Since its launch, LinkedIn has continuously evolved to meet the networking needs of professionals around the globe. While other platforms have come and gone (remember MySpace and Friendster?), LinkedIn’s resilience and innovation have positioned it as the go-to networking site for professionals.
Now with over 1 billion members (+255M in North America), LinkedIn has truly transformed into a powerful tool for business development—especially for lawyers. According to the Greentarget and Zeughauser Group 2022 State of Digital and Content Marketing report, 57% of in-house counsel cited LinkedIn as a valuable content source for business and 64% of C-suite members rated LinkedIn as valuable or very valuable.
Attorneys have most commonly brought in business through networking with other professionals, classmates, referral sources and clients. Often this is a time-consuming and potentially expensive undertaking. With the emergence of social media, networking has suddenly become highly focused, less time intensive and more accessible to wider audiences. This digital version of networking provides a platform to research, prospect and network with potential clients and referral sources while allowing attorneys to share knowledge and demonstrate expertise to prospective clients.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, attorneys who use LinkedIn strategically can amplify their brand, reach prospective clients, and build valuable connections.
LinkedIn Strategies for Attorneys
While most attorneys have optimized their profiles—and some have mastered sharing updates—LinkedIn offers even more potential for driving business development. For lawyers looking to leverage LinkedIn’s full functionality, consider this three-step approach.
1. Finding Prospective Clients and Referral Sources
Define the common characteristics of your ideal client and referral source, including geographic location, industry, companies, job titles, experience level, age, skills and anything else that helps identify your target market.
Find high-potential prospects. With the criteria that identifies your target market, use LinkedIn’s advanced search tool to develop a pool of prospects. If needed, narrow your search using keywords, or limit your list to only secondary connections. LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers deeper insights and additional filtering capabilities, but the basic account functionality should work to get started in most cases.
Tip: When you look at someone's Experience section, keep in mind that executives who have changed jobs recently are more likely to make outside counsel changes and do business with new people.
Increase your visibility. View profiles for your high-potential prospects in full visibility mode. While in visible viewing mode, you can expect about a 10 percent view-back rate. (If your settings are Private mode, prospects will not be able to view back your profile.) These “view-backs” will move to the next level of your prospecting process.
Build your prospect database. Starting with the people who have viewed your profile, begin creating a list of potential prospects. A simple spreadsheet can serve as your database if you don’t have a CRM system or other third-party software to manage leads. (If you are building your prospect database at a large scale, upgrading to LinkedIn Sales Navigator will be helpful. It will help to uncover everyone who has looked at your profile and with follow-through.)
2. Connecting with Purpose
Send connection requests to the list of people who have viewed your profile. LinkedIn allows several ways to connect. You can connect directly or with a custom connection message, send InMail with Premium accounts or reach out to members of a LinkedIn Group. If you decide to include a message, mentioning shared connections, industries or reasons for reaching out will appear more authentic and increase your connection acceptance rate.
Tip: Your custom message can be copied directly to all of your outreach requests, with one or two modifications to adjust for industry and location.
The following is an example of a permission-based method that conveys commonalities you share with the other person.
“Thanks for visiting my LinkedIn profile. I’m expanding my network in the [area of law relevant to prospect] space here in [prospect’s location or city]. Would you be open to connecting on LinkedIn?”
Finally, monitor responses from your new connections, and respond accordingly in a timely manner. Again, a spreadsheet may be all you need to keep track of your prospects. Larger outreach efforts may require a more robust CRM solution to track higher numbers of prospects.
3. Engaging Through Content
As your list of prospects grows through prospecting and connecting, share and publish relevant content on your profile. The content you share should be a mix of original and curated content such as:
- Articles and blogs you have authored
- News pages and client alerts published on your firm’s website
- Pieces authored by colleagues and peers
- Industry news and articles relevant to your area of law published on reliable media sites
By providing your connections with relevant, high-quality content, you will naturally build trust and demonstrate expertise. While many of your connections may not be ready to hire an attorney at the time, they may be in the future. When they reach that point, you will be top of mind.
In addition to sharing content, engage in the feed by regularly commenting on, liking, and sharing others' posts. Congratulate connections on milestones and respond to their updates. These small interactions build rapport over time and increase your visibility on the platform.
Participating in LinkedIn Groups is almost a topic in and of itself, but from a business development perspective, joining relevant groups and listening and responding to questions will help position you as an authority in your field. Be careful not to take a pushy or self-promotional approach in groups. Nobody wants a used-car salesman pitch interjecting into conversations.
Pace Yourself
Building a robust LinkedIn presence takes time, but consistency is key. Start by setting aside 10 minutes, three times per week for LinkedIn activity—whether that’s engaging with posts, writing content, or checking in with connections. As your presence grows, you can use LinkedIn automation tools (mindfully) to help you scale your efforts.
LinkedIn remains a unique platform for lawyers to build relationships, share expertise, and drive business. A thoughtful, consistent approach to LinkedIn will keep you connected and at the top of potential clients' minds when they need legal counsel. Connect with Jaffe at info@jaffepr.com for other LinkedIn strategies to drive business development.