Approximately 97% of lawyers never share on Linkedin. Some of them don’t even know the option to share articles exists. To share an update, you simply log into Linkedin and go to the top of the homepage. I sometimes show lawyers the top of the page and have them read along—”Share an update…”
Simply paste a link here and it will show up on the homepage of your connections.
Just two years ago, I wouldn’t have recommended posting updates to Linkedin, because it’s just not very well-trafficked, but in the last two years Linkedin has not only had a huge increase in its population of users, but the users are now more active than ever. In the past week alone, a couple of the posts I shared were clicked on over a hundred times on Linkedin alone. Lawyers that don’t share articles and blog posts to Linkedin are missing a valuable opportunity to share, And it doesn’t cost a thing.
Now that we have established that sharing on Linkedin is in fact a thing, how often should you share?
The latest research coming out of Buffer, a sharing tool that tracks millions of articles shared across the internet, reports that the ideal number of times to share per month on Linkedin is 20. Do that math and that equates to about one post every business day. This research shows that posting 20 times per month will reach an average of 60% of your connections.
Is once per day too much?
Think about it: 40% of your connections will never even see the posts, but 60% will check in to Linkedin at some point during the month and will see a post from you. This research tells us that every lawyer would benefit from posting more often than they currently do.
How many lawyers post the ideal amount, sharing one post per day on Linkedin? My guess would be 0.1%—maybe 1 or 2 out of 1,000. Why don’t they share more? There are three excuses lawyers give me for not sharing:
1. They don’t know what to share.
2. They don’t have time to share.
3. They are worried about sharing too much.
According to the research, they definitely don’t need to worry about sharing too much. The other two are harder.
The best way to find more articles to share is by using tools like Twitter and Linkedin to follow people that share much more frequently on topics you are passionate about. The other way is to go to news sites like The Wall Street Journal or The National Law Journal and look to see what the most popular articles are in areas that are relevant to your clients.
The best way to learn is to experiment. Share, then check to see how many people have “liked” or commented on your posts. If you aren’t getting any comments, likes, retweets, or favorites you probably aren’t posting content that is relevant or interesting to your network. Yet.
Don’t give up! Keep going!
This is the biggest downfall of most lawyers that start sharing: They share once or twice, don’t see much love, and then give up sharing because “it didn’t work.” They need a larger sample size to learn and improve.
So get out there and start sharing. That is unless you’ve already hit 20 for the month.