Tips for working on your personal brand in lockdown
With more than 13 million Australians in lockdown at the time of writing due to the Delta strain of COVID-19, we have seen a mass return to working from home (WFH), and law firms are no exception.
Business development projects are sometimes treated as things to do when billable work is quiet – as if it ever is! Yet lockdown presents a unique opportunity for those whose practices have gotten a little quieter as a consequence of the economic slowdown to consider spending time developing their personal brand.
Having a personal brand is key to attracting clients from your target market by letting them get to know more about you, your background and your specialities. While it’s been the subject of plenty of research, such as Robert Cialdini’s work on influence, it’s also pretty intuitive – we want to work with people who we like and have things in common with.
The first step to developing your personal brand is establishing what actually means to you, and who you are as a professional. Creating an authentic brand that accurately reflects your personality, interests, and areas of expertise will ensure that you’re promoting a message that’s consistent with your values and therefore more enjoyable for you to create content about. Your reputation as a professional starts from as early as your law school days, so make an effort to ask for feedback early in your career to help form your personal brand. It’s also important to try to maintain key professional relationships that may later help boost your career in law.
Secondly, once you’ve determined what your personal brand actually is, it’s time to find the most appropriate methods you can engage with to communicate it to the market. If you’re in lockdown you can’t exactly attend social events but there are an increasing number of ways lawyers and law firms alike can boost their online presence and showcase their personal brand to the market. Social media marketing, search engine optimisation and creating ‘high value’ online content like podcasts and blogs are all ways to get your brand out there without leaving your home office.
The average person reportedly spends two hours a day on social media, meaning there is huge potential for professionals to create and publish informative and high-quality content that can be seen by potential clients, employers and other professionals to promote their personal brand. Mondaq recently published an article in July 2021 with some great tips on how to get the best out of LinkedIn to boost your network visibility, and here at Hearsay we previously covered social media for lawyers and law firms in a blog post here.
To learn more tips on how to build your own personal brand, listen to Episode 11 of Hearsay with business development experts Araceli Robledo and Chris Gingell.