Nobody has time to think about their LinkedIn posts right?
Lawyers know the unwritten rule of LinkedIn that “delighted to announce” posts are a bit cringey, but acceptable. They’re consider safe enough to post. Uncontroversial.
And besides, who has time to think up another way to say these run-of-the-mill updates?
Well, I’ve done the thinking for you. If you want to avoid the clichés of LinkedIn and post something a little more relatable and interesting, try replacing the classic posts with some of these alternatives.
“Delighted to announce” becomes an endearing anecdote
Let’s start with the most common cliché of LinkedIn.
Of course you want to tell people if you’ve had a promotion, or you’ve been recognised as a Rising Star in the Legal 500.
But lots of lawyers are quite self-deprecating people, and these posts don’t sit so comfortably with them.
What can you try instead?
You could begin with an anecdote.
You could tell people of the time you had to Google what “redaction” actually meant as a trainee. Or when a colleague had to tell you that you didn’t need to stand up every time the managing partner entered the room. Or when you accidentally included an A4 print out of your cat in the bundle.
Then say, you never thought back then that you’d make it to Senior Associate. But here you are and you haven’t disclosed a picture of Snuffles for over 10 years.
Lawyers are terrified of admitting mistakes. But small faux pas like these make you human and relatable.
Alternatively, you could summarise your most interesting work.
Tell us that your team has dealt with cases ranging from pipeline disputes to shareholder agreements this year. There were challenges along the way with interim applications, tricky calls on privileged material and a knotty issue of contractual interpretation. Whatever it is, you don’t have to breach client confidentiality. Just give us enough detail to understand your expertise.
Then say something like “after all those tricky legal problems and late nights I thought nobody noticed, I was super happy to be nominated for a Rising Star award. Thanks to my clients for taking the time to give some lovely feedback.”
“I attended an event!” – tell us what you learned
Attending events is a great way to show what you’re interested in and how you’re expanding your knowledge in your area.
But you could have a much bigger impact with your post about it if you tell us a bit about it:
- What did you learn?
- What was the thing you found most interesting, surprising, or thought-provoking?
- Was there a point you disagreed with? Why?
With that sort of information, you’re showing your audience how you’ve become a more instructible lawyer by attending this event. And you can generate a bit of conversation on the post for further reach.
“Here’s my latest blog” – give us a teaser
Posting blogs on LinkedIn is a useful thing to do. It drives traffic to your website and shows us what you’re interested in. But you can make your LinkedIn post about your blog more effective with a quick tweak.
Just give us a little hook into the post, or a little trailer of what it’s about.
You could start with a question: Ever wondered why none of the other phone hacking cases made it to court? Here’s a short blog on the way Part 36 works to explain why.
Or give us a short extract. You could even just copy and paste the introduction and say “read my blog to find out more”. Dead simple. But much more intriguing than “here’s my latest blog”.
If you’d like any help with your LinkedIn strategy, or ideas for posting valuable content more regularly, please get in touch.