THE MISSING LINKS: How To Reinvigorate Your LinkedIn Initiative.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Wang, Judy

The rising influence of social media continues to be a hot topic in legal marketing--and rightly so. Today, corporate clients look to social media platforms like LinkedIn as trustworthy sources of information on outside counsel. In fact, LinkedIn has gained so much steam in recent years that it may have even surpassed law firm website biographies as the primary stop for background information on lawyers.

Marketing and business development teams around the world seem to agree that lawyers ought to leverage LinkedIn to enhance client engagement and demonstrate thought leadership. But there is less agreement on how to execute a successful social media strategy that will maintain its early momentum on this platform.

To stop LinkedIn initiatives from dwindling, we need to reexamine our general approach to the training process. The initial launch in particular needs to be more carefully handled than one might assume. Here are six practical steps to help you get started the right way and maintain interest down the line. They have proven successful in my current firm, and they can be used whether you are launching an initiative for the first time or rebooting ongoing efforts.

1 Loop in the general counsel early.

Bar associations are racing to catch up with the increasing dominance of social media in the legal field. Many are revising their LinkedIn recommendations as they learn more, and some even contradict each other on key questions: should endorsements be turned off? Should everyone have a firm approved photo? To what extent can firms...