Tips for Lawyers: Advertising on LinkedIn

LinkedIn isn't just for networking. For attorneys, it's also a platform for marketing your business.

Lawyers should at least consider taking a glance at LinkedIn's advert options for small firms. Here are a few tips to get you started advertising on LinkedIn.

The Role of the Internet in Your Marketing

It's well known that lawyers don't like change -- we tend to worry about change's legal ramifications. But in the case of Internet marketing, it is no exaggeration to say that one's online visibility is perhaps his or her most important asset. Does anyone even look in local media to find a lawyer anymore?

Even if you did decided to spring for newspaper and magazine ads, the costs can be somewhat expensive. On the other hand, digital marketing doesn't have to be overly costly. Fortunately, targeted marketing through services like LinkedIn make the whole business of online ads cheaper and more efficient.

The Types of LinkIn Ads

There are two types of LinkedIn ads that can be helpful to your firm. They're both cheap and easy to manage from your advertising dashboard:

• Sponsored Update: Sponsored updates work along the same lines of updates that you get on Facebook and your Linkedin profiles except that they show up on the updates feeds of potential prospects. Based on your chosen parameters, your update will show up on the streams of potential clients. To get the most bang out of your buck, you will be probably want to focus to which potential clients your feed will target. This can be done be geographic region, title, ages, professional area. This can be thought of general marketing -- but with an almost solicitation type feel.
• Text Ads: Text ads allow you to include a logo of your firm and a brief sentence or two that describes who you are and what your practice area is. Like the sponsored update, you'll have the advantage of filtering out by parameters only those high potential clients. In return for clicks on your ad, you will pay a fee. Of course, this does not guarantee that you will snare clients, but it at least increases your chances.

Ethics?

As we just mentioned above, self-promotion on LinkedIn implicates some ethical issues -- as always. The New York County Lawyers Association, however, apparently gave the green light last year when it said that attorneys could puff themselves via LinkedIn.

However, there has been some controversy as to the actual applicability of the Association's views. Opinions of relevant various attorney associations in New York have weighed in, one-after-another on the ethics of using social media sites like LinkedIn and have come to some conclusions of which every attorney in New York should be made aware. Other states' lawyers groups have yet to make any significant announcements on the ethics of lawyers using LinkedIn.

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Related Resources:

• Need a great hire? Post a job with Indeed. (Indeed)
• Social Media, Ethics, and "Expertise": What's a Lawyer to Do? (LawPracticeToday)
• How Should Lawyers Be Using LinkedIn? (FindLaw's Strategist)
• How Do You Become a Marijuana Lawyer? (FindLaw's Strategist)
• Checklist for Law Firm Client Development (FindLaw's Strategist)