Tag Archives: Professional services firms marketing

Professional services firms: Don’t underestimate the power of the familiarity principle

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Kirsten Hodgson| 6 Comments

The familiarity principle, or mere-exposure effect, “is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.” (Wikipedia)

A few weeks ago I recommended a professional I’d never met to a contact because I was confident that person could help. Thinking about it afterwards, I realised that a couple of my ‘real world’ contacts could probably also have helped. This led me to question why I’d recommended the person I didn’t actually know.

I realised it was because I feel like I know them. This is a person I’m connected to on LinkedIn, I follow them on Twitter and they share some good content. I’ve built a rapport with them. As  a result, I have confidence in them and they were top of mind when my contact asked for a referral.

This is the familiarity principle at work.

It’s easy to see why someone travelling through Africa would choose “Coke” over the local equivalent they’ve never heard of. It’s a safe option and you know what you’re getting but…

…how can those in professional services take advantage of this principle?

It’s largely about being visible. If someone’s regularly writing articles or a blog on a topic, or is regularly quoted in the media, people will get to know their name and can make a judgement call about whether they know what they’re talking about. Over time, the person becomes more familiar and people will be more likely to contact that person over his or her competitors.

Being present on social networks, and actively engaging with those you wish to, also enables professionals to benefit from the Familiarity Principle.

How?

The more you see someone’s name, photo, content they share and comments (provided these resonate with you), the more you feel like you know them.

If you are active (in a targeted way) on social networks then you’re likely to notice that more people want to connect with you. If you then seek to build relationships one at a time, and help others out, they’ll start to trust you.

It’s at this point that the other person is usually happy to use you or to recommend your services.

Actively using social media is a great way to make the familiarity principle work for you. It’s one way to find opportunities and turn them into instructions.

7 steps to ensure you benefit from the familiarity principle on social networks

1. Ensure your profile is complete and that it clearly positions you. Be focused in terms of your profile and the content you share. Stand for something. You can’t be all things to all people so be really clear about who you help and what you help them with.

2. Every time someone invites you to connect and you accept, go back to them thanking them for connecting and ask them a question about their business.

3. Every time you invite someone to connect with you, send them a tailored invite.

4. Share at least one piece of content each week (on LinkedIn, Google+ and/or Facebook) and one per day on Twitter, that will be of interest and use to those you wish to engage. Often this will be content one of your contacts has generated. Sharing other people’s content is a great way to get on their radar and to initiate a conversation with them.

5. Comment on discussions on LinkedIn and Google+ and on relevant posts on Facebook. Aim to comment on one discussion/post per week.

6. Use the reply or direct message functionality on Twitter and the email option on LinkedIn to have conversations with others. Aim to do this at least once a week.

7. Always focus on helping others out by pointing them to information to help address a question they have or by introducing them to someone in your network they’d benefit from meeting. In terms of frequency, I aim to introduce two people in my network each month.

What else would you add? 

How’s the familiarity principle worked for you in social media? 

Image courtesy Andy Newson/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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5 ways online marketing can help you build your practice

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

Online and offline marketing are two sides of the same coin. Neither one should be done in isolation.

Online marketing’s purpose, in the professional services context, should be to create more offline opportunities. Rather than replacing face-to-face contact it should create more opportunities for ‘offline’ meetings.

5 ways online marketing can help you create more opportunities:

1. Profile raising/positioning

As a legal, accounting, engineering or other professional you’re probably already sharing information with your target audiences. This may be content you’ve created (such as articles, seminar slides, Whitepapers, or newsletters/newsalerts), or content others have put together that those you wish to build relationships with will be interested in.

You can also share this content via social networks and via your website, further positioning yourself in your area. If people ask questions and you can help them out (without ‘giving advice’ per-se) you can further demonstrate your expertise. This will give people a flavour of who you are, what you are like to work with and what you do before they have actually done business with you.

People can ascertain whether you know what you are talking about and whether you’re someone they would like to work with. Not everyone will like what you’re saying or agree with you and that’s okay. There’ll be others who will.

2. Attracting more of your ideal clients

You can find and engage with prospects online, begin to build credibility and trust and then take these relationships offline. Ultimately, you can generate new business via social networks – but this won’t happen overnight.

For example, an employment lawyer set up a LinkedIn group for HR Directors and Managers. He invited 100 people to join and 60 accepted within a fortnight. The group now has over 900 members and this lawyer has built his client base on the back of this. He explained to me that this is the most successful business development initiative he and his firm have ever undertaken.

3. Creating more touchpoints with your existing clients, referrers and influencers

Provided your existing clients and referrers are on social networks, these provide additional channels to communicate with these people and get in front of them.

You can share content that they will value, ask and answer questions, or put them in contact with other people you know who they might benefit from meeting. Social networks increase your visibility, allowing you to stay top-of-mind.

A few professionals I’ve spoken to have won work as a result of sharing information relevant to existing contacts on LinkedIn. For example, one lawyer reconnected with a former client and met with his contact but nothing came of it. A few weeks later he noticed one of the sales people from his contact’s firm was active on LinkedIn. He joined a group this person belonged to and answered a question the sales person posted. As a result the sales person picked up the phone to him and gave him a piece of work.

4. Research and planning

A person or an organisation’s activity on social networks can be a rich source of information. Perhaps you’ve set up a new business meeting or are putting together an RFP response or capabilities statement. By searching social networks, you can see what topics and issues your contacts are discussing. This may give you information you can talk to them about or include in your response. At the very least if you can find out a bit about their hobbies and interests you can find an ice-breaker.

I recommend that if people you are meeting or pitching to are on LinkedIn, you look at their profile. Similarly, if you are doing any key client, industry sector, practice group or personal planning, look at the social networks. Again, using LinkedIn as an example, you could search a particular organisation to find out who is on LinkedIn and to ascertain which of these people you don’t know but should. You can then look to connect with them, either by asking a contact to introduce you or by joining the same groups and commenting on the other person’s discussions (assuming they are active on LinkedIn). You could also join LinkedIn groups relating to a particular industry sector or topic.

5. Professional development

Monitoring social networks allows you to keep up to date with the key issues in your area of practice, in a particular industry sector or for a particular client. Following people who share good information and relevant hashtags on Twitter can lead to a rich source of information. LinkedIn groups and your LinkedIn connections can also be great sources of up-to-date content.

By using online tools well (and in conjunction with other initiatives), you can create more offline opportunities…and make it easier to get more of the work you enjoy doing.

Look to build relationships one by one, seek to demonstrate your expertise in order to build credibility with those people you wish to engage and, over time, think about how to move some of these online relationships into the real world.

How have online tools helped you build your practice?

Image courtesy Jomphong via Freedigitalphotos.net

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LinkedIn: A powerful market research tool

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

Much has been written about LinkedIn as a lead identification and lead generation tool, and rightly so.

But it’s so much more than that.

It’s also a powerful research tool for those looking to develop new products or services or who wish to enter new markets.

One of my contacts, Zivana Anderson, found LinkedIn to be hugely beneficial when researching the market need for a new product for one of her clients.

After finding out the target market for the product, she used LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature to identify those she wanted to talk to. She then sent an ‘expertise request’ to the people she wished to meet. They were all senior Heads of Department at major national and global corporations. 70% of those asked accepted her request.

They were all very generous and helpful with their time and spent much longer with her than she’d envisaged. As a result of her work, her client was able to establish the market need and had a clear line of communication with would be buyers.

Zivana’s advice to others seeking meetings with busy, senior professionals via LinkedIn:

1. Ensure your profile is complete and positions you well. It needs to lend credibility to your request and show that you are a professional.

2. When contacting the other person be really clear about what you’re doing and why, how long you want to meet for and the things you wish to find out. Be polite.

3. Don’t suggest a specific time. Say ‘at a time convenient to you’ so that you can get the person’s approval in principle.

4. Join a group that the other person belongs to so that you have the ability to email them using the free LinkedIn account.

This could be a great way to use LinkedIn if you’re looking to build profile in a particular industry sector or want to penetrate a new market. By emulating Zivana’s approach, you too could get in front of senior, hard to reach, decision makers.

Have you used LinkedIn as a research tool? How’s it helped you?

 

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Posted in Client feedback, Legal marketing, LinkedIn for professional services, Professional services marketing, Social media

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Social media, the Hare and the Tortoise

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

I love Aesop’s fables – they all have a great moral and I enjoy reading many of them to my kids (particularly after they’ve done something naughty).

The Hare and the Tortoise could have been written about social media. When the tortoise challenges the hare to a race, the hare soon leaves the tortoise behind. However, so confident is he that he’ll win, he takes a nap halfway through the race only to awake to find the tortoise has crawled past him and beaten him over the finish line.

What does this have to do with social media?

Everything.

Social media is more like a marathon than a sprint. You have to be clear about what you’re looking to achieve and be in it for the long haul. Social media puts another set of tools at your disposal. If you start off with a bang only to give up after a few weeks/months, you’ll be overtaken by others.

3 ‘hare activities’ to avoid on social media

1. Setting up profiles on multiple platforms and then doing nothing with them:

Be focused in your efforts. Identify the platform(s) that are best going to help you to build relationships with those you want to and focus on those. When these are working well for you, you can branch out. The danger of being active on too many platforms is it’s very hard to keep the information up to date.

When setting up profiles, it’s important that these position you well. Social profiles tend to rank highly in search engine results. If you don’t believe me, log out of Google and then search your (and your firm’s) name. While your website is likely to come back near the top so too are your social media profiles.

The top two ways people hire lawyers (I have no doubt this is similar for other professional services advisers) according to some BTI research is peer to peer referrals and online search. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Asking others in your network who they recommend in a particular area is a logical starting point. However, they may get two or three names. So, what happens next? They are often not ready to call you but instead perform an online search. Ensuring your profiles clearly position you is one way to tip the level playing field in your favour before someone’s met you.

If you decide that you don’t wish to be active on a network, remove your profile. A skeletal one isn’t going to benefit anyone.

2. Amassing followers, friends or contacts quickly without actually building a relationship: 

Social is about people and people build relationships with other people. I do understand the argument that you need a wide network to amplify your messages and it’s true that a wider network helps you see better quality search information on LinkedIn, but as professionals we’re selling ourselves and we need to build credibility and trust.

The best way to do that is to build relationships with others one by one. Showing a genuine interest in others, having conversations, sharing their content and asking them questions all helps to build a rapport.

Once you’re on people’s radars and they’ve had some sort of interaction with you, they’re much more likely to read and share your content and to refer you to others.

If you are looking for more work, a targeted always beats a scattergun approach so prioritise who you want to build relationships with and aim to have at least one interaction per week with one of these people.

3. Underestimating your competition: 

I spoke to partners in a professional services firm a while ago who were taken aback that another professional had built a strong reputation in a certain area. Their view was that the person wasn’t as ‘technically sound’ as they are.

However, the other person was doing a great job demonstrating their knowledge in their field, was building relationships and was getting work.

The professionals I spoke to may believe they’re better but what they think doesn’t matter. It’s what prospective clients think. The vast majority of work doesn’t need the ‘best’ brains. It requires someone competent  - and there are lots of competent people out there so you need to distinguish yourself. 

Don’t underestimate your competition. Social media has made it much easier for those without the support of a large firm behind them to market themselves. If you’re not using these channels to help others and build relationships, others are. 

Summary and actions:

  • Be focused and targeted in your approach to social media. Choose the social media network that best suits you and those you want to connect with.  
  • Ensure that your social profiles position you well. Set up an honest, up to date profile that explains who you help, what you help them with and who you are.
  • Seek to build relationships with others one by one and focus on helping the other person with no expectation of them doing the same for you. Using the search function within a network (e.g. the Advanced Search function within LinkedIn), identify three people you would like to connect with. Look to see what content they are sharing, where they are sharing it, who with and what they are responding to.Engage in conversations they are having online. 
    1. Compliment or thank them for an article they shared.
    2. Join a conversation they are having.
    3. Ask them to connect with you.
  • Don’t underestimate your competition. Social media levels the playing field and makes it much easier for those who are active on these channels to compete. Just be prepared for them to overtake you if you get caught out napping.

What other examples of ‘hare’ behaviour have you seen? 

Image courtesy of digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

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Professional services marketing: are you up for the 1 action per day challenge?

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| 6 Comments

Do you ever have every intention of doing something…

…but for one reason or another you just don’t get around to it?

Maybe something more urgent crops up.

Or the day runs away with you.

Or perhaps you’re struggling or just not that motivated to do it.

Whatever the reason, a lot of us have things that keep appearing on our ‘to do’ lists day after day, week after week. And we never seem to get around to doing them.

Until now.

The 100 day challenge

I joined the Happiness Experiment a few months ago. Initiated by Kate Billing, whose focus is on making the world a better (work)place, Kate suggested writing down three good things each day. It’s a way of giving you a positive mindset and being grateful for the little things (even on those horrendous days it’s amazing the silver linings you can find).

More recently Kate asked people to join her in a 100 day challenge: it could be anything you were inspired to do and you had to commit to simple daily actions for 100 days. There were three guidelines:

  • make a commitment
  • work your edge (stretch past your comfort zone!) AND
  • follow through (forgiving yourself when you don’t and beginning again)

Given my tendency to procrastinate I decided to commit to doing one thing each day that I wouldn’t normally get around to.

I’m 14 days in and my ‘to do’ list is getting shorter. Plus it’s actually getting easier to do the things I would normally put off.

I’ve:

  • made several phone calls I was uncomfortable about making
  • written and posted some thank you cards (in record time)
  • progressed a project that’s been on the back-burner for four months because I’ve been too busy to work on it
  • and completed several other tasks – both work related and personal.

What’s this got to do with professional services marketing?

As professionals we’re busy.

And we tend to prefer doing the things we’re good at, or that we can tick off quickly.

That means things like business development initiatives are often put on the back burner in favour of client work.

Even when there’s not too much work on it’s easy to avoid getting out from behind our desks.

Particularly if what we know we need to do is outside our comfort zone.

However, doing one thing per day really isn’t so daunting.

Plus, if you commit to it, there’s something inside you that really wants to get it done so that it’s not hanging over your head.

You could even let a colleague, friend or partner know your goals for the week so that they can hold you accountable.

Imagine how much more you could achieve and how much more of the work you love, you could be doing.

So I’m going to set you the same challenge Kate set:

Commit to doing one thing each day for the next 100 days and see what happens.

It could be:

  • writing a personal note to 1 client each day.
  • calling 1 contact each day just to find out how things are going.
  • doing 1 thing to help a colleague each day.
  • doing 1 business development task each day – one day it might be coffee, the next it might be asking for some client feedback, attending an event, or starting a conversation on LinkedIn

You get the gist – so long as you’re focused and the activity will contribute towards your overall goals.

Interestingly, 100 days is (according to Kate) the period of time for technical practice for improved performance ( for example the Suzuki school of violin practice).

If you can develop this habit, imagine how much you could achieve, and how much better you could serve your clients.

What action are you going to commit to?

Have you done anything similar? If so, I’d love to hear how it went and the benefits from doing it.

Related posts:

Natalie Sisson’s 100 change – be inspired by 100 change makers in 100 days

Kate Billing’s The Happiness Experiment

 

 

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Posted in Legal marketing, Professional services marketing

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Connecting with others on LinkedIn: why bother?

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| 2 Comments

Connecting with others on LinkedIn: why bother?

You know why you’re on LinkedIn.

You’re happy with your profile.

It’s time to connect with others.

Why bother?

The LinkedIn free account limits you to seeing profile information for your first, second and third degree connections, plus those in your groups. You can get around this by using Google to x-ray into LinkedIn, but you will miss out on some of LinkedIn’s advanced search functionality. This is really useful for planning and research purposes.

4 key ways to connect with people you know

  1. Import your email contacts from your desktop or internet email system
  2. Use LinkedIn’s people search or advanced people search to find individuals
  3. Look through contacts of your connections to find those you know
  4. Browse LinkedIn’s people you may know feature (including your university and previous employers)

Connecting with second degree connections

Second-degree contacts are those connected with one or more of your contacts. If you identify someone you’d like to meet, view their profile to find out how they are connected to you. You could then ask your contact to introduce you, but think about why they should and why their contact would want to meet/connect with you. What’s in it for them?

Connecting with people you don’t know on LinkedIn

Should you even do so?

LinkedIn’s user agreement says no but results of a 2011 poll show lots of people do and thought is divided.

There may be very good reasons why you might want to connect with someone you haven’t met – for example a journalist or someone in your field who shares really good content. In fact, LinkedIn and other social networks are turning the traditional business development process on its head. Instead of meeting people and then connecting with them online, you can now meet and start to build relationships with others online before taking them into the real world.

I am happy to connect with those I haven’t met in person provided:

- they share similar interests

- or they share quality content

- or I’ve had a conversation with them (e.g. through a group discussion).

Ultimately, it’s your choice. If you do want to connect with someone you don’t know well, personalise the invite you send to them.

What should you do with your connections?

It depends on your goals, but LinkedIn is a great tool to keep in contact with your connections and to build relationships one by one. Simply connecting with people and then doing nothing is not going to help you grow your practice.

You might like to:

  • email one of your connections each week to share something that will be of interest to them or to set up a time to meet
  • connect two of your contacts every month who might benefit from meeting each other
  • like, comment on or share content that your connections are sharing that may be of interest to your other connections
  • share status updates your contacts will value

One of the strengths of LinkedIn is that you can see who in your network knows someone. If you’re looking at targeting CEOs in a particular industry sector then you can see which of them is on LinkedIn and who in your network knows them. This could really help with planning and prioritising targets.

When connecting, do what’s right for you and what will help you achieve your goals. Once you’ve connected with others, you’re ready to start engaging (phase 3 of my 5-phase process). I’ll cover some ways you can do this, next week.

What other tips would you share for connecting with others on LinkedIn? 

Image courtesy Salvatore Vuono at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Posted in Legal marketing, LinkedIn for professional services, Professional services marketing, Social media

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Lawyers & accountants: what do your social media profiles say about you?

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

Lawyers and Accountants - what do your social media profiles say about you?

There is one thing worse than being invisible.

And that's making a really bad first impression.

Frankly, if you were invisible at least you could start with a clean slate but there's no taking back those first few seconds when you first meet someone.

It's even worse if that first 'meeting' happens online and without your knowledge.

Yet this is what happens every day.

Take a look at who's viewed your profile on LinkedIn, what your Twitter followers get to see when they click on your name and what you say about yourself on your Facebook page. 

Are your social media profiles working for you?

If your profile doesn't clearly position you

Or, worse still, is skeletal

Then you're missing a trick and could be losing out on potential business. 

If you've made an informed decision not to use a particular network that's fine. Just make sure you delete your profile.

How can I set up a compelling profile?

If you are on a network then the first step to making social media work for you is to make sure your profile is as complete as it can be and that it clearly positions you. 

Answer the questions:

  • Who do you help? 
  • What do you help them with? 
  • What results have you achieved for your clients? 
  • What's unique about you that your target audience will value? Perhaps you are the only lawyer in your market with an MBA or you've written a book on a particular topic – if you can then answer the 'so what?' – what does this mean for prospective clients? Why should they care?

Include social proof where you can in the form of testimonials (if permitted in your jurisdiction), case studies, and links to your blog or other content repository.

Include information about your interests outside of work. A number of lawyers have asked 'is it really necessary to do so?'

I was recently contacted by a Barrister I did not know via LinkedIn. The reason he got in touch with me? We'd both run the New York marathon. He told me as much. Yes, he wanted someone who could help him with his marketing but the clincher was that we shared a common interest. Don't underestimate the power of that.

Let people know how they can contact you and include a sentence asking them to do so. There's little point in a well-crafted summary if you're not going to include a call to action. It's important to let people know you want to hear from them.

Some good lawyer profiles on LinkedIn, that you might want to check out, are:

Jessie Foley 

Callum Sinclair

Once your profile(s) is complete and you're happy with it, you're ready to move to Phase 2: Connecting with others – the topic for next week's post.

What are your top tips for creating strong social media profiles? 

My book 'The Complete Guide to LinkedIn for Lawyers: Connect, Engage and Grow your Business' is now available from the LexisNexis store. If you're sceptical about LinkedIn, are unsure how it might be able to help you, or just want some practical tips you can put into action straight away, you might find it useful. 

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A 5-phase process to leveraging social media in professional services

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

The wrong way to approach someone you've never met before

A couple of people have approached me in the past month via LinkedIn. Prior to this I'd never come across them but they both sent direct messages requesting a meeting. I accepted out of curiosity

Or perhaps it was my British reticence to say 'no' or, more to the point, 'why?'

Both meetings were predictable. The person told me about their business and their ideal client and asked if I could refer them work. They asked very few questions.

I walked away thinking they'd have to do more if they wanted a referral.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to refer work to others but they have to demonstrate their credibility first and I have to have built up some sort of rapport and trust with them. 

I'm not saying you can't approach someone you've never conversed with before on LinkedIn.

But there is a better way to go about it.

A better way to go about it

Focus on the other person and their needs.

Offer something of value to them. Or thank them for something they shared and ask them a question.

For example, if someone approached me about a roundtable or webinar on a specific topic of interest to me, I'd go along. If they asked for some input into something (and said why they wanted it) I'd help. Wouldn't you?

While the aim of any social media activity has to be to build relationships one by one and to take these offline, there are some things you need to do first.

A 5-phase process to leveraging social networks

Here's a simple 5-phase process to leveraging social networks.5 phase process of LinkedIn

 

Phase 1 involves setting up compelling profiles that clearly position you, on each of the networks you use for work purposes

Phase 2 is about connecting with others

Phase 3 involves engaging with others and being active on each network on which you wish to have a presence

Phase 4 looks at taking relationships offline

Phase 5 covers measuring your performance

The speed at which you move through each of these phases will vary.

It is important to have all your ducks in a row so that you are well placed to take advantage of new work opportunities when they do arise. If your profile clearly positions you, if you are connected with people in your target industry sector(s), if you regularly engage and share valuable content, then others are more likely to want to meet you offline.

And you're more likely to get requests from people to meet up.

If you have a clear sense of what it is you're looking to achieve and if you measure how you're doing, using metrics that matter to you, you'll probably find integrating social media with your existing business development and marketing initiatives helps them to fly.

Over the coming weeks I'll be posting a series of follow-ups covering each of the 5 phases in more detail. Subscribe using the email subscription form above if you'd like to receive these articles by email. Alternatively you can subscribe to the RSS feed. 

My book 'The Complete Guide to LinkedIn for Lawyers – connect, engage and grow your business' is due out on 31 July 2012. It's being published by LexisNexis. If you'd like to pre-order a copy or find out more click here.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this process? What else would you include? 

How has following a similar process helped you/your firm? 


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Using LinkedIn in convoy: helping professional services firms to win new business

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

In mid 2011, Brian Inkster talked about the importance of tweeting in convoy (a term coined by Jon Bloor) to win new business. Tweeting in convoy is about ensuring that your team's personal accounts, your practice group/industry sector and your firm twitter accounts link up and complement one-another. This concept should also be applied to a professional service's firm's LinkedIn activity. 

Using LinkedIn in a convoy

There is a synergistic effect to be gained from doing so and this is likely to lead to greater business success. Here's why.

Why should professional services firms use LinkedIn in convoy?  

Typically there are multiple professionals from within your firm on LinkedIn. But they're all doing their own thing. 

They're making a small dent and, provided they are actively using the platform, they're staying front of mind with their own individual networks.

BUT they're not currently harnessing the power of the firm's combined network so they might not be making their clients, referrers and other contacts aware of other issues that could impact them or that they might be interested in.

As a result your firm could be missing out on new business opportunities. 

Consider the following scenario: a major tender is due out in 3 months. You want to position your firm as the leading authority in the client's industry sector. You blog about various issues they'll be facing, some members of your team share this with their contacts (some of whom work at the tendering organisation), you do all your normal pre-tender things to position yourself before the tender comes out.

How much more traction would you get if all of your team members on LinkedIn with connections at the client organisation posted the link to the blog on their LinkedIn status updates with some commentary about why it's important and who should read it. Additionally the key relationship people for that client/prospect might email their contacts within the organisation to give them a heads up on issues. Some of your team members might ask questions in group discussions where employees of the tendering organisation are active. Other team members may answer these questions or get involved in the discussion.

You can see how, even with a bit of coordination, your efforts are much more likely to get noticed. 

In terms of tweeting in convoy Brian talked about the firm account as being the battleship.

The practice group/industry accounts are the aircraft carriers. 

And the personal accounts are the destroyers.

In the LinkedIn context your company profile is your battleship.

Your individual accounts are your destroyers.

Any practice or industry focused groups that you run on LinkedIn would be your aircraft carriers. 

If everything you do on LinkedIn is part of an organised whole, you are likely to get more traction more quickly. 

What steps should you take to get your various LinkedIn accounts working in harmony? 

Firstly, you need someone, or a team of people, to coordinate activity. By this I mean there needs to be a central repository of content and a mechanism for firm updates to be sent to team members on LinkedIn to post to their status updates and for team members to request that their updates are shared by colleagues or via the firm's status updates. 

This is where smaller firms have an advantage as it's less unwieldy for them to do this. Large firms will likely need a more structured process. 

Secondly, answer the following: 

Are your people connected to one another on LinkedIn? 

Do they like, comment on or share their colleagues' updates (where appropriate) with their own network? 

Do they call or email clients, contacts or prospects who may be interested in some information shared by a colleague? 

These are all things which should be encouraged and which must be spearheaded by the 'coordinating person/team'.

Without the left hand talking to the right hand, your LinkedIn efforts will only be as good as each individual person. 

If you want to benefit from the sum of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts and to maximise your chances of winning new business via LinkedIn, consider how you and your colleagues can use LinkedIn in convoy. 

What's your view? 

How has LinkedIn helped you and your firm from a business development and marketing perspective? 

Image by Brian A. Lautenslager, U.S. Marine Corps [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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LinkedIn as an internal communications tool in professional services firms

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Kirsten Hodgson| Leave a comment

When you think of internal communications you tend to think of tools such as Yammer. LinkedIn doesn’t automatically spring to mind. BUT if you’re a lawyer, accountant, engineer, or internal marketing professional it should definitely form part of your internal communications arsenal.

At a basic level ensure your profile positions you well with your colleagues. Even if your clients are internal, they may well look at your LinkedIn profile to find out more about you, your skills and how you can help them.

What conclusions would they draw from your profile? 

By connecting with your colleagues on LinkedIn you can not only leverage one another’s contacts but can also use LinkedIn to help break down silos and make them aware of issues their clients might be facing with which you can help (through the status updates feature). If you use this in conjunction with one on one meetings, door-stopping, news-alerts, key client, industry sector and cross-practice group meetings, it can be very powerful indeed.

A couple of weeks ago LinkedIn launched its targeted updates feature to all companies on LinkedIn. This gives internal communications teams (and the professionals they work for) the ability to send tailored messages to their colleagues. While these will be visible to anyone viewing the company page they will only appear in the updates stream of those ‘followers’ you select. This could be a great way to communicate or reinforce key messages and sharing these on LinkedIn makes it easy for your colleagues to share these with their networks. 

When using LinkedIn for internal marketing purposes, focus on helping your colleagues. If they share information that your contacts would benefit from seeing, share their update (or at a mimimum ‘Like’ or ‘Comment’ on it). If you become aware of a skill they have that one of your clients may need, offer to make an introduction. Each month aim to introduce one of your colleagues to one of your connections who would benefit from meeting them. 

In large firms it’s almost impossible to know all your colleagues. You can harness the power of LinkedIn to get to know some of them a little better. It’s not a tool you should use in isolation but could add rocket-fuel to your existing internal communications initiatives. 

How else could you use LinkedIn for internal communications within a professional services firm? 

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