It’s January, and that means you’re probably thinking about
New Year’s resolutions like finally getting organized and goals for the year,
like financial targets or numbers of new clients, but have you ever considered setting
goals for how you use LinkedIn?

Hi, I’m Allison Shields, President of Legal Ease Consulting and one of the authors of the newly released book, Make LinkedIn Work for You, A Practical Handbook for Lawyers and other Legal Professionals.

By now, you’ve probably heard that if you’re a professional,
you really need to have a LinkedIn presence; most clients, potential clients
and referral sources expect you to have a LinkedIn Profile. But you may not
have heard much about what to do or how to approach LinkedIn beyond that.

In the book, my co-author, Dennis Kennedy and I talk a lot
about setting goals or determining a purpose for your use of LinkedIn. Dennis
likes to ask the question, “What are you hiring LinkedIn to do for you?” This
is a great place to start.

For most lawyers with established practices, we anticipate
that the best use of LinkedIn will be to create, manage, and care for your
network of referrers and potential referrers of business. But that may
not be the case for everyone. Some lawyers may want to use LinkedIn as a
platform to establish themselves as an expert in a specific niche. Others may
use it as a tool to identify and attract candidates for employment.

If you’re still not sure exactly what you want to use
LinkedIn for, think about your overall goals for the year or for your practice.
How might LinkedIn help you to accomplish those goals?

In my next video, I’ll give you some specific ideas about how you can do that. But for now, if you want to learn how to use LinkedIn more effectively, you can get a copy of Make LinkedIn Work for You, A Practical Guide for Lawyers and Other Legal Professionals on Amazon.com.