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Lawyers coming to LinkedIn

Lawyers are coming to LinkedIn quickly posts Steve Matthews this morning.

I mentioned LinkedIn during an in-house presentation at my law firm a few weeks back, and knew at that point about 15% of our Lawyers were on it. Checking back today, that number has jumped to around 35%……Lawyers already get networking for [business development] and the ‘it’s who you know’ concept, so these numbers really shouldn’t surprise. There’s a tipping point on any new technology, especially in the legal industry, where adoption suddenly becomes socially acceptable. Many newer web technologies — blogs, wikis, RSS, tagging, etc. — are building towards that tipping point. It seems strange to say this, but social networking might just be closer to that cultural break than any of the others.

As way of background, LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking site, mainly used for professional networking. As of May 2007, it had more than 11 million registered users, spanning 150 industries and more than 400 economic regions.

I’m advising LexBlog clients to used LinkedIn for building the network of people they’re meeting through their blog. That network should include:

  • Bloggers whose content our clients reference in their own blog.
  • Bloggers who reference our clients’ blog content.
  • Reporters whose content our clients’ reference in their own blog.
  • Bloggers who they admire and who blog they subscribe to.
  • Reporters and journalists they have been interviewed by.
  • Program coordinators for conferences the blogger has presented or wants to present at.
  • Lawyers and other folks they meet whether via email or conference appearances.

Do this for 6 months and you are going to have hundreds of connections to reach out to for various purposes. And those connections are updating their profile and their connections on LinkedIn all the time. Much more powerful than your contact manager.

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  • http://impact.freethcartwright.com Andrew Mills

    I’ve been on LinkedIn for years but only recently started to make more of it. One interesting feature is “LinkedIn Groups”. This is a “special request” set-up with LinkedIn and has some interesting potentials. We’ve started a regional association for IP professionals in my part of the UK (www.nodus-ip.com) and we’ve got a LinkedIn group going live in a couple of days. Should help us administer and run the group without the need for messy excel spreadsheets whilst at the same time introducing a load of fellow practitioners to the site.

  • http://www.iplegal.co.za Janaee

    I joined LinkedIn only a couple of months ago and already have a 100 odd conections, which is great.
    Andrew Mills, I like your group that you have started and think it might be a good idea, that us IP Professional start a similar group here in Pretoria, South Africa.

  • http://www.ipadrblog.com Vickie Pynchon

    Kevin, On your advice, I’ve joined linkedin and asked colleagues to do so as well. Are there ways to use the thousands of “contacts” I now have for marketing purposes other than to mutely watch the numbers grow? Anyone else who uses linkedin for business development, please weigh in as well. Thanks, Vickie