While Facebook and Twitter get most of the social media marketing buzz, LinkedIn is a powerful platform that often gets overlooked. Its 259 million users may be the exact audience you should be marketing your law firm to. According to the Pew Research Center, LinkedIn usage is especially high among:

• Educated (Bachelor’s degree or higher)
• Upper income ($75,000 annual income or greater)
• 50-64 year olds

Additionally LinkedIn has proven to be a serious lead-generating machine. An internal study done by Hubspot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated a higher visitor-to-lead conversion rate (2.74%) than any of the other top social networks – almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).

Make sure your law firm is using LinkedIn to its greatest potential by following these 5 quick steps:

1. Create a Firm Page

• Add a firm description and overview, including your practice areas and why your firm is unique

• Add your logo and a banner image

• Highlight the practice areas that are most important to you with Showcase Pages, which are dedicated pages for prominent products or services. You can create up to 10 Showcase Pages for your Company Page

• Make your page easy to find by linking your LinkedIn firm page to your website, blog, and other social platforms

2. Expand your Community

• Engage your employees by encouraging them to add their position at your firm to their personal LinkedIn profiles. Doing so will automatically make them followers of your firm page and feature your page on their profile

• Invite your current customers to connect with you on LinkedIn. They’re already familiar with the great service you provide, so they may be inspired to share their positive experience. Include a link to your LinkedIn page in all of your client communication, including emails and marketing materials

• Find relevant Groups discussing your industry and join the conversation. It’s a great way to learn about your customers needs, stay informed about industry trends, and gain insight into what your competition is up to

• Follow channels and other thought leaders to curate industry news and insights that you can then share with your own community

• Track your progress by using LinkedIn Page Analytics to understand your community, what types of people you’re connecting with and what types of content they respond to most frequently

3. Engage your Community with Content

• Share useful information that solves your audience’s problems

• Publish content that shows you’re an industry authority

• Vary the type of content you share, including blog posts, slide decks, white papers, infographics, etc.

• Use images and video to capture attention and significantly increase comments and shares

• Include appropriate keywords in your content. Firm pages are extremely SEO-friendly, so members can easily search and discover your firm with keywords from within LinkedIn

• Improve the chances that someone will click on your update by making your status updates short and actionable. Include a catchy headline, an interesting image and a brief intro that inspires readers to click through to read the full post

• Share articles, firm news, industry trends, and insights. While it’s acceptable to occasionally promote your business, that shouldn’t be the focus of most of your posts

• Encourage followers to comment and share your updates to further expand your reach

• Respond to all comments to your updates. Engaging with your audience will foster your relationship and build loyalty

4. Boost your Presence with Sponsored Updates and Ads

• Sponsored Updates appear in the homepage newsfeed of LinkedIn members who fit the specific market you’re targeting. For example, you could run a campaign that targets senior citizens, offering them a free report on Medicaid Planning. The charge for Sponsored Updates is based on the number of LinkedIn members who see the update or the number of clicks they receive

• LinkedIn offers several other types of advertising, including banner ads and email marketing (InMail) that allow you to precisely target your ideal audience

5. Include your Team

• Appoint specific staff to assist with your page’s administration.

• Develop an editorial calendar detailing who, when, and what to post

• Having several administrators who contribute to your page will not only ensure that your page is updated frequently, but the content and engagement will improve with different styles of communication and points of view

As with all of your marketing efforts, don’t forget to track the performance of your firm page. LinkedIn’s Page Insights provides information on your page’s followers, including demographics and where they came from, as well as data on the effectiveness of your status updates, engagement, and reach.

Has your law firm established a LinkedIn firm page and are you using it to its greatest potential?

Rita Chaires
SEO and Social Media Manager
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (800) 846-1555
www.aaepa.com

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Rita Chaires

Director, Web & Online Marketing Services, American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys

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