the event that you’re not already leveraging LinkedIn – or know you could be doing better – read our lawyer’s guide to LinkedIn marketing below. 

1. Post the right content

The most relevant content is customized to your audience. They are looking for insight and thought-leadership (not self promotion). Things like white papers, checklists, how-to guides, and industry updates are helpful to your audience and will encourage them to follow you. For a few ideas to get you started, think about material that begins with “X ways to”, “The future of…”, or “What to do when….”

2. Leverage the LinkedIn analytics to better reach prospects

LinkedIn offers company page analytics that can help you to understand what resonates with your followers. In particular, you’ll want to look at what content does well on your page, and what visitors and followers of your page look like. From a content perspective, you can see which content is getting the highest click-through-rates and engagement. That’s a good indicator of what topics your audience wants to hear about, and which subjects your prospects and clients need more information on. Under the “Followers” section of your analytics, you can see items like job function and industry. 

3. Include images and videos

LinkedIn shares that the use of images lead to a 98% higher comment rate, while links to YouTube videos can result in a 75% higher share rate. They also recently made it possible to upload videos directly to LinkedIn, which is a more effective strategy when posting video content.

4. Understand the best time to post

The toughest part of LinkedIn marketing for lawyers is deciding what to post. Once you’ve done that, you can use real data to choose when to post. Rather than following general benchmarks on timing, you can find out what is working best for your particular audience. Each time you post, make note of the day and time (perhaps using a spreadsheet). Then, use the company page analytics to identify the few top posts with the highest CTR or engagement rate, depending on your goals. Cross-reference those posts with the times that you noted. 

5. Know how often to post

LinkedIn has found that 20 posts per month can help you reach 60% of your unique audience. Posting each weekday for an entire month brings you to 20 posts. Analyze the data from there and decide if you need to scale up and share more content. 

6. Use “Companies to Track” to gain industry insights

At the bottom of the “Followers” section of your analytics, you’ll find a table that offers these suggestions. Here, LinkedIn will show you firms that are similar to yours and a few of their key metrics. Take a few moments to study the pages and see what’s working and what you can learn. 

7. Remember to optimize for search

As with anything online, the first step in being effective is having the right people find you. LinkedIn offers several suggestions on how to optimize for search, but a critical tactic includes inserting keywords in your company description and specialties. 

8. Increase visibility by including your entire firm

Engagement on your posts spreads the reach. Encourage your law firm’s staff to interact with and share your LinkedIn posts. This can be seamlessly executed with the help of social media employee advocacy tools. Make sure everyone in your firm is on the platform and ask them to fill out their company information with a robust description of your firm.

9. Consider LinkedIn advertising

LinkedIn offers the options of sponsored content, sponsored inmail, and text ads. Depending on your law firm’s goals on LinkedIn, advertising could create an impact in your overall strategy. They offer a comprehensive guide so you can learn about the programs. 

Takeaway

LinkedIn is an area where we are always experimenting and encouraging our clients to do the same. The platform is certainly a powerhouse when it comes to legal marketing, so if you’re not already engaged in LinkedIn it’s time to change that! Hopefully our lawyer’s guide to linkedIn marketing has provided valuable insight you can build upon. If you need more advice around creating an effective LinkedIn strategy, reach out to our experts today.