Well there's good news and there's bad news.
First the bad news – yes, LinkedIn hates your company page. Sounds a bit harsh, I know. But by and large it is very difficult to get any “play” from your law firm's company page, at least as we compare that to the possibilities of your personal profile. The limitations on how and when you can engage as a company page and (it seems to me) the natural actions of the LI algorithm really make life a bit tricky for the kind of natural and easy engagement you can do using your personal linkedin profile.
That said, there are a few ways you can try to give your company page a nudge in the right direction, and probably should.
Actually Respond to Comments
Look this should be a no-brainer, but if by some miracle you post some content that both gets read and incites a comment of some kind (that isn't spam or abuse) then how about responding to it? Even just “thanks” is fine if that's appropriate.
The number of company pages I investigate where there are unanswered comments is pretty amazingly high – so stand out from the crowd by giving your firm page a bit of an opportunity to exist as a “person” in the LinkedIn universe.
Have Fun… Yes – with your Firm's Brand!
One of the biggest problems that happens with law firm marketing is that the further you get away from the individual and more into the “brand”, the less personality exists.
In fact, in most cases of law firms on social media they have no personality at all – it's been stripped away in an effort to remain professional sounding, and because nobody in the marketing team is empowered or authorised to do anything that might go outside the very narrow confines of acceptable use set by the marketing committee.
Now this doesn't mean you need to turn your firm's company page into comedy central.
It does mean that it's OK to be appropriately light-hearted from time to time. Of course, this is the internet so make sure it's bleeding obvious if you're being light-hearted, because we all know that if something can be misinterpreted as being offensive, it will be.
Invite People to Follow your Page
So you've started a firm, built a company page for your law firm on LinkedIn, paid a graphic designer to come up with some artwork for it.
And now you're asking your marketing person “hey Susan – why aren't our LinkedIn followers growing? Are we posting at the wrong time of day or something?”
Susan, being the marketing gun she is, asks you a question in response to your question “well Rick, have you actually asked anyone to follow the page or told anyone it exists, at all?”.
“No Susan – I couldn't possibly do that, it's not how you play cricket!”.
Now Susan wouldn't say this because she values her job, but I'll give it a crack: “Yo Rick – if your version of marketing is to stay as silent as possible about what you're doing with your firm, then it's going to be a long hard road”.
Don't be Rick. I recognise that it has a bit of an ick factor to it, but just head on over to your LinkedIn company page, find the bit that says “Invite Connections” and do that.
Even better if you have more than one partner, take turns inviting your relevant connections to follow your page. I know you don't want to, but just do it anyway.
Post More Interesting Content
LinkedIn, even for company pages, has a variety of different content types. Mix it up, do something different, utilise the various options available to you. Right now you can publish:
- text posts
- images
- videos
- polls (yep – even polls!)
- “articles” – LinkedIn' native longer-form content.
Try not to just do the same thing over the over – mix it up!
Use Hashtags
Look I'll be honest – I think hashtags are #prettystupid.
But the fact is that they help people find your content. Tonnes of people search for content on LinkedIn using hashtags, and so a bit of strategic hashtag use is probably called for.
Just take a peek at which hashtags related to your content have more than 2 followers and go with a few of those each time you post.
Personally I'm a fan of integrating them into the post itself rather than just plonking them at the end in pile, but either way works fine.
Keep it relevant, don't go too nuts, and you should be fine.
Engage… To the Extent that LinkedIn Lets You
One of the biggest deficiencies on the LinkedIn platform is that it's a bit of a pig to try and actually engage with your potential clients as your firm.
For most firms this isn't a bit problem since if they can't even reply to comments the chances you're hunting down opportunities for engagement are pretty slim.
However, there is one feature that allows your company page to “follow” a limited number of hashtags. You can then engage, as your brand, with people who are posting using those hashtags.
It's pretty limited, but it's a touch better than nothing – and worthwhile trying to do if you can.
So It's Hard, but it's Not Impossible
If you're prepared to put the work in, it is actually possible to grow your company page on LinkedIn.
But if you just want to auto-post using whatever third party scheduler you feel like, then don't expect too much to happen.
