Tag Archive for: attorney branding

Personal Branding for Lawyers: Building Trust and Credibility 

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Establishing a strong professional identity is no longer an option if you want to achieve success in the legal industry. Personal branding for lawyers is a necessity to help you stand out and gain the trust of your target audience in a crowded field. 

Your personal brand as a lawyer will stand apart from your legal marketing strategies and should even outlive them. It’s an investment that will continue to pay dividends throughout your legal career. Here’s why personal branding is so important and how you can begin to execute a strategy to forward personal branding for lawyers in your firm. 

What is Personal Branding for Lawyers?

Personal branding refers to the process of identifying and promoting a lawyer’s unique professional persona, which includes their identity, values, and expertise. It involves producing a memorable and distinct image that potential clients, the public, and peers can connect with. 

Similar to the way law firms focus on branding and reputation management, individual lawyers can do the same. This helps lawyers differentiate themselves and make a memorable and strong impression apart from the legal marketing efforts of the law firm. 

Why Personal Branding for Lawyers is Important

In a competitive and saturated field like law, it’s essential to find ways to stand out from the crowd. Personal branding is an excellent strategy to help you do just that. Here are some reasons why you should consider making personal branding a priority. 

Establish Trust and Credibility

Consumers hire attorneys they view as trustworthy and able to solve their legal issues. A personal brand helps you build trust through a broad audience by sharing knowledge. Over time, people begin to view you as an authority in your field and will be more likely to turn to you when they have a need. 

Increase Visibility and Enlarge Professional Network

Personal branding campaigns help lawyers stand out among their peers. When you make an effort to differentiate yourself, you will enlarge your professional network and earn more opportunities for referrals and direct client conversions. 

Enhance Career Growth

Personal branding can boost your law firm’s digital marketing efforts. It can also help each attorney advance their individual legal career. A well-established personal brand can open new professional opportunities and help an attorney boost their earning potential. 

Ways to Build Trust and Credibility Through Personal Branding

Most attorneys will develop a personal brand over time, whether they intend to or not. While you could sit back and let your clients and peers define who you are, it makes more sense to play a role in the process. Here are some ways you can build trust and credibility through personal branding. 

1. Define Your Personal Brand

Before you begin any promotional efforts, it’s important to define how you want people to view you as a lawyer. Do you want them to see you as compassionate, aggressive, or something else? By identifying these things upfront, you can craft a consistent and clear brand identity and message that will become a part of your campaigns. 

2. Identify Your Niche

It’s easier to set yourself apart from the crowd when you’re passionate about what you do. Choose a specific niche or legal practice area that aligns with your expertise and interests. From this, you can identify your target audience to better understand their particular challenges and needs. 

3. Create a Professional Online Presence

Your law firm should have a professional, engaging, and updated website that posts regular content. For personal branding purposes, you should have a page on that website as well that highlights your specialties and accomplishments. You will also want to have your own professional social media profiles you can use for personal branding purposes. 

4. Start With In-Person Networking

Make sure you join local and professional organizations so you can network with other professionals. Attend industry conferences and observe how the most successful personal brands make connections. With a few quality connections, you’ll be well on your way. 

5. Become a Thought Leader

Part of successful personal branding in the legal industry is establishing yourself as a subject matter expert. You do this by regularly publishing content people find engaging, valuable, and worth sharing. You can publish articles and video content on your law firm’s blog as well as on LinkedIn. 

6. Engage on Social Media

When you publish helpful content on various websites, don’t forget to share the links on social media. This will give you an opportunity to engage with people and even answer a few questions within reason. The more visible you are on these platforms, the more people will connect with your brand. 

7. Be Authentic

It can be tempting to create a persona that you think will be attractive or successful with your target audience. But if that persona is far removed from your personality, you won’t be viewed as authentic. It’s important to be yourself as much as possible. You’ll find the experience much more enjoyable, and your efforts will be more sustainable. 

8. Lift Up Others

People respect someone who takes the time to be helpful when there may not be something in it for them. Adopting a service mindset to your personal branding efforts will help you be successful long term. When you spend an extra few minutes answering a question or making a referral to another professional, word will get out that you are someone who can be trusted. 

9. Be Consistent

One personal branding mistake many professionals make is being inconsistent. If you’re creating content, like blog posts and podcasts, be consistent. Your audience will come to expect your content and will be disappointed when you fail to deliver. 

10. Get Involved in Your Community

Most attorneys serve a local audience. You can boost your personal brand throughout your local community by getting involved in things that have nothing to do with the law. Choose something you’re passionate about, such as youth sports, school clubs, helping animals, or assisting the needy. 

Get Help With Your Personal Brand

At Too Dard Loud Legal Marketing, we specialize in helping build personal brands for lawyers that boost a law firm’s overall legal marketing strategy. To learn more about establishing yourself as a leader in your industry and creating a law firm marketing solution that produces results, contact us. Give us a call at 800-649-1749 or message us online to schedule a free initial consultation. 

Just How Important is an Attorney’s Personal Brand?

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Lawyers face a particular challenge when it comes to being regarded as authorities in their fields and making connections with new clients. There are just so darn many attorneys that people seem to get overwhelmed and lump them all together into one big category.

As a personal injury, family law, business, or attorney specializing in any other area of the law, the last thing you want to get lost in the crowd. In fact, you don’t even want to be a nameless face in your own law firm, no matter its size.

The answer to these challenges is personal branding for attorneys. Here’s why personal branding is so important as an attorney and some strategies to build a strong personal brand.

The Basics of Personal Branding for Attorneys

Personal branding is the intentional and conscious effort to promote yourself professionally to create and grow your influence as a leader and authority. Personal branding is how you want others to view you professionally, whether they be your clients, colleagues, or other stakeholders.

Personal branding is more than having a fancy business card or impressive headshot. Those might be part of what sets you apart. But your brand is what you stand for as an attorney. Is it your fierce presence at the negotiation table? Your notorious attention to detail? Your intimate knowledge of case law? Your compassionate approach with clients? These are just a few examples.

Attorney vs. Law Firm Branding — What’s the Difference?

It’s important not to get your attorney’s personal brand confused with law firm branding. Traditionally, the term “branding” is associated with large companies like Apple and Coca-Cola. These are some of this country’s most recognized corporate brands.

Your law firm probably will, and should, have its own branding campaign. It will focus on the values and ideas the business stands for. With the advent of social media, many of today’s business leaders, who were once relatively obscure, now have personal brands and a wider audience. This is separate from the corporate brand.

As an attorney, your personal brand can certainly have some connections to your law firm. For example, you may share some of the same values and goals. But you’ll set yourself apart from your firm by using your brand to showcase what makes you unique and interesting as an attorney.

Why Personal Branding is Important for Attorneys

Even if your law firm is the most recognized in town, you need a personal brand. It’s not enough to simply ride on the coattails of a law firm’s branding efforts long-term. The legal industry is too competitive to trust that you’ll achieve success without personal branding. Still not sure? Here are some of the top reasons personal branding is vital for attorneys.

  1. Stand Out from the Crowd

Any attorney must recognize just how crowded and competitive the legal industry is. There are so many lawyers in some practice areas that it’s overwhelming. Think of how bewildered most potential clients must be when they begin researching lawyers. Your personal brand is the one way you can stand out from the crowd. And if you don’t put the effort into crafting your brand, your past clients might do it for you through online reviews.

  1. Reputation Management

As stated above, your personal brand is the same as your reputation. When it comes to lawyers, most start out with low expectations in the eyes of consumers. According to one Princeton Study, few people truly like lawyers even though they’re viewed as being competent and capable professionals.

That’s unfortunate. But you can use your personal brand to control your message. How do you want to be seen by others? Do you like being viewed as a ruthless adversary for your opponents? What about a dedicated advocate for your clients? You get to decide.

  1. Build Trust

When people are facing a legal challenge, many of them are more interested in hiring a lawyer than connecting with a law firm. There’s a difference. In the case of an individual attorney, your brand gives you the opportunity to build trust on a more personal level. It helps potential clients attach value to your name instead of only the law firm’s brand.

When you create a track record of successful results or are generous with your time online answering questions, people will remember your name and return to you again and again. They might also recommend you to others as someone trustworthy in a particular practice area.

  1. Establish Authority

Being seen online is great. But it’s probably not going to be enough to boost your personal brand. But you can use online strategies to establish and build authority, which sets you apart from other attorneys.

The best way to build authority is to share your knowledge. You can do this by answering questions, sharing content, and otherwise engaging with people. You can also share your results and background, such as any credentials or awards you’ve received.

  1. Client Acquisition

One of the main goals of most attorneys is to get more clients. After all, without clients, you can’t practice law, make money, or grow your business. In the age of digital media, prospective clients now do significant research before making a choice about who they will hire. A strong personal brand conveys experience, determination, knowledge, approachability, dependability, and many other elements that will boost client conversions.

  1. Opportunity Magnet

A strong attorney personal brand can also help you pull in more opportunities. For example, you are more likely to get professional referrals from other attorneys and professionals if you’ve demonstrated your knowledge and trustworthiness. Perhaps you’ll be asked to participate in professional events related to your practice area or find other exciting professional opportunities thanks to your winning personal brand.

Personal Branding Tips for Lawyers

As an attorney, your personal brand is inseparable from your reputation. Put that way, you can probably understand why promoting your reputation online might be important. But what’s the best approach to attorney branding to produce the results you want and need? Here are some personal branding strategies for lawyers.

  1. Understand Your Target Audience

Before you create a personal branding strategy, it’s important to clarify who you’ll be marketing to. Understanding your target audience is vital because it drives other marketing decisions, such as the online platforms you use and the type of content you create.

  1. Define Your Legal Identity

How would you define yourself in terms of your personal legal identity? This is another great starting point for your personal brand marketing. Take some time to consider who you are as a lawyer, including what things you value. For example, do you fight for justice, help clients protect their assets, or avoid conflict through negotiation? These values should permeate through all of your online activities.

  1. Establish a Strong Online Presence

Ensure you have a strong online presence personally, not just through your law firm. While you should have some space on your law firm’s website, your personal brand goes further than this. You can even create a separate website dedicated to your branding. Otherwise, you can focus on online platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for your branding efforts.

  1. Share Helpful Content

You’ll begin to build authority and trust as you share helpful content with your audience. Some of that content should be original blog posts and videos you create that showcase your knowledge and answer common legal questions. Other content, like relevant legal articles, can be shared from reputable sources.

  1. Engage With Followers

Much of personal branding takes place online. If you’re ignoring people who are interested in learning more about what you do, you’ll be disappointed in your online reputation. You’ll get the best results by engaging with people as much as possible. When someone posts an online review about your services, respond quickly and appropriately. If a person has a question or makes a comment on social media, engage with them to see how you can help. They’ll remember your name, even if they aren’t ready to hire a lawyer that day.

  1. Be Active in Your Community

In addition to your online activities, you can boost your personal brand by being an active member of your local community. Participate in business and charity events where you will get to know others and begin to receive some name recognition. In many cases, your photo and name may be posted online, which will boost your branding efforts.

  1. Cultivate Professional Relationships

Create personal connections in everything you do, whether it be working with a client, helping out in the community, or engaging with someone online. These relationships are the key to achieving more referral business and achieving your goals.

Need Help Creating and Promoting Your Personal Brand?

As this information illustrates, it’s essential to create and promote your personal brand as an attorney in addition to your law firm’s brand. But success doesn’t happen overnight, and effective digital marketing requires thoughtful strategy and execution.

At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, our team has a proven formula for helping attorneys establish and promote their personal brands. We never take a cookie-cutter approach to legal marketing but instead, tailor our strategies to what will achieve your individual goals. If you would like to learn more about how our team of seasoned digital marketers can elevate your online presence, contact us today to schedule a free consultation.