The strongest link

Hélène Russell presents ten tips for optimising your individual LinkedIn profile

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Martindale Hubbell Connected, Legal OnRamp. Few law firms can afford the time and resources necessary to have an active presence on all of these social networking sites. So, if a firm has to choose one, which should it be?

Type a popular name into Google and you will find that a LinkedIn entry will rank highly. LinkedIn currently has more than 55 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world1. 840,000 lawyers have profiles2; there are three million members in the UK3; and, LinkedIn claims that one in three professionals in London is a member4. A new member joins every second and half of all members are outside the US5. In its review of social networking sites, Legal Week described LinkedIn as “The place to devote your efforts”6.

LinkedIn is much more than an address book for contacts or an online CV – and it is not just for job seekers. The site is professional, not personal, and is all about networking: networking for new business; for partnerships with suppliers; and, for maintaining relationships. It can also help with marketing and brand awareness (on a personal and firm level) and drive traffic to a firm’s website or individual lawyer’s blog.

With so much potential, it is essential that you get your profile right if you decide to create and maintain a presence on LinkedIn. This article aims to give you ten practical tips to help you make the most of your personal LinkedIn profile.

1: Be strategic
As with all social media networking sites, it is easy to waste time with LinkedIn if you don’t think strategically. Before completing your profile, think about your purpose in joining LinkedIn. Are you networking for new business, trying to locate suitable suppliers, raising your personal profile as an expert in your field, looking for a new job, or just keeping in touch with people as everyone moves around? Decide who your primary target reader is and write your profile accordingly.

2: Include your abilities and differentiators
When completing your profile it is very tempting just to include a brief outline of where you currently work, which is better than nothing, but doing so limits your ability to connect with your target readers. Fill in your profile in the same way as you would a CV or executive biography. Think about why your target reader should be interested in you. Set out all your abilities, past employment, education, affiliations and activities. Sell yourself and emphasise your USPs [unique selling points] rather than sticking to facts and figures. Highlight those aspects within your past work experience that support your current goals.

The ‘people you may know’ tool matches information on your profile to other users with similar data, so the more detailed your profile, the more use this tool is likely to be to you and others.

3: Upload a photo
People prefer to see who they are dealing with. If you can, use a photo that is up to date and professional looking and also (preferably) the same one you use elsewhere, for personal branding. Photos shrink the emotional distance between you and your network, which is especially useful if you don’t often get the chance to meet them in person. Also, hopefully, people will recognise your face from meetings and conferences after they have forgotten your name.

4: Include links
LinkedIn enables you to include links to your blog, website and/or Twitter profile. In order to make these easily accessible, take the time to change the title of these links.

5: Be open
Assuming you joined LinkedIn in order to network and meet new contacts, remember to leave your e-mail address open and set your public profile to ‘full view’.

6: Be yourself but be your professional self
The tone of your LinkedIn profile should be different to your Facebook pages. A little humour is fine – and it is important to let your character shine through, but remember that primarily clients, colleagues and potential clients will be reading your profile and tailor your profile accordingly.

7: Double check your entry and keep it up to date
For those who work in a profession that requires significant attention to detail, grammar and spelling mistakes are unforgivable. Check and double check your entry.

Once you are happy with your profile, don’t forget about it. LinkedIn profiles rank highly in Google searches, so you will want potential clients to find the best possible information about you and your fee earners. No client will be impressed with out-of-date information. Also, you need to remain strategic in your use of LinkedIn to avoid wasting precious time. Your business and personal strategy will change over time, so you may need to re-write your profile accordingly to match your changed focus. If you sign up to receive a weekly update (an e-mailed summary of what your network is up to) this can act as an easy reminder to visit your profile weekly to check that it is up to date and still working for you.

8: Status update
Do complete the status update. People are often interested in what you are doing at work and it can bring your network closer to you. People probably don’t want to see Twitter-style, frequent updates, but will be interested to know when you are working on a significant project, when you have found a particularly useful information source, when you are preparing a bid, or waiting to see an article in print. Consider carefully whether you want to auto-complete the status update on Facebook and LinkedIn. Will your professional network want the same updates about your social and personal life, as your friends in Facebook?

9: Build your network strategically
Opinions differ as to how you should build your network. Some people work to expand their network as far as possible and issue open invitations to connect. I personally only invite or accept invitations from those that I have a relationship with. Neither view is right or wrong. How you build your network depends on your personal strategy for LinkedIn use.

10: Get recommended
Recommendations can be useful. If a potential client is trying to choose between suppliers and you have been recommended and another potential supplier has not, the recommendation may sway them towards you, all other things being equal. However, choose your ‘recommender’ with care. Potential clients will want to see recommendations from those who can genuinely vouch for your work abilities, not from your friends. You may like to make it your usual practice (if your client is delighted with the outcome of a case or piece of work) to ask clients to visit your profile and make a recommendation.

Once you are happy with your profile, you can begin to make the most of LinkedIn’s facilities. Why not add a link to your profile to the end of your e-mail signature or whenever you comment on a blog? Have a look at the applications available on LinkedIn. You can join a group, ask a question, join a discussion, advertise job vacancies, post some presentations or documents, join a virtual book club or let your network keep a track of your travel plans and the events you plan to attend.

Hélène Russell of The Knowledge Business provides consultancy services in Knowledge Management to the legal sector. After a decade as a solicitor specialising in clinical negligence litigation, she cares passionately about practical solutions to help lawyers work smarter. Hélène is also Founder of Knowledge Network West, the knowledge-sharing and networking group for KM professionals in the West. Contact her on 07548 912 779 or visit www.theknowledgebusiness.co.uk.

References

LinkedIn, 17 December 2009
Steve Matthews, Stemlegal.com, 4 June 2009
LinkedIn Blog, 25 November 2009
Rachel Rothwell, Law Society Gazette, 18 September 2009
LinkedIn, 5 February 201
Larry Bodine, Legal Week, 30 September 2009 “Social Club”