Every law firm in all likelihood has a LinkedIn company page. In this article, I hope to show you the value that a solid LinkedIn profile can offer in terms of search, visibility, recruitment, and even business development.

I'm also going to explain some quick actionable items that you can implement into your pages quickly. So let's get started.

"Packaging is a Silent Salesman"

The phrase “packaging is a silent salesman” dates back to the 1930s and was developed by a marketing psychologist. It refers to the fact that, despite how much money a company may invest in advertising or how great the word of mouth is on it, it's the packaging that is the most important sales tool. Consumers form their first impression of your brand by looking at your packaging.

Now, a “package” for a company - or in this case, a law firm - today isn’t packaging in the literal sense; it’s an RFP, a sell sheet, or ideally a website. Another silent salesmen can be a LinkedIn profile, and that’s why it’s so important to make sure yours is working for you and not against you. If your law firm has a LinkedIn page, chances are it may have some room for improvement.

LinkedIn: A powerful business search engine

Think LinkedIn is just a social media site? If you take into account that 58 million companies and 930 million people use it, all looking to be found, it's safe to say that LinkedIn is the world's largest business search engine AND professional networking tool.

And that's why I consider it #1A to my law firm's website. And the reasoning is simple. It’s because you have access to decision makers at all of those 58 million companies and close to one billion workers. Something that your law firm website can’t boast.

Why Should a Law Firm Use LinkedIn?

In no particular order because they are all important, the first is thought leadership or in other words, content or blogging. LinkedIn allows you to post your content via link to your blog and get it in front of eyes that matter. Or you can post your content fully within LinkedIn's structure, much like this article is posted here. There's more value to have your content on your website, though, as LinkedIn's turnaround is very quick. You may get a larger set of people initially viewing your content, but it loses momentum fairly quickly, as with many social media platforms.

Recruitment or staffing is another one. An active LinkedIn profile shows potential employees that you're alive and well, and they are able to see some of the events or benefits of working at your firm.

Lead Generation is another, which can go hand in hand with a LinkedIn marketing campaign. Just as individuals and businesses use your website to do research on your firm, they use LinkedIn as well.

Discoverability: I can’t stress enough how important an optimized firm page can help with search. When those businesses and individuals type your firm’s name into a search engine, many times the results will turn up like this:

You have the firm website as the No. 1 result; No. 2 is the Google local map pack; No. 3 is its Facebook page; and No. 4 is its LinkedIn page, with a few images to boot before it. So, yeah, you better believe I'm going to make sure that the LinkedIn page is optimized.

The last bullet point is to keep your referral network attuned to what your firm has been up to. Did you just post on an important superior court decision that just came down? Did a major win just come through that colleagues want to congratulate you on? A solid LinkedIn profile can touch all of these bases.

30% More Weekly Views!

LinkedIn uses a guided process to get a personal LinkedIn profile to its best place. We'll call it the "all-star metric," which basically gives you suggestions to fill out your profile. Company profiles don't use this metric, but the same thinking still applies. If your profile is completely filled out, you can expect on average 30% more weekly views of your page.

Your Page Logo

Reporting shows that having a professional logo can add 6x more traffic. It can help with branding and awareness. As a graphic designer and art director before I went into legal marketing, this is great to hear.

It's easy to just grab your law firm logo .jpg, upload it, and call it a day. But is that really the best solution? Which avatar above is more effective? The answer is pretty clear to see.

In most cases, LinkedIn displays your logo along with your firm name, so including the name in the logo isn't necessary. And when you shrink the screen size by looking at LinkedIn on, say, an iPhone, that text in that logo is going to be illegible.

If you have a secondary logo, much like the option on the left above, I would suggest using it in this case. If you have brand standards that you follow for your firm, it might be the answer, but I suggest you look further into it to get insight.

Cover Image

A cover image is essential to your personal LinkedIn page and company page alike. There’s no excuse to not have one. Above you can see that I added text to our cover photo. It’s on-brand, and showcases our locations and also our legal practices.

So having all that info isn’t completely necessary, but I can state that when done right, the answers are all there for the viewer. You can even add your phone number and they won’t even need to get into your LinkedIn page before calling you.

Tagline

The tagline is one of the first things a prospect or candidate will read when checking out your firm’s LinkedIn page. It’s kind of like a business’s elevator pitch: It can explain who you are, what you do, and why you do it, wrapped up into one sentence.

You only have 120 characters, which isn’t much, so keep it simple, and try to be creative when choosing keywords. If you’re a Scranton-based business law firm specializing in commercial litigation, just say that! It’s to the point, and using a location can make it more relevant to searchers.

Don’t worry if you feel like you’ve left something out. There are other areas on the page to get into more depth.

Custom Button

Buttons are important. If a viewer wants to learn more about your firm, they can do so by clicking on it. These buttons can assist you with more traffic to your website.

There are a few options to choose from:

• There’s a Contact Us option, which could be set up to go to your contact page
• A Learn More button, which would go to ideally your About Us page or similar
• A Register and a Sign Up button, which you can use for a webinar link or form.
• A Visit Website button, which I use here, to link to our homepage.

Description

Next on the list, and probably one of the most important, is the overview or description of your firm. This gives you an opportunity to have up to 2,000 characters to describe the services you provide, the areas you work in, and so on.

I’m sure most of you have an "About Us" section on your website, and this can easily be pulled from that. But I urge you to think bigger on this. Think of your end user on this one.

If you want to use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool, maybe include your hybrid work policy and that you’ve been rated a "best place to work". If you use it for referrals, you might want to include that 10 of your attorneys were recently recognized on the Super Lawyers list.

It’s also important to note that if you’re a multilingual firm, you have the option to include your firm name and description in up to 20 different languages. It's a great way to promote your firm to the people and businesses in your wheelhouse.

Highlighted above are our top keywords that we use and I’m sure many other firms do as well, to get found via search. If you scan it you’ll see we've included the keywords attorneys, lawyers, best law firm, Philadelphia, the counties we work in, the clients we work with and our practice areas.

Again, if you view LinkedIn as a powerful search engine like I do, you’ll see the value of spending a few extra minutes to make sure that your description is well-written.

Workplace Policy

The next area we are going to look at is the workplace policy located in the workplace module. It gives recruits a better idea of what your work policy is regarding on-site, hybrid or remote.

You also get 300 characters to describe the policy and also include the link to a careers page. Again, this is a valuable edition to your page that was added to LinkedIn during the pandemic.

What should my law firm post on LinkedIn?

First and most importantly you want to consider your audience. Is it recruits, is it potential clients, is it referral sources?

Too often admins just post what they can, and that’s OK. Legal marketing is often very reactive. You have a partner that was at a client dinner event last night and she sends you some photos and wants to see if you want to post them. Perfectly fine.

There are essentially three types when it comes to posts on LinkedIn, so let's get into them.

Showcasing company culture is a great way to display your firm's values. Your posts that show that you care about anniversaries, toy drives, and diversity can be appealing to potential hires.

Here are some hypotheticals: If you had five applicants to your legal assistant position, would you research them on LinkedIn? Of course you would and it may even be your first stop.

If you were doing research on a law firm that you were looking to merge with, would you look them up on LinkedIn? Most probable.

If a person in a decision-making position at a company was told to research five regional law firms that suit their needs, are they going to your LinkedIn? Yes.

And would that decision maker give a slight edge to the firm with an active and engaged LinkedIn page? All signs point to yes.

So make it a point to post on the events that showcase your company doing the things that make its employees proud.

Potential clients are looking for you to do one of two things:

1. solve a problem
2. add value

The question you should ask yourself is "does this post add value or answer a question?" If it doesn't, that's OK. But the posts that don't should be kept to a minimum. It's these types of posts that should be the bulk of your posting.

Recognition posts fall into the camp I mentioned above. These should be kept to a minimum because in most cases they can be boastful. And who is it that really pays attention if an attorney got recently bumped up to pre-eminent status? It’s other attorneys or firms. Those other attorneys and firms want to work with attorneys and firms that are successful. But again, I caution you to cap these posts to 20% of your social media calendar, if possible.

How often should my law firm post on Linkedin?

Most marketing experts would say that law firms should post one time a week on LinkedIn. And that can change. If you’d had a busy week with a new blog that came out and a senior partner that wanted to give you their thoughts on a latest decision, then posting more is good, great even. It’s when you post three times a week promoting your firm in some way that I would suggest against.

Actionable Items and Suggestions

Below you'll find some actionable tips that can change your page fairly quickly in terms of eyeballs and followers on your page.

Have at Least Two Page Admins

You wear a lot of hats at your firm, and marketing and digital media may be one of them. Don't let it all fall on you.

Keeping a LinkedIn page updated can take some effort and things get easier when that work is divided among like-minded co-workers.

Request that another co-worker be added as an admin on your LinkedIn account. It's easy enough to set up and it's great to have someone to tag-team with. If you are an admin, check to see what your role is:

• Super admin
• Content admin
• Curator
• Analyst

@ Mention

@ Mentions will notify your connections or specific companies that you're talking about them, so it is a powerful way to get on their radar. The good thing is that LinkedIn members don't need to be your connection in order to mention you or be mentioned by you.

There are two places to @mention a connection or company and it's simple to do. Type "@" and then begin typing a name. It's possible that the people or companies that you mention will Like, Comment on, or Share your post, which means more engagement for your firm.

Utilize Employee Notifications

As a LinkedIn Page Admin, you can let your employees know when you’ve posted an important post on your firm’s page.

To preface, "employees" on LinkedIn are members who’ve listed your firm in the latest Work Experience portion of their profile. Employees will be notified that your firm has shared a post with them through their notification updates. You can also encourage employees to repost or comment, which can multiply reach.

Edit Your Profile URL

This is a simple change that can help with branding. It’s also an option I suggest you do with your personal profiles.

At this moment, your name is at the end of your profile URL and if you haven’t changed it by doing the following, most likely you have your name, and a string of numbers after it. If you want to be the "pre-eminent" person with your name, edit it to remove those numbers.

Same can be said with your firm. Change it so that the URL string ends with your firm's name, not a string of numbers.

Post a FREE Job

LinkedIn allows companies to post one free job at any time. It’s a no-brainer, and to do so is very intuitive. Consider includinig a link to your website’s career page, or have it so that the application gets sent to a specific email.

Other advanced options that can weed out applicants is including preferred qualifications and even screening questions. So if you’re using a recruiter at the moment and they aren’t getting the job done, save that finders fee and try the free posting.

A free job posting will show up in search if an applicant searches for that job title, and it will also show up among your firm’s followers' feeds.

Fill out your profile page completely!

I mentioned before that companies that fill out their profile completely and thoroughly get 30% more viewers per week, compared to those that don’t. And by completely I do mean a cover image and any area that asks for input.

Take some time to fill out your page, pass it off to your second admin and have them proofread, and you’re good to go.

Invite Connections - multiply your follower count!

This could effectively 2x or more your followers.

You'll find the option to invite connections in your admin area. If you plan to use this feature to increase LinkedIn company page followers, you should only invite relevant connections to follow your page.

People you may want to invite to Like your page:

• Current co-workers
• retainer client connections
• business partners
• potential clients

Check Analytics – Competitor Analysis

Doing all of this work means nothing if you aren’t learning from it. There are a few metrics you can follow that may be beneficial to you and your firm.

You can pull reports on nine of your competitors, with your firm being the 10th. You can view engagements, (how many times someone interacted with their posts by commenting, reposting, or liking) the total amount of posts they posted, and how many new followers and total followers they have. You can also view the same metrics for your own page.

In conclusion, I hope that some of the points brought up in this article can steer your law firm LinkedIn page to success.

Any questions? I'd be happy to connect on LinkedIn or at tgabor@highswartz.com.

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Tom Gabor is Director of Marketing at High Swartz LLP. Connect with him on LinkedIn.