10 Ways Law Firms Can Use LinkedIn To Build Relationships With Potential Clients
LinkedIn has emerged as the most admired business social networking site used by lawyers. Statistics reveal that around 70% of corporate counsels make use of LinkedIn as a tool and out of them at least half the numbers rely on it completely. Every Fortune 500 company has executives relying on LinkedIn for business social networking.
In order to gain more clientele using LinkedIn, there are certain actions that a lawyer or a firm needs to undertake. Here is a list of 10 ways law firms can use LinkedIn to build relationships with potential clients:
1. Connect directly with potential clients.
LinkedIn can be used as an excellent tool to make a network of potential clients. It becomes all the more better if your potential clients are small and medium businesses because they have a better chance of being LinkedIn subscribers. Through LinkedIn you can educate them in such a fashion that they want to approach you with their problems
2. Optimize your Business Page.
On your company’s LinkedIn page, you must have a logo of your firm along with the header image. Make sure the “About Us” section is complete with the company info. In the process do make sure that you use keywords that your potential clients may be looking for. This is an important part of your strategy to reach out to maximum number of potential clients since LinkedIn pages have started showing up in Google Search results.
3. Optimize Lawyer’s and Other Professional’s Profiles.
After you have created your company’s page, it’s time to update it by completing your employees personal pages. Remember that lawyers are an inseparable extension of a law firm and company’s pages and lawyer’s individual pages are interconnected. Therefore it is necessary that lawyer’s pages portray a professional image of theirs.
4. Connect With Target Companies.
It is wise to personally keep a track of prospective clients, existing clients and other companies that are your referral sources and engage with them productively. Comment upon and share their posts that are relevant to your area of expertise.
5. Build relationships with the media.
More media professionals are on LinkedIn than on any other social networking site. Hence LinkedIn becomes a wonderful platform to connect with local, regional and national publishers; people that require a lawyer very often. You can approach these groups and individuals to come to your LinkedIn page and see what you offer your readers and viewers.
6. Get more website visits by sharing.
The viral nature of social media is what makes it great for sharing stuff. Merely one click by your visitor on share button can make your content visible to a number of people and this number keeps increasing with every such click. However to accomplish this you need to make sure your company website has the LinkedIn share badge on your blog.
7. Show your Expertise in Answers
LinkedIn Answers is an opportunity for lawyers to showcase their expertise, display leadership in thoughts and link to their blog content as well. To accomplish this you need to go to: More –> Answers–> Advanced Answers Search. With this you can filter the questions to get only those that relate to your area of expertise.
8. Build a network of connections with expert witnesses.
A lawyer knows the importance of the testimony of an expert witness. As a lawyer you can use LinkedIn to network with experts in various fields related to your area of specialization. This will give a reason to more and more clients to hire you since you offer more external support than other firms.
9. Nurture relationships with existing clients.
It is recommended not to discontinue relationship building efforts once you have gained a client. The key to client retention is to keep sharing content and information through LinkedIn and let him know every now and then that he is still cared for.
10. Stay up-to-date on what is happening in your industry.
LinkedIn gives you an excellent opportunity to stay abreast with the latest developments in your industry. You can do this by joining groups that your colleagues and peers have subscribed to. This will give you an idea of what others are talking about, their concerns and their problems. These can be used as ideas to write about while promoting your firm.
If followed in letter and spirit, these 10 ways of getting new clients using LinkedIn can go a long way in increasing the productivity of your law firm.
Author Bio:
Billy Camryn is an Online Consultant at LakeTahoeDUI-Lawyer. He likes blogging about Legal issues, Business law, SEO and Internet Marketing Tips.