How Professional Service Firms are Using LinkedIn: Best Practices for Law Firms

LinkedIn is a professional network, which means that people are spending time there for the purpose of doing business. There is no doubt that LinkedIn is the best place online for lawyers looking to grow their networks and their practices. In fact, a study conducted by HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generates the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%. That’s almost three times higher than Twitter and Facebook!

From making connections to generating leads, and creating better brand awareness, LinkedIn is an invaluable business development and marketing tool for law firms. To get it right however – and really drive the needle – law firms must deliver relevant and top-quality content, consistently.

In the past, we have highlighted LinkedIn best practices your law firm can use in order to set yourself apart on the platform. Today, we are featuring professional service firms who excel on the platform. Emulate these firms and apply their techniques to your own, successful LinkedIn strategy. 

@Deloitte

Deloitte has over 5 million followers on LinkedIn. How did they gain such a tremendous following? Well, they present themselves in a professional manner, posting relevant content to their niche with each and every post. They’re also highly consistently, posting every day keeping their followers up-to-date on current trends in business and government.

Most of what the company posts are informative videos that introduce a topic and drive their audience back to their blog posts to learn more. They also include emojis in their headlines to further enhance their posts. They do a great job to make sure they stand out in a sometimes cluttered feed.

Throughout the pandemic, Deloitte has leveraged the social platform to drive attendance to their virtual events. Recently, they hosted a panel using LinkedIn Live, to discuss the findings from their Global Millennial Survey.

One thing you won’t see while scrolling through their feed? Impersonal Shutterstock images. Rather, they post real images and clips of their employees.

We also really like how the firm cross-promotes their Instagram Live events on LinkedIn.

@Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young has built a rich and professional profile with a consistent theme to every post. With their posts, they keep their followers abreast of what is happening in the world of business and economics. Again, their posts communicate their niche value proposition.

In a lot of their posts, E&Y introduces their topic by posing a question. This is a great engagement technique. They also utilize hashtags and incorporate video into their content marketing strategy, two excellent strategies to increase reach on the platform.

Did you know that on LinkedIn videos are shared more often than any other type of content? On average, people spend 3x times longer watching LinkedIn video ads than static ads.

E&Y also uses the hashtag, #BetterWorkingWorld, in many of their posts, and encourages employees to do the same. The firm-wide hashtag allows users to search for E&Y related posts and find other employees, thus creating a sense of community for their 280,000 person-wide network.

As for an example campaign that achieved a high level of notoriety, Global Chairman and CEO, Carmine Di Sibio, invited followers to participate in the firm’s first ever EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year virtual event in collaboration with CNBC Catalyst, honoring the unstoppable entrepreneurs who stop at nothing to achieve their greatest ambitions. The award ceremony was promoted via LinkedIn through a short 30-second clip inspiring followers to tune in to support and hear stories from these trail-blazing business leaders of the world.

@PwC

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has a large following of over 2 million people. Their feed is a model of creativity that showcases their thought leadership content, their employees and company culture. They produce a wide array of content, which is available to their community via written blog posts and podcast episodes.

PwC also uses their LinkedIn page to showcase diversity and engagement in their offices by elevating employee faces, voices, and community work. It’s always important to remember that firms are collections of people, and PwC embraces this by consistently putting human faces forward.

Lastly, we love how PwC leverages LinkedIn’s polling feature. This tactic allows the firm to easily tap into the collective knowledge of their network, to glean valuable insights.

@Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

BCG keeps its more than 2 million followers on LinkedIn engaged by sharing valuable insight and expertise with each and every post. Their posts err on the side of helpful versus promotional. Content-wise, BCG depicts extensive research in an easy to digest format with various graphs and tables. 

In-between thought leadership business content, they post motivational quotes, and tips on how to improve one’s well-being and work ethic. Relevant and timely as a lot of professionals are struggling to adapt to the difficult and unpredictable business environment brought on by the pandemic. BCG also exhibits insights into their company culture and employees’ lives. Some of their recent posts depict their employees with their families in Chile and other parts of the world partaking in various activities and talking about settling into the new remote working reality.

Particularly notable and unique to BCG is their “Two Minutes on Tuesday” campaign brought to you by the firm’s CEO, Rich Lesser. Each week he posts a two minute video clip where he shares leadership advice to inspire other professionals and entrepreneurs. On the first Tuesday of each month, he shares a video of himself giving his views on a specific topic. Then, each of the following Tuesdays, Mr. Lesser shares the perspectives of other BCGers to provide a diverse range of insight and inspiration that followers can carry as they take on new leadership positions.

@KPMG

KPMG has over 1 million LinkedIn followers. They’ve established a credible thought leadership position through the content they share. Their content is no less than professional, informative, timely and engaging! The firm makes exemplary use of native video, frequently sharing quick-hit content that is short, snackable, and easily digested even without sound.

KPMG shares links to their blog posts and podcasts, giving their followers more than one way to consume their firm’s content. Similar to the rest of the firms, they leverage their LinkedIn page to drive registration for webinars, including those where company leaders are speaking.

Not only does KPMG regularly share native video, blog, and webinar content tackling key issues in their industry, but they do so in a way that is crisply and uniformly branded.

@McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Company has over 3 million followers on LinkedIn and the firm’s profile serves up an inspiring blend of thought leadership content in multiple formats, geared towards the multitude of industries they serve. The content they share is composed of inspirational quotes from their employees, audience poll results, research findings, as well as virtual event promotions. The firm uses engaging graphics, often accompanying posts with a simple statistic related to the post.

The firm recently partnered with the non-profit organization, FCLTGlobal on the latest Corporate Horizons Survey to explore the pressures and processes that influence companies’ strategic planning time horizons across all industries. Their LinkedIn post promoting the survey encouraged followers to also take part and share their views on the subject. Notice how they’re sure to tag @FCLTGlobal. This assures that the company is notified by the post so they are able to easily share it to their own network.

Takeaway 

These professional service firms demonstrate their thought leadership on LinkedIn with their unique and compelling posts time and time again. It’s no wonder they’ve achieved millions of engaged followers. Your law firm can look to these major participants on LinkedIn to pick up marketing strategies and best practices that will help you establish your firm’s own meaningful presence. If you’re actively engaged on LinkedIn by making connections, sharing valuable content, and communicating with members of your network, new business opportunities will arise.

If you’re interested in creating more personal brand awareness, growing your network, generating leads, and turning leads into new business using LinkedIn, reach out to us today. We have vast experience helping lawyers and law firms achieve measurable success on LinkedIn.