What LinkedIn Maps tells us about Lawyers

LinkedIn has introduced a quirky new tool for users to visualise their connections and professional network, its called LinkedIn Maps. I've created my own LinkedIn map here:

So what does my LinkedIn Map tell me:

1. Well, firstly that the LinkedIn Maps gadget is pretty intelligent!  Within seconds it created this map for me and categorised my networks efficiently and...erm...categorically.
2. The 2 main hubs of my network (the orange hub and the dark blue hub) are connections I've met through industries I've worked in as an in-house lawyer, those being digital media and travel respectively.  These hubs are full of people I've met in business, in industry, non-lawyer contacts.  These people use LinkedIn big time. 
3. Despite being a lawyer myself, knowing lots of lawyers and working in private practice for a good proportion of my career, my lawyer connections from private practice using LinkedIn only account for a sprinkling of my LinkedIn contacts, the pink hub and the yellow hub (spot them if you can). Now, on LinkedIn, I hunt for colleagues and business acquaintances I've met in all walks of life in equal measure, so this tells me that, as a breed, the legal industry is significantly under-representing itself on LinkedIn.
4. Lawyers I've met solely through the power of social media over the last year, based in both the UK (the green hub) and overseas (the purple hub), and who I've connected with on LinkedIn now out-number my "in the flesh" private practice lawyer connections from over many years who've connected on LinkedIn.  
5. As a rule, I used to only connect on LinkedIn with individuals I'd physically met or done business with, but social media threw that rule out of the window for me.  I'll now connect with individuals I know only through social media channels even if I haven't met them in the real world, where I know there's a beneficial professional relationship, or even if I just like them.  However, I still won't connect with individuals who I haven't met with, if I don't know them through a social media channel.  Lawyers, if you're not using social media and your competitors are, they have the opportunity to up-turn your established client relationships.

So, in summary: Lots of people use LinkedIn. Not many lawyers do.  Lawyers who do use social media are rapidly stealing a march on their counterparts who don't.  In terms of making connections and cementing professional relationships, social media works. 

5 Reasons for In-House Counsel to use Linked In

In the style of the popular 5 Reasons for In-house Counsel to use Twitter, and having noticed that I'm spending more time using Linked In lately, it seemed only right and proper to set out my 5 reasons for in-house counsel to use Linked In:

1.  In Branded I discussed the benefits to all lawyers of creating a personal brand online.  Linked In is a credible, professional online network which is designed to provide you with the the tools to establish your online professional persona quickly and simply on a canvas which Twitter and, say, Facebook can't provide:

• Your Linked In profile page acts as an online CV
• The profiles of those who you are connected with are stored in an easily-searchable Contacts list
• Links to your website, blog and Twitter account can be easily incorporated into your profile page to showcase your wider online presence
• Status updates, activity timelines, group links and recommendations showcase your business impact

2. Linked In is the place to formally cement any professional connections which you've made fleetingly in the online or offline world, particularly those connections from Twitter!  Linked In also provides access to a wider network of like-minded in-house lawyers and other professionals who you might not necessarily use the other social media networks which you also do.

3. Linked In groups offer you a members-only style form for you to connect with other in-house professionals.  To get you started, here are a selection of Linked In groups focussed on in-house lawyers:

• In House Legal
• Legal Week: In-house lawyers group
• The Lawyer: In-house Hub
• Law Department Management

4. Linked In groups provide you with the opportunity to, not only connect with other in-house counsel, but to also learn from, join in and create discussions on your group's specialist subject area.  Members of groups share information resources, survey data and pose questions on topics of interest, and if you choose to subscribe to your group's email update (on a daily or weekly basis) all of that valuable information and discussion-based material can be delivered direct to your in-box.

5. Lawyers are one of the professions which are traditionally dragged into technology. My real-life contacts from law firms are under-represented on Linked In and, those law firm contacts who are there, have the least active profiles.  As in-house counsel, I like to think we're more connected with the way the rest of business uses technology and we should prove to the professional community that lawyers can have a social (networking) life too!

And, if you're a lawyer who does embrace technology, Linked In is one of the venues where you'll come across other tech-savvy lawyers.

I'll see you on Linked In then: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/melaniejhatton