LinkedIn for Lawyers

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Recently, I was asked to appear as a guest on a new podcast with Louise Kulbicki, which focuses on teaching non-native English-speaking lawyers “Legal English.” Paid members can also get access to further learning materials, including quizzes and transcripts. Our conversation centered on the importance of social media, and LinkedIn in particular, for making and maintaining networking relationships. For the full podcast interview, head to this link here.

Louise has generously offered a 50% discount to Zen readers for Podcast Pro Membership, for a limited time – use the coupon code “Launch” when registering to benefit from this discount!

Although Louise also provides a transcript, I wanted to highlight below some of what we discussed and why I feel social media and LinkedIn are excellent tools for lawyers. …
Continue Reading Networking with LinkedIn for Lawyers

Yesterday, we discussed the first part of the excellent webinar with David Ackert & Jonathan Fitzgarrald on LinkedIn 2.0. When chatting last night with my fellow SIG leaders, Nancy asked me why it was I considered this to be the best session we’d had. She wondered if it was because they got into the "how" of using LinkedIn as opposed to the "why." 

My answer to her was that it was the 2.0 nature of it – it’s safe to assume that those participating in a social media group like ours would be those most likely to have already bought into the idea of social media, and are more focused on how to sell it to their attorneys and its practical use. Even more than that, pretty much everyone has a LinkedIn profile these days – but the idea of setting objectives and fine tuning your strategy to meet those objectives is something that’s really useful to both attorneys, and the marketing professionals trying to get them to use LinkedIn for business development.  

It also doesn’t hurt that Jonathan and David are not only excellent presenters, but also extremely knowledgeable – both when it comes to using LinkedIn and working with attorneys. 

So, if you’re a part of the LMA and have the opportunity to see the recording of the session once it’s circulated, make sure that you do so! Now let’s get into Part II…

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Continue Reading LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers – A Webinar Recap (Part II)

Apparently, this is the week for excellent webinars, because I had the privilege of attending another amazing one this afternoon. The LMA’s Social Media Shared Interest Group offered LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers, featuring presenters David Ackert (@DavidAckert) of The Ackert Advisory and Jonathan Fitzgarrald (@JRFitzgarrald) of Greenberg Glusker, moderated by our own Nancy Myrland (@nancymyrland) of Myrland Marketing & Social Media. 

Before I get into the meat of the session (and boy, was it meaty!), I want to make sure to note that if you’d like to join the Legal Marketing Association, you can take a look at the options and categories for membership over here. 

And if you’re already a member of the LMA, and want to join the Social Media SIG (we’re cool, I promise!), you can join through the LMA website here. LMA members can also join our Facebook and LinkedIn groups (whether or not you officially belong to the SIG). …

Continue Reading LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers – A Webinar Recap (Part I)

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been working on developing a few sub-groups for our International Lawyers Group member group on LinkedIn.  These groups are online forums for our Specialty Groups, which member firm attorneys participate in throughout the year.

As I’m developing the groups, I’m going through my LinkedIn contacts to invite those who practice in those areas to participate. And I’m seeing a lot of this: 

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Continue Reading Let’s Get Specific – On LinkedIn

And here we are – with the exception of possibly one more post on My Travel from TripIt (which is still acting a bit wonky), we are at the end of our series on LinkedIn! I hope that you’ve gotten some useful tips, and you feel as though you’re starting to use LinkedIn to its full potential.

This morning, Cordell Parvin asked me to share with him what my top LinkedIn tips would be, and I think these would be a good starting point for our final how-to.  They are: 

  • Have a full and complete profile so that people can get to know you. 
  • Make LinkedIn one of the pages that automatically opens when you open your browser – then you don’t have to remember to check it.
  • Reach out to someone in some way every day – comment on a status, recommend an article, "like" someone’s post. 
  • Participate actively in groups – ask questions, post relevant articles (not just your own), engage with other participants.
  • Take the relationships offline – offer to meet someone in your network who is local for coffee or lunch and look to meet up with those in other cities when you’re traveling. 

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Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – The Wrap Up

Last week, we talked about how you can follow companies on LinkedIn (and why you would want to!). Today, we’ll chat about creating and maintaining a company page. Attorneys, your firm may already have a company page, so make sure to check this out first – this may be something that your marketing department is handling.

We already have a company page for the ILN, so I won’t be creating a new one of those.  But I am in the process of launching a new website for my photographic services, so now is a good time to start a company page for that. …

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies – How to Create a Profile

We’re nearing the very end of our series on LinkedIn tutorials – so please let me know if you have any questions that you think haven’t been addressed, and I’ll answer them in our last LinkedIn post next week! 

Today, we’re going to talk about the Company feature on LinkedIn.  There are a few different ways you can use this:

  • Create and edit your own company page.
  • Follow other company’s pages.

Today, we’re going to focus on how to follow other company’s pages, and tomorrow we’ll look at creating and editing your own company page. 

Let’s see what LinkedIn has to say about it in their Learning Center. …

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies

Another one of LinkedIn’s features is their "Answers" section.  This is a place where you can share business knowledge with others on LinkedIn – you can ask your question to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts, showcase your knowledge by answering questions, and stay up on the latest information in your industry.

I’ll point out a caution here – One of our attorneys mentioned to me yesterday with respect to recommendations that attorneys need to be careful of the rules about endorsements within their respective jurisdictions.  This is similarly the case for answering questions on LinkedIn.

I liken answering questions on LinkedIn to answering questions after a panel discussion or at a cocktail party.  Most questions you can answer in an academic way, that makes it clear you’re not creating an attorney-client relationship.  Other questions cross into a grey area, so you need to make it clear that you’re not offering advice.

With LinkedIn questions, since it’s optional, you don’t have to answer questions that you think enter into that grey area, or you can suggest to the person asking that they retain counsel.  So let’s go into this discussion of Answers bearing in mind this caution. …

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Answers

And I’m back. It was a rather eventful week off for me here on the east coast, with a mild earthquake as I was staining my deck, and then having to evacuate because of Hurricane Irene over the weekend.  My thoughts go out to everyone still dealing with flooding, power outages and damage – I was fortunate that my house near the bay never lost power (the yard floods on a good day, so a sump pump is a necessity) and that the damage wasn’t at all severe.  

Today, we’re back to talking LinkedIn, and I’d like to focus on recommendations.  Before we get into the how, let’s talk about about the why. 

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Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Recommendations

Yesterday, we talked about how to get involved with groups.  The only thing left for us to do with groups is to create our own! 

You might not be sure if you want to, but perhaps you want to re-think that.  What if you want to start a group for those interested in legal issues in the construction industry in New Jersey? Check first to make sure there isn’t a group out there like that already, but then start your own – guess who’s going to join a group like that? 

That’s right, potential clients.

And you don’t want to be using your group to just promote yourself, but offer items of value to those people, and they’ll come to see you as the go-to resource for information that they need.  And THAT’S when they’ll start to think that you’d make a good attorney for them.  Plus, if you’re getting access through your group to the decision makers that you want to be meeting at potential clients’ companies, use the platform to send out invitations to an event – host a cocktail party for the group, get together at a local bar for some beer, invite them to a presentation you’ll be doing on a topic that’s of use to them. Take the relationships OFFLINE to cement them. The possibilities here are endless. …

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Creating Your Own Groups