#1NWebinar: Battle LinkedIn

December 3 2014

Battle LinkedIn: Law Firms vs. Consulting Firms

Webinar

Introduction

Alex Ziegler Strategist at One North

3 Fun Facts •  Used to be a consultant (but I

promise I am not picking sides)

•  I have 622 connections on LinkedIn (still way behind my father-in-law)

•  Found my way to One North through LinkedIn

Why LinkedIn matters

LinkedIn has been dubbed the “social network preferred by executives” by:

with 88% of executives using LinkedIn “often”

and 73% saying that LinkedIn is their “preferred social network”

0.081 1.6 4 8 15 33 40

65

100

187 200

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

LinkedIn is growing in importance

LinkedIn now has users 332 million and is growing at 38% annually

…and it’s not just in the US

In Q3 of 2014

of new members came

outside of the US

75%

LinkedIn applies to every stage of your client relationships

Someone unaware of your firm may become interested when they see a relevant post.

Generate Awareness

They can build a stronger relationships through personal connections.

Establish Trust & Advocacy

Seeing others share and recommend content can influence their perception.

Loyalty & Influence

Our curiosity

What are the top law firms and consulting firms doing on LinkedIn to build relationships?

Who we assessed

Vault Top 10 Consulting Firms

AmLaw Top 10 Law Firms

What we wanted to learn

Company Profile

Leadership Profiles

Company Posts

Followers

How are companies using LinkedIn?

How does it impact audience engagement?

? Groups

Which of these dimensions makes the BIGGEST impact?

2 1

3

How we approached it

Score 0 1 2 3 4 5

Least Robust Most Robust

We created a scoring rubric to assess and compare LinkedIn Presence across multiple dimensions.

Company Profile - Scoring

Main Company Page •  Company Information •  Recent Updates Section •  Affiliated Pages •  Featured Groups

0 5

No company page Utilize all features included in assessment

0 5

No careers page Utilize all featured included in assessment

Does each company use the features that are available?

Careers Page •  Visual Elements •  Featured Employees •  Recent Updates

LEAST ROBUST MOST ROBUST


Company Page – Example (Main Company Page)

Company Page – Example (Auxiliary Page)

Careers Page – Example (Careers Page)

Company Profile – Results

Main Company Page •  Company Information •  Recent Updates Section •  Affiliated Pages •  Featured Groups

Law Firms Consulting Firms

Not too far behind WINNER


Much farther behind WINNER

Who wins this battle?

Careers Page •  Visual Elements •  Featured Employees •  Recent Updates

Company Profile – Law

Company Main Company Page Careers Page Total Score

DLA Piper 5 4 9

White & Case 4 5 9

Hogan Lovells 5 3 8

Latham 3 5 8

Kirkland Ellis 3 4 7

Baker McKenzie 4 1 5

Skadden 3 1 4

Jones Day 3 1 4

Sidley 3 1 4

Gibson Dunn 3 0 3

Average 3.6 2.5

Most Robust

Least Robust

On average, law firms tend to have a partially complete company page and tend to not leverage a careers page.

In contrast, consulting firms tend to have more robust company pages and are more likely to have a robust careers page.

Company Profile – Consulting

Company Main Company Page Careers Page Total Score

PwC 5 4 9 Accenture 5 4 9 Oliver Wyman 4 5 9 Deloitte 4 5 9 McKinsey 4 4 8 BCG 4 4 8 A.T. Kearney 4 4 8 Booz Allen Hamilton 3 5 8

Bain 3 1 4 The Parthenon Group 3 0 3

Average 3.9 3.7

Most Robust

Least Robust

Company Profile – Visual Comparison

Legal Consulting

vs

Most Robust

Least Robust

Company Profile – Observations & Questions

•  Many law firms have the bare minimum when it comes to their careers page – why is this?

•  LinkedIn charges for use of various features

•  Benefit to careers page beyond just recruits

Posts – Scoring

How frequently do they post? 0 5

No posts Post at least once a day

Firm News External News Thought Leadership

Does each company post updates?

What type of posts are they making?


Firm News Example

•  Links to a press release on the DLA Piper site •  Helps to “credentialize” the firm, but doesn’t provide information that audiences can use •  Mixing in other types of posts of important

External News Example

•  Links to an external news source (The Recorder) •  Showcases firm’s perspective on something that is happening in the news •  Both “credentializes” DLA Piper and offers useful information

Thought Leadership Post Example

•  Links to a publication on the DLA Piper site

•  Includes an interesting info-graphic

•  Demonstrates knowledge of the retail industry

•  Guides users to explore more information on the website

Posts – Results


TIE


Much more posting of firm news WINNER


How frequently do they post?

What type of posts are they making?

On average, law firms tend to post items relatively regularly.

Posts – Law

Company Post Frequency

Baker McKenzie 5

DLA Piper 4

Skadden 4

Sidley 4

White & Case 4

Gibson Dunn 4

Latham 4

Jones Day 4

Hogan Lovells 3

Kirkland Ellis 0

Average 3.6

Most Robust

Least Robust

In contrast, consulting firms post more frequently.

Posts – Consulting

Company Post Frequency

BCG 5

Booz Allen Hamilton 5

PwC 5

Bain 4

McKinsey 4

Oliver Wyman 4

A.T. Kearney 4

Accenture 4

The Parthenon Group 4

Deloitte 3

Average 4.2

Most Robust

Least Robust

Posts – Visual Comparison

Legal Consulting

vs

Most Robust

Least Robust

Law firms tend to post primarily internal items with some amount of thought leadership posting.

Types of Posts – Law

Company Firm News Thought Leadership External News

DLA Piper ✔ ✔ ✔

Hogan Lovells ✔ ✔

Latham ✔ ✔

Skadden ✔ ✔

White & Case ✔ ✔

Jones Day ✔ ✔

Gibson Dunn ✔ ✔

Baker McKenzie ✔

Sidley ✔

Kirkland Ellis

Consulting firms tend to post more thought leadership than law firms and are less internally focused.

Types of Posts – Consulting

Company Firm News Thought Leadership External News

Bain ✔ ✔ ✔

Oliver Wyman ✔ ✔ ✔

Deloitte ✔ ✔ ✔

Booz Allen Hamilton ✔ ✔

PwC ✔ ✔

The Parthenon Group ✔ ✔

A.T. Kearney ✔

Accenture ✔

McKinsey ✔

BCG ✔

Posts – Observations & Questions

•  Law firms are not posting as much thought leadership content – why is this?

•  Often times it’s easier to post firm news

•  Law firms have the content, but may not be leveraging it the way they could be (e.g., curating select blog posts, developing info-graphics to draw interest to publications)

Groups – Scoring

How many groups do they have?

0 5

No groups 16 or more

Does each company have groups?


Groups – Example (Location Based)

Groups – Example (Alumni / Expertise Focused)

Groups – Example (Program Focused)

Groups – Results


Far fewer groups WINNER


How many groups do they have?

On average, law firms do not create a lot of groups.

Groups – Law

Company Number of Groups

Baker McKenzie 1

DLA Piper 1

Skadden 1

Sidley 1

White & Case 1

Hogan Lovells 1

Gibson Dunn 1

Latham 0

Jones Day 0

Kirkland Ellis 0

Average 0.7

Most Robust

Least Robust

In contrast, consulting firms create many more groups.

Groups – Consulting

Company Number of Groups

Bain 5

BCG 4


PwC 4

McKinsey 4

Oliver Wyman 2

A.T. Kearney 2

Accenture 2


Deloitte 0

Average 2.8

Most Robust

Least Robust

Groups – Visual Comparison

Legal Consulting

vs

Most Robust

Least Robust

Groups – Observations & Questions

•  Law firms don’t utilize groups as much – why is this?

•  There may be regulatory reasons why law firms are more hesitant to use groups

•  Opportunity to have alumni groups (past

employees can become future clients, and they refer people as well)

Leadership Profiles – Scoring

Number of Connections 0 5

No connections 500 +

Does each leader have a robust profile?

0 5

No features Using all features listed

Profile Features

Publications 0 5

No publications More than 10 publications




•  Groups •  Skills / expertise •  Following

•  Picture •  Summary •  Experience /

education

Leadership Profiles – Number of Connections

Leadership Profiles – Profile Features

Leadership Profiles – Publications

Assessment Challenges

Legal Firms # of Leaders Identified

Latham 12

Baker McKenzie 8

DLA Piper 4

Jones Day 4

White & Case 6

Kirkland Ellis 5

Hogan Lovells 3

Sidley 5

Gibson Dunn 5

Skadden 4

Consulting Firms # of Leaders Identified

PwC 27

BCG 17


McKinsey 5

Bain 5


Accenture 3

Deloitte 2

A.T. Kearney 1

Oliver Wyman 1

We couldn’t consistently identify leaders for all firms.

Leadership Profiles – Results

Leadership Team Overall


Top Profile By Firm


TIE (both are weak)


Top profile not as strong WINNER

On average, the leadership of the top legal firms have relatively low scores in terms of the robustness of their presence on LinkedIn.

Company Leaders Identified Connections Profile

Features Publications Total Score

Latham 12 2.08 2.67 0.17 4.92

Baker McKenzie 8 2.13 2.63 0 4.75

DLA Piper 4 2.25 2.25 0 4.5

Jones Day 4 1.5 1.25 0 2.75

White & Case 6 1 1.5 0 2.67

Kirkland Ellis 5 1.2 1.4 0 2.6

Hogan Lovells 3 1.33 1 0 2.3

Sidley 5 1 0.8 0 1.8

Gibson Dunn 5 0.8 0.8 0 1.6

Skadden 4 0 0 0 0

Average 1.33 1.43 0.02

Most Robust

Least Robust

Leadership Team Overall – Legal

Leadership Team Overall – Consulting

Overall, consulting firms tend to have more robust leadership profiles than the legal firms we assessed, however findings are likely skewed by number of leaders identified.

Company Leaders Identified Connections Profile

Features Publications Total Score

A.T. Kearney 1 5 5 2 12

Oliver Wyman 1 5 4 0 9

McKinsey 5 3 3.2 2 8.2

PwC 27 2.48 2.33 0.22 5.03

Bain 5 2.2 2.6 0.2 5

The Parthenon Group 3 2.33 1.67 0 4

BCG 17 1.41 1.76 0.24 3.41

Accenture 3 1.67 1.67 0 3.33

Booz Allen Hamilton 8 1.88 1.38 0 3.25

Accenture 3 1.67 1.67 0 3.33

Deloitte 2 0 1 0 1

Average 2.42 2.39 0.42

Most Robust

Least Robust

Leadership Profiles – Visual Comparison

Most Robust

Least Robust


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Leadership Profiles – Observations & Questions

•  Lowest utilized feature was “publications” – missed opportunity to share interesting content

•  We looked at just leadership - what would we find if we assessed all employees?

•  Firms are doing poorly in this area - does this dimension even matter?

How does all of this impact audience engagement?

Company Profile

Leadership Profiles

Company Posts

Followers



? Groups


2 1

3

Ideal ways to measure engagement

Company Analytics View

Follower to Employee Ratio

Followers

Engagement: “following” a company means you choose to subscribe to updates from them in your feed.

Normalization: larger companies have a larger network, so we normalized this number by looking at the ratio of followers to employees.

Follower to Employee Ratio – Comparison

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Follo

wer

to E

mpl

oyee

Rat

io

Company

Consulting firms have much higher follower to employee ratios than law firms. They also have a larger spread of follower to employee ratios.

Legend

Consulting Firms

Law Firms

Does follower ranking align to LinkedIn ranking?

We found that the LinkedIn rankings were somewhat indicative of the follower rankings, but they did not always match up for a number of different reasons.

Company Type A. Follower Ranking B. LinkedIn Ranking

McKinsey Consulting 1 2

BCG Consulting 2 5

Bain Consulting 3 9

Oliver Wyman Consulting 4 3

The Parthenon Group Consulting 5 15

A.T. Kearney Consulting 6 1

Booz Allen Hamilton Consulting 7 6

Accenture Consulting 8 8

Deloitte Consulting 9 14

Hogan Lovells Legal 10 13

A. Follower Ranking- Ranking of companies by their Follower to Employee Ratio B. LinkedIn Ranking- Ranking of companies by their total LinkedIn score from this assessment

Does follower ranking align to LinkedIn ranking? (continued)

Company Type A. Follower Ranking B. LinkedIn Ranking

Baker McKenzie Legal 11 12

DLA Piper Legal 12 7

PwC Consulting 13 4

Skadden Legal 14 20

White & Case Legal 15 11

Latham Legal 16 10

Sidley Legal 17 16

Kirkland Ellis Legal 18 18

Jones Day Legal 19 17

Gibson Dunn Legal 20 19

A. Follower Ranking- Ranking of companies by their Follower to Employee Ratio B. LinkedIn Ranking- Ranking of companies by their total LinkedIn score from this assessment

Which dimension has the biggest impact?

Company Profile

Leadership Profiles

Company Posts

Followers



? Groups


2 1

3

LinkedIn features with the most Impact

We identified two statistically significant correlations suggesting that company profile robustness and leadership profiles may impact how many followers were achieved.

Follower to Employee

Ratio

Follower to Employee

Ratio

Company Profile

Robustness

Leadership Profile

Robustness

p < 0.05

p < 0.05

Legal

Consulting

Less than 5% chance that the correlation is a fluke.

Impact – Observations & Questions

•  Frequency of content posting did not surface as a big differentiator

•  Currently company profile pages make the biggest impact for law firms – in a few years, once their presence on LinkedIn is more mature, will leadership profiles be more impactful?

•  Makes sense that leadership profiles are so impactful for consulting firms:

•  we are curious about other people •  we like to network •  we are far more interested in content that comes

recommended by an individual

What We Learned

•  Overall, consulting firms win the battle. But it isn’t really a battle. The consulting and legal industries are different, so we expect differences in their LinkedIn behavior. This doesn’t mean that law firms can’t learn from consulting firms are doing.

•  What your people do matters. The most impactful LinkedIn

features for consulting firms is leadership profiles. If law firms were to boost their profiles, they may see similar results.

•  LinkedIn presence is no longer a “nice to have.” There are big disparities between firms that have a robust LinkedIn presence and those that don’t across various dimensions. There is a lot of opportunity to not just be on LinkedIn but to do more on LinkedIn.

What You Should Do

Stay updated LinkedIn is always changing. Find out what new features are out there to take advantage of.

Company profile

Create a strong company page. Careers pages are important!

Profiles Urge employees to complete their profiles, form connections, and engage audiences with interesting posts and publications.

Posts Ensure that your company is not just firm-centric content, but also content that audiences can really use.

Groups Explore utilizing groups, particularly for alumni, because they can become future clients and refer others.

Analytics Track your engagement on LinkedIn through the robust analytics that are available to you.

Checklist (In Order of Priority)

Questions?

Alex Ziegler Strategist

[email protected]

Social Media

#1NWebinar: Battle LinkedIn