Last month I talked about BD and some simple steps to get the ball rolling.
As we continue the Autumn push, I wanted to talk this month about LinkedIn.
Like it or loath it LinkedIn is a powerful tool. Even a free profile allows you to state all your experience, your background and generally holds you out as a professional in your sphere.
The real power comes though, when you start to write posts that are relevant to your target audience and also when you make comments on posts, that are also relevant to your target audience.
Having been on the platform for 17 years, this last year I have made a real effort to post more regularly on the platform, at least twice a week, and it has really grown my reach. Lots of people recognise me when they meet me which is nice as it is a warmer introduction to people and they already know what I do. I have met people in the LinkedIn community who offer complimentary services to mine, who have referred work to me and me to them.
Lots of people message me as, having seen my posts, they know that I understand the market, that I am approachable and always happy to talk.
A usual week might see my posts reach anywhere from 2,000 impressions (in August) to 4,000 impressions (on a busy week) which means that a post was in someone’s feed. They may only have glanced at it, skirted over it or read it thoroughly, but it was on their radar. Then one week in September something very odd happened, one post, about the impact of a reference on a job application, received over 248,000 impressions! The algorithm clearly liked this post and showed it to nearly a quarter of a million people. That is crazy! But it does go to show that consistency and presence make all the difference.
Did it have a major impact on people contacting me? Hard to say, September is a busy time. But it certainly was good background marketing even if those people only saw my post in passing, that reach is incredible! What would you have to pay to get that in any other format?
Incidentally the drive of the post was that references are worth very little, they only confirm the time you worked somewhere, your title and the reason for the employment ending. So unless you are fraudulently stating your career history then you need not worry about an offer being ‘conditional on satisfactory reference’, as those references are really very bland.
So why is this relevant to you? With that small piece of industry information I managed to launch a major advertising campaign. Just imagine what you could do with all the little, fascinating facts about your field of law that you could share…?
What are those things that people are always surprised to learn from you as a solicitor? Talk about them!
