LinkedIn for Lawyers: A Guide for Mastering Social Media Marketing

According to the American Bar Association, over 90% of attorneys and law firms are active on LinkedIn. That's because LinkedIn marketing for lawyers is a winning strategy to secure more clients. And, frankly, it's no surprise.

For instance, InMail, LinkedIn's profile-to-profile messaging channel, has an open rate 300% higher than standard email. Oh, and more than 150 million U.S. professionals have LinkedIn profiles, which indicates a good percentage of your potential clients are active on the platform.

LinkedIn marketing for lawyers builds brand awareness, grows email lists, and attracts high-quality leads. By posting compelling articles and expanding professional connections, firms using LinkedIn can market to potential clients and partners.

This blog covers LinkedIn advertising for lawyers. It will teach you how to improve your social media marketing and get more clients on one of the world's most popular professional networking platforms.

Is Having LinkedIn Important?

Having LinkedIn is critical because potential clients turn to it as a source of information on lawyers and firms. With it, you can build connections and partnerships to generate law firm leads and boost your brand awareness. 

Unlike other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, LinkedIn is professional networking geared toward building and maintaining valuable business relationships. 

Your firm's online reputation is crucial in today's digital world. Clients are more likely than ever to research a lawyer on LinkedIn before hiring someone, and LinkedIn profiles are growing in popularity.

For instance, Hubspot found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter.

Having a detailed profile on LinkedIn and publishing content on the network can boost your visibility. Remember, people on LinkedIn review lawyers' profiles in search of the perfect candidate to resolve their legal troubles.

Set Up a LinkedIn Company Page for Your Law Firm

Creating a LinkedIn business page is the first step to getting your business in front of the right people. Here's how:

1. On the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions page, click "Create your Page."

2. Choose your business type.

3. Add the required business information: company name, LinkedIn public URL, website URL, industry, profile photo, tagline, etc.

4. Once you have completed all of the sections and are satisfied with your description and tags, click the 'Publish' button, and your company page will go live.

You can always update your page as your business grows or changes.

How to Optimize your LinkedIn Attorney Business Profile

Select a Professional Headshot and Cover Photo

What good is a professional headshot if you have a bland, boring background photo behind it? Don't undermine your investment in a professional photoshoot by selecting a generic image. Your cover photo should create a good first impression. Make sure yours looks friendly and professional.

When selecting your LinkedIn background banner photo, find something vibrant and professional. Avoid dark photos that are difficult to make out. Also, choose something that reflects your beliefs or values while conveying that you possess abundant legal expertise.

Write a Proper SEO Headline

The headline on your law firm's LinkedIn profile serves two purposes. The obvious function is to help you attract more clients by grabbing peoples' attention as they scroll through search results. However, your headline can also help you increase your visibility during these searches.

A search engine optimized (SEO'd) headline will appear on the search results pages of relevant queries. For instance, let's say your law firm provides family law services in Alabama. If your headline includes the phrase "Alabama family lawyer," your LinkedIn account will likely appear when potential clients use those phrases in their search.

Write About Your Relevant Experience

Wondering how to write your LinkedIn about section? Hook readers with a strong opener and tell them why you do what you do. Keep this brief like an elevator pitch.

A hint: You can increase your reach on LinkedIn by including keywords in your summary and overview. As a result, LinkedIn will be able to recognize what your company does, and your page will appear higher in search results.

Hence why it's important only to include relevant experience; inserting keywords related to irrelevant work reduces your visibility and gives potential clients the wrong impression of your services. Your law firm's staff would have to field calls from clients seeking the services your legal practice no longer provides.

Start With Your Experience Section

Have two goals in mind when completing this section. The first is to inspire confidence by carefully highlighting your relevant legal industry experience. Here you demonstrate your credibility, expertise, and breadth of experience.

The second goal is to supplement your other LinkedIn advertising efforts by incorporating extra keywords into your profile. While you must include some basic information about your experience, you should also include a brief description of your role and responsibilities underneath each listing.

Complete the Contact Information Section

The "Contact Information" section is relatively simple to fill out — just add all the best ways for people to reach you. The site includes fields for your email, web address, phone number, and social media accounts — you can use whichever you like.

A complete profile helps you stay connected and competitive. And don't forget freshness matters. So be sure to update your profile frequently if you want to keep appearing in your target market's newsfeeds.

Fill in the Education Section

List any educational achievements you have obtained and the years you attended each institution. Additionally, include this information if you are a member of your law school alum association or local bar associations.

There is no need to write hundreds of words of copy. However, you should slip in a few keywords whenever possible. Don't force keywords, as this will draw the ire of potential clients and damage your page's readability. Keep things simple and to the point.

Develop the Perfect Skills and Endorsements Section

LinkedIn lets you add as many as 50 skills to your profile. While we encourage you to take full advantage of this feature, make sure you do not list irrelevant skills. When choosing your skills, select words that are frequently searched. For instance, a "criminal lawyer" is more likely to appear in searches than a "trial lawyer".

Once you have finished listing your skills, it is time to request endorsements. When your connections endorse and vouch for you, it improves your credibility.

Asking for endorsements works as follows:

1. Click on one of the skills you added to your LinkedIn profile and then request an endorsement. LinkedIn will forward endorsement requests to peers in your network (such as other law firms or attorneys).
2. Potential clients will see a number beside each skill in your profile's "Skills" section. A skill that has over 99 endorsements, for example, will display "99+". Endorsements establish credibility and provide prospects with social proof that you have the skills you claim.

LinkedIn Marketing Content Tips for Lawyers

Legal content marketing is a great way to increase visibility and engagement with your target audience. It helps you to showcase your expertise and create connections with potential clients. Follow these tips to take your practice's content marketing to the next level.

How to Publish Blogs

Publish blog posts that provide essential legal tips to grow and connect with your audience. When deciding what topics to cover in your blogs, focus on creating educational content. Avoid writing articles that are overtly sales or advertorial. 

As a starting point, make a list of FAQs and create posts that answer the most common ones. Keep in mind you can divide complex topics into several blog posts. 

For example, suppose you're a personal injury lawyer. Create content based on FAQs like choosing a lawyer, how to sue a company for negligence, what evidence is needed to prove certain cases, and so on.

As a rule of thumb, we recommend following these LinkedIn for lawyers best practices: 

• Keep titles short and sweet. Make your titles between 40-49 characters long and include your primary keyword. Using "how-to" and list-style headlines immediately communicates your article's value.
• Write long-form content. Longer articles, between 1,500 and 2,000 words, allow you to meet keyword targets. It's also beneficial for gaining higher online visibility (through social shares and links), displaying authority and expertise in your industry, and furthering community building and engagement.
• Publish consistently. By nature, social media is fast-paced, and content becomes obsolete quickly. Regularly posting is essential: if you go weeks between posts, your message is unlikely to be seen frequently enough by your audience to make an impact.
• End with a call to action (CTA): What do you want readers to do after reading your content? Your goal may be to entice them to browse more content on your blog, or you may want to schedule a free consultation, so you'll link to or include your contact information.

Comment on Other Blogs and Posts

In addition to creating your legal blog posts, LinkedIn for attorneys allows you to comment on other people's content. Routinely commenting on other posts and interacting with users helps reach your target audience. If you comment on a topic that prospects find interesting or relevant, they may contact your law firm for additional information or legal services.

Invest in Attorney LinkedIn Ads

If you want to connect with your target audience on LinkedIn, your company page is the ideal place to begin. There are several ways to expand your reach, such as publishing blogs and investing in advertising.

Why Start a LinkedIn Ad Campaign

Due to LinkedIn's specific audience, it offers unparalleled targeting options based on professional practices and status. In other words, this is the social network to use if you want to reach decision-makers.

According to recent statistics, roughly 10.7% of the world's population has a LinkedIn account. That's a highly active, highly engaged, and highly qualified audience ready to hear about how your law firm can help them.

Below are its main advertising advantages: 

• Reach a vast audience: With LinkedIn, your company can reach a large audience with highly accurate and current data. Many LinkedIn users update their profiles regularly, providing your firm with the latest information about their work experience and skills.
• Accurate targeting: Advertisers love LinkedIn because it allows them to target their ads precisely. It is possible to target users by their location, job title, industry, education, and interests and narrow your advertising efforts to those most likely to be interested in your legal services.
• Customize budgets: Advertising traditionally requires upfront payments. On LinkedIn, you can adjust bids in response to campaign performance, giving you more control over campaign management.
• Ad variety: You can create ads with specific goals using various formats, such as Carousel Ads, Message Ads, and more. For instance, you can use Message Ads to send direct messages to your prospects' inboxes.
• Connect directly to audiences: LinkedIn allows you to personalize your messaging and outreach. Your messaging can relate to people's job roles, industries, skills, and interests.
• Support account-based marketing campaigns: The LinkedIn platform includes a large amount of professional information about your target accounts, which allows your law firm to target prospects efficiently and effectively.

How to Create LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn's advertising platform is called Campaign Manager. After you create a free account, the platform will walk you through the steps needed to set up your first campaign.

• Step 1: Create a free account on LinkedIn's Campaign Manager.
• Step 2: Once in Campaign Manager, select “Create” and then select “Campaign”. This will take you to the campaign creation page.

• Step 3: If it’s your first campaign, we recommend using the default “New Campaign Group”.

• Step 4: Choose an objective. An objective is an action you want your audience to take upon seeing your ad. Selecting your objective helps show ad formats, features, and bid types that support your campaign creation goals.

• Step 5: Start building your target audience. With Campaign Manager’s robust targeting, you can target users with professional traits—like job title, company name, and industry type, or by personal interests.

• Step 6: Select your ad format. There are a variety of ad formats to choose from, such as Single Image, Single Job, Video, and Carousel Ads.

• Step 7: Set the budget, bidding strategy, and schedule that aligns with your goals. Setting the right initial budget will help you automate or control costs and validate your marketing strategy.

• Step 8: You may need to upload or fill-in various elements depending on your selected ad format. This includes the image, headline, URL, and more.

• Step 9: Review your campaign and add a payment method. Enter a debit or credit card, save, and your campaign will enter a review process before launching.

Other LinkedIn Profiles Best Practices for Attorneys

If you want to get the most out of your new LinkedIn profile, we suggest that you:

Get the LinkedIn App on Your Phone

You can use the app to respond to prospects who reach out to you. You must respond to potential or new clients quickly, as lengthy delays could discourage them from working with your law firm. The app can also be used to manage your LinkedIn marketing campaign.

Import Your Email Contacts

You can quickly and easily import your email contacts to jumpstart your LinkedIn network with people you know professionally. This is invaluable for email marketing drip campaigns which you can use to nudge prospects further down the marketing funnel.

Here's how to import your email contacts:

1. Go to "My Network" at the top of your homepage.
2. Select "Connections" from the "Manage My Network Menu".
3. Tap "More Options" on the right panel.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Authenticate LinkedIn so you can access your contacts.
6. You'll be presented with a list of your email contacts who are on LinkedIn. Check the boxes beside those you'd like to add.
7. Finally, click "Add Connections". Once the person receives the request and accepts, you'll be connected – just like on Facebook.

Create a Unique URL

When you build your LinkedIn account, you will be assigned a generic web address (URL) in the LinkedIn.com domain containing a series of letters and numbers. The good news is that you can easily customize your LinkedIn URL to make it user-friendly.

• For example, https://www.linkedin.com/broglio-attorneys is better than https://www.linkedin.com/broglio-attorneys/6hfkgphr?%23

To do so, click "Me" and "View Profile" from your LinkedIn homepage. Next, select "Edit public profile & URL" in the upper-left portion of the page, then "Edit your custom URL." Punch in your new custom URL, hit save - that's it.

Your custom URL should be 3-100 characters long without spaces, symbols, or special characters. We suggest using a variation of your name or professional brand as your public profile URL, as it is how people will find your LinkedIn profile.

Join Relevant Groups and Associations

There are dozens of legal industry groups and associations on LinkedIn. These groups have hundreds — or sometimes thousands — of members. What better way to network with your peers than to join a couple of these associations?

Once you have your LinkedIn profile all setup and have acquired some connections, start looking for organizations to join. While some associations require you to pay membership fees, they are usually quite affordable. Many associations and groups don't require fees at all, but they might not offer much in the way of member perks.

Keep in mind that you do not have to join dozens of groups. Focus on becoming a member of a few reputable associations and build from there.

Tips for Joining Groups on LinkedIn

Getting involved in LinkedIn groups for lawyers will help you succeed on the platform in different ways. You can:

• Find people in your niche.
• Share ideas and knowledge.
• Participate in engaging discussions.
• Meet potential employees and recruiters.

Rather than lurking silently in groups, add your content. The majority of LinkedIn users don’t create any content. You will stand out and become more memorable if you do. Make sure you’re posting valuable content. Do not overdo it with self-promotion and news about your firm.

Tell stories, champion other people, talk about things happening in your local community, and take a stand on things you care about (be controversial on things you genuinely have controversial opinions on as well—it increases engagement and the number of viewers).

You’ll be off to a good start if you post four non-promotional posts for every self-promotional post.

You might be interested in joining the following LinkedIn groups for lawyers:

• Your law school’s group
• Your area’s ABA group
• Groups for legal trends and news — for example, Legaltech News.

Expand Your Network by Building Relationships with Other Attorneys

You can maximize your professional network on LinkedIn and build meaningful relationships with other attorneys. Post thought-provoking updates, engage with others, write recommendations, endorse skills and respond to messages.

Doing so can help you further your career. Don't miss out on connecting with your peers and growing your network.

Provide Client Testimonials and Case Studies

Testimonials are an essential element of your LinkedIn lawyer profile. Request feedback from clients who have benefited from your services. These testimonials can be transformed into case studies with your client's approval.

Testimonials are powerful and effective for standing out in competitive practice areas. Not only do they provide substance and social proof to potential clients, but they also make past clients feel good about their decision to work with you.

Use the Featured Section

The "Featured" section of LinkedIn gives you the ability to pin news and articles that align with your brand image. You can highlight blogs or articles you have created and published on other platforms. Additionally, you can provide links to your website, draw attention to local news publications that have featured your law firm, or engage in other promotional acts.

Be Active on Your Attorney LinkedIn Account

Be sure to post regularly on LinkedIn - aim for at least twice a week. Feel free to jump on the mobile app and speak your mind; once you get comfortable creating content, you can start scheduling posts in advance.

Always publish content that adds value to your audience and helps build your expertise, such as:

• Legal news
• Updates relevant to your area of practice
• Photos from events you’ve participated in, whether goodwill or conference-orientated.
• Case studies
• Helpful resources like blog posts, lawyer video content, webinars, ebooks, and infographics.

It’s important to remain active and consistent with your posts, even if that means scheduling content in advance. You can also share other people’s posts as long as they’re relevant to your profile. The power of social proof can be a great marketing asset.

When individuals observe that other like-minded individuals recommend a product, it increases the likelihood that they will follow suit. Regularly posting content on LinkedIn is an effective way to boost social shares and recommendations of your content, products, and services.

Remember to remind your followers to share your posts!

Be Careful When Claiming to Be a Specialist

The legal industry is closely scrutinized when it comes to advertising. Therefore, you must tread carefully when claiming to be a specialist. Many jurisdictions have an extensive vetting process that attorneys must navigate before listing themselves as experts or specialists in a particular practice area, so take heed when creating LinkedIn bios for lawyers.

Instead of risking compliance issues by claiming to be a specialist, just take advantage of the LinkedIn "Skills & Endorsements" section. As we mentioned earlier, this section can demonstrate that you "specialize" in particular areas of practice without explicitly listing yourself as a subject matter expert or specialist.

You can read our blog to find out more about advertising rules for lawyers.

Leverage Professional LinkedIn Marketing for Lawyers

Hiring an agency to handle LinkedIn marketing for lawyers is a great way to maximize your visibility and reach potential clients on this social media platform. Here are a few reasons why you should consider hiring an agency to create a marketable LinkedIn profile:

1. Expertise: A good agency has the skills to handle a law firm's LinkedIn marketing from start to finish. They understand the platform's nuances, the best practices for legal marketing, and strategies for reaching your target audience.
2. Time: An agency can save you time by creating content, scheduling posts, responding to comments and messages, and growing your network. This allows you to focus on other aspects of your practice.
3. Branding: An agency can create and maintain a consistent brand image across your social media channels, including LinkedIn. They will ensure your posts, photos, and overall brand message remain consistent and professional.
4. Budget: An agency can save your law firm money by providing you with the most cost-effective solutions for your LinkedIn marketing needs. They will advise you on what content works and efficiently use your social media marketing budget.

Hiring a full-service digital marketing agency like Grow Law Firm to take care of your law firm's LinkedIn marketing will ensure that your presence on the platform is professional, consistent, and effective. That way, you can reach more potential clients while ensuring your brand conveys the right message.

Ready to expand your professional opportunities with LinkedIn profile experts? If so, then contact our law firm digital marketing experts today.