In this week’s episode of The Law Practice Doctor, Sam Gaylord interviews Kristina Jaramillo, who is the founder and LinkedIn strategist for GetLinkeInHelp.com. Kristina helps professionals, service firms, and marketers increase their expert visibility and relevance on LinkedIn by not only connecting but also in generating revenue and firm awareness. During this episode, Sam and Kristina discuss strategies to accelerate your LinkedIn presence, what it means to be a thought leader, common mistakes, suggested tools, content, frequency, and marketing goals.
Main Questions Asked:
Is there more to LinkedIn than seeking out a new job? What strategies do you recommend to service and law firms? Are there ways to demonstrate your level of expertise on LinkedIn? Can you describe Pulse and what being a thought leader is? What are some of the similar issues you see with people who come to you? What strategies do you recommend for communities or forums, and which do you recommend participating in? Is there any type of content attorneys should create in order for their LinkedIn content to be more widely viewed? What engagement or community mistakes do you see law firms making? Is there a good measurement on how often to engage and post in communities within LinkedIn? What should an attorney’s LinkedIn marketing goals be? Are there any tools that can help be more engaging on LinkedIn? Are there different marketing objectives when dealing with LinkedIn as opposed to the other social networks?
Key Lessons Learned:
LinkedIn as a Platform
This is a platform where professionals target their audience and become a thought leader. LinkedIn is a B2B platform where you need to educate people and not think that they will buy immediately. It’s about nurturing and education. It’s possible to go beyond brand awareness, and the end goal should be to generate revenue. People tend to ‘lurk and learn’ on LinkedIn before reaching out to someone and taking the next step.. If you’ve met someone at a conference or professional endeavor, follow-up on LinkedIn and share content.
Strategies to Accelerate Presence
The biggest problem business owners face is that they are leaving out strategy when using LinkedIn. They key to standing out is to make sure you’re focused and specific on your area of expertise. Don’t just ‘tell’ others you are the expert in the field but rather ‘show’ them by focusing on one or two areas.
The Content Platform
Everyone has access to the content platform on LinkedIn, so anyone can be a thought leader. This is set up to format like a blog, but address this as much more than a blog. Not everyone is using the content platform, and those who are aren’t necessarily using it for more than a promotion. This is a way to share your value with people and communicate what you have to offer. Sharing your story and thought leadership is a way to become visible through yours and other peoples connections. To make the most of this, ensure you talk about something not everyone else is talking about. You could take a stance on something common within your expertise. The goals are to get views, comments, and engagement. Pulse is where LinkedIn cultivates all the articles on the platform and features the most popular ones.
Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is when someone is going beyond the generic information you might see across popular publications. This is going beyond posting general ‘how to’ and top ‘ten lists.’ Thought leaders are people industries look at first.
Common Issues & Mistakes
Using LinkedIn as a place to simply post your cover letter and resume is a mistake. Take that format and turn it into a marketing tool. Make sure you are speaking in first person not third person. When someone is reading your profile, they are asking the question, “What’s in it for me?” You need to ask yourself if your profile answers that question. Are they getting value from what you’ve posted? People focus too much on the amount of connections, likes, and comments. These can be meaningless metrics if you aren’t engaging.
Communities and Forums
People often join groups where their competitors are and not where their prospects are. Put yourself in the shoes of your clients and figure out where they are looking for information and to educate themselves. Aim to join a handful of groups where your competition hang out so you can stay up to date, but mainly be where your prospects hang out.
Suggested Content
Create examples of case studies and client experiences with step-by-step guides to offer value upfront and not just alluding to it. If you give information upfront and for free, then prospects will expect even more great information and quality when they hire you.
Frequency
Check daily for a few minutes to see if you need to take action. There is a maximum of 50 groups, so choose 5-10 a week and see if there is something you can comment on or share an article and add your own spin. 10-15 minutes a day won’t gain much traction on LinkedIn but is a solid place to start.
Marketing Goals
Are you getting qualified leads? Is this going from likes and connections to generating money? Take the relationships offline. Be careful not to jump on this too early. Once connected, the next step is joining a community and educating.
Tools
LinkedIn is slowly taking away features in order to get users to upgrade such as Sales Navigator. Survey Monkey allows you to create surveys for your clients or prospects, and allows you to engage with them and get ideas on what clients want you to write about. Docalytics allows you to embed into the document you send someone. So if it’s an e-book, you can see how far into the book someone read and what page they spent time on.
Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5 star rating and review in iTunes!
Links to Resources Mentioned:
Kristina@getlinkedinhelp.com
