Can Linkedin Company Profiles be Effective?? September 14, 2010
Posted by travisthetrout in Linkedin.3 comments
We recently got an email circulated around work about the use of Linkedin. This contained the announcement that our firm is embracing social media.
Our firm’s page (one of several apparently) like most company profiles simply states our “stats” and a few employees have joined. The head of marketing wrote a whole piece about how we are going to use linkedin to get clients, trainees etc. In my mind these were empty words and wishful thinking. No proper strategy was circulated to the employees – we were simply told if you are on linkedin this is our company page. The email drew the page to our attention so they did get a couple more people to sign up.
In my office there are less than 100 people on Linkedin, surprisingly a lot of these members are on my team of 30ish. But the set up of the firm as a whole is not well represented. With such a large firm and multiple offices, I don’t really understand what the marketing team hope to achieve. (Maybe as I have newly entered the workplace and don’t yet have the connections to have a properly useful linkedin experience I don’t see the full benefit.) But I’ve always thought of linkedin as being more useful on a personal basis, and it is more about each individual’s efforts and connections, and the use of a company profile is somewhat limited. We do not use the custom company profile (and I don’t know if this is of any use).
To attract clients, we need to be offering a service. An extra service. A personal service. Not simply citing we have X offices and are highly recommended for XY and Z. Everyone already knows that from legal websites/publications. On a daily basis my supervising partner has proper interaction with current and prospective clients, long phone calls and face-to-face meetings as necessary – assisted by people like me who can be on hand to answer everything a client might need to know at anytime. Chatty, friendly but professional. This works. In comparison our current approach with social media is severely lacking. It needs to equal our traditional client service.
As for attracting trainees that is a completely different matter.
We attract trainees the same way any big firm does – our reputation, links with local law schools, law fairs and a good website. We don’t (yet) use social media. Is linkedin an answer? I don’t think linkedin will do anything extra to raise awareness of our firm (unlike twitter, or blogging) nor do I think it will improve the quality of trainees applying (they are already mostly first class degree/oxbridge students). It will not be a case of finding trainees on linkedin who will walk into the job based on their Linkedin Profile (not when current employees cannot be recommended for trainee positions (a long standing complaint)). and the larger Law firms are not in the business of head-hunting trainees. yet. (Although in some firms they are recommended). Besides if you are good – you don’t necessarily need social media to be known. Even as a paralegal, other firms (that I had no direct contact with in my job) had heard I was good at my job (a surreal experience) and told me this when turned up for an interview.
From a personal point of a view I would think the firm would benefit more from utilising a twitter account or blog. To draw attention to the firm in a positive way. Obviously there is more effort required with a blog or twitter (and more issues about what can be posted and by who etc). But I think even the bigger firms could make it work for them.
I’ve previously discussed facebook pages which are obviously more focused at recruiting trainees (my firm does not have one). But is this idea really any better?
