Using LinkedIn Groups for legal marketing purposes
Do you use LinkedIn Groups for legal marketing purposes? There's been a heated discussion of the pro's and con's of this tactic in Larry Bodine's listserv (membership required). Here's what I added today:
Funny that this conversation should be top-of-list today. Yesterday I joined about ten additional LinkedIn groups -- mostly for the "branding" value of having their logos on my profile. (I already belonged to six of them.) I think that these logos can provide some sense of the field in which you are playing and willing to make a contribution. For the most part, I only joined groups that showed up high in a search for relelvant legal marketing and socia media terms -- that also featured a significant number of members.
How do I use LinkedIn groups? Mostly like I use my aggregator -- to quickly skim for breaking news and concepts. Yes, there are a lot of annoying and blatant sales folks there. Ignore them. I comment now and then when I think that I can add value to a good conversation (most recently on the repurposing of lawyer bios as profiles for online marketing). I have received numerous inquiries and some new writing work from LinkedIn groups. I noticed that LMA (I am assuming) is adding chapter groups to foster intra-chapter communications and linking. As a result of my day playing around on LinkedIn groups, I became just the second member to join the Rocky Mountain Chapter group! Come on gang, let's get cracking!
I really think that it is too soon to tell. Better (especially for lawyers) to find a few narrowly focused groups (or create one) and participate by adding high-value content to the discussion. I have joined more than that because I am using these groups primarily for industry research -- not for promoting my own practice as a writer and ghostwriter for lawyers and law firms.
