How To use LinkedIn for Lead Generation

B2B Marketing and Audience Targeting Can Help Provide Your Firm With Valuable Leads.

If there were a universal hang out for businesses, LinkedIn would be it. In fact, creating a profile on LinkedIn has become as standard a business practice as having an employee fill out a W-2. Yet despite the amount of companies and employees that create profiles, many fail to take the next step. Your firm may have run into this conundrum:

I created a profile on LinkedIn, I have had my employees create accounts and link them to our law firm, but, now what? Where do we go now, what do we do now?

Here is a suggestion: Market your firm's LinkedIn profile to encourage cooperative relationships and leads from fellow attorneys, using a feature called Targeted Updates. Studies have shown that LinkedIn is more effective than other popular social networks at producing business to business leads and with targeted updates. Here are some steps to take.

1. When you post content in LinkedIn, whether shared from Twitter, your law firm blog or directly, there is an option to share that content on the post with a targeted audience. On a new post this option is under “Share With.” On a redirected post for Twitter or your Blog it is under “Share.” Once you have selected this group, a box will come up. To exclude your staff, select the “non-employees only” option at the bottom of this window.

2. Filter your targeted audience by law firm size, then select the desired Industry, Function, Seniority, and Geography tabs and filter those out as well. Once you have completed this, anyone you specifically targeted will see your update.

3. Now that you have shared your content with your target audience, within 24 hours or more you will be able to monitor the amount of likes and impressions and the demographic statistics of your followers by selecting “Follower Statistics.” On the following dashboard, you will see a graph for the amount of engagement your profile produces, aka the number of people who are talking about you with others, another graph for the demographics of those that follow you, and much more information about your followers.

You can use this information to further target your audience with updates that your law firm posts. It is also helpful when building and developing relationships with these followers. (And make sure to return the favor and follow them back.)

Verify that you have completed these steps before setting out to engage and build a following:

• Complete your profile: make sure that you take advantage of LinkedIn’s “percent complete” analysis of your profile. Follow their suggestions for a fuller profile.
• Build your network: Seek out other law firms, businesses and/or, individuals to follow. The larger your network, the better chances you have of bringing in revenue for your law firm.
• Link up your Twitter account: In LinkedIn, edit your profile to connect your Twitter account to LinkedIn, so any post you make on Twitter will automatically get posted on your LinkedIn profile.
• Follow a group(s): Under the Groups option next to Profile, look for groups to join. Find groups that will help you build a strong following and word of mouth buzz on the content that you post. These groups will give you a place to post backlinks to your content and redirect strangers to your firm’s website. (Side note: start your own group as well. Make it a Questionnaire group for your practice, such as, “Personal Injury Group: Post Your Legal Issues to Our Law Firm Here.”)

If you continue to engage with frequently updated and targeted posts in combination with these other tactics, you will see many qualified, four star leads come your way in no time.