Top legal decision makers want to learn more about what’s going on at their law firms and stay on top of thought leadership. These are just 2 reasons why growth in law firm followers on LinkedIn is rising faster than law firm revenue and profits.

Followers can discover what direction law firms are headed by the nature of their posts and learning about new partners. Law Firm LinkedIn sites (as opposed to individual attorney pages) are becoming a central point of information and insight. They will eventually become as important as law firm websites — serving as an additive tool to boost engagement.

BTI research on more than 200 law firms over the last 12 months unveils the first set of key benchmarks law firms can use to measure their performance. These include:

• The typical law firm enjoyed 21% growth in the number of LinkedIn followers over the last year
• The median growth in followers is 19% — close to the average — suggesting there are few outliers
• 67 of the Am Law 200 firms beat the average

Look for LinkedIn pages for firms and attorneys to grow in importance and influence. Clients enjoy the convenience of one-stop learning. A growing number of clients enjoy commenting and adding to their own networks by seeing who else comments. Clients like to engage and benefit from being active.

We recommend these 4 tactics to boost high-quality followship and engagement to start:

• Invite clients to follow your firm page as standard practice when opening a matter.
• Post content between 7 and 11 times. LinkedIn feeds are crowded and move quickly — the chances of getting noticed are low. Ideally, we envision multiple postings spread over 2 weeks (including weekends) – but it can be easily extended to 20 or 60 days. A few outliers have had success with 3 and 5 months.
• Use an image instead of a firm logo and name — it will increase your chances of engagement by a factor of 12.
• Start your post with the meat of the content. It breaks so many rules of attorney writing but readers only see the first sentence of your post — you have 7 seconds to grab their attention.

Law firms’ use of LinkedIn is in the early stages of development and benefit. Law firms embracing the art of LinkedIn engagement will find themselves with more inbound leads and brand presence. You can also use LinkedIn to boost website performance and vice versa — it helps all around.

The quote above is at an extreme, but there are more top legal decision makers at this end of the spectrum than not. This is especially true in the following industries:

• Industrial Manufacturing
• Food
• Agriculture
• Consumer Products
• Mega Brands
• Chemicals
• Oil & Gas
• Power Generation
• Tier 1 Auto Supply Chain

ESG includes Environmental, Social, and Governance. Top legal decision makers are most concerned with the last 2. They are looking for industry practice and language to meet the requirements but allow for flexibility. This is a place where your industry insight is invaluable. Almost every client wants to know what their peers are saying — especially the ones who attracted litigation or investigations.

These clients are looking for guidance and suggested boundaries for disclosure. They also want to know about discourse between top executives and CLOs at leading ESG companies. These are the companies making big public commitments.

Law firms can add real value to these clients by going beyond a conversation and providing:

• Language from companies who have been successful with their disclosures
• Blinded background about corporate counsel conversations with management about ESG disclosures and policies
• Current lawsuits stemming from ESG related issues — and risk avoidance strategies for each
• Red flags and other indicators of trouble

The initial assignment may be small — but if an issue arises the attorneys providing these insights will get the call. And the attorneys who help clients get a millstone off their neck are branded for at least 10 to 15 years as problem solvers.