Lawyers use of LinkedIn : It's becoming an avalanche
Kevin O'Keefe reports on his blog that the online social networking site LinkedIn is catching on big-time in the legal profession. Law firm marketers should take note!
The latest comes from Oliver Picher, president of Visible Influence, speaking about LinkedIn and social networking to the Delaware Valley Law Firm Marketing Group.
Jason Lisi and Julie Meyer highlighted Picher's presentation in an article in The Legal Intelligencer.
- LinkedIn is for business connections much in the same way that Facebook creates personal connections.
- Philadelphia firms, such as Fox Rothschild and Reed Smith, have as many as 45 percent of their attorneys and staff holding active LinkedIn accounts.
- Legal professionals should import business contacts to identify those with LinkedIn accounts and invite them to connect.
- LinkedIn allows you to connect with others with similar interests by connecting with users who are secondarily connected to an original LinkedIn connection.
- LinkedIn's answer feature provides an additional tool for effective networking and marketing of practice areas. LinkedIn answers provide for LinkedIn members to tap -- or add to -- the knowledge of their professional network by answering questions posed by others or recommending another member as a source of information: a virtual referral.
I know Kevin has 500+ contacts on LinkedIn, and I'm trying to catch up, having only 267 connections, but I'm working on it.
Am pleased to hear you endorsing Linked In and other online networking as viable tools for legal professionals. Online networking is one of many important tools in the biz dev/marketing strategies available to professionals.
Yet, there is still a significant need to assist our clients in learning how to take advantage of these tools effectively. With time in such short supply, and the learning curve needed to leverage these networks for favorable business results,we need to offer training for professionals that is easy, quick, and effective for non-techy and techy types alike. Marketing executives have an opportunity to support their colleagues by providing this training or identifying easy-to-use training tools.
Nancy Fox
www.bizdevsuccess.com
www.sociabling.blogspot.com