The times, they are a changin’. Bob Dylan has been telling us that since the early 60s, but it’s taken the corporate world a few decades to not only accept change and diversity but understand that diversity and inclusion in law firms and the workplace foster a stronger sense of community, company culture, and profit margins.
2020 taught us all some very valuable and life-altering lessons, and one of the most important takeaways is that diversity, equity, and inclusion matter in the business world.
How, you ask? Let’s break it down. There are six simple ways you can demonstrate your own professional and personal commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion with a strong personal brand on LinkedIn.
As Digital Marketing Strategists and Trainers for lawyers and professionals, we make digital marketing easy and approachable by breaking down marketing jargon, into actionable steps that get results. With that said, let’s talk about using LinkedIn to build an inclusive, personal brand.
So many of our clients approach us in desperation to generate business for themselves using LinkedIn, as it’s well-established that professionals prefer doing business with those they know, like, and trust. There’s truly no better way to build those three elements than with mutual respect and professionalism.
These six steps we’re going to cover (which are also included in our video) are not only inclusive business practices, but good business and decorum in any space.
1. Use Your Pronouns
This isn’t political or controversial. It’s simply very important in the business world, especially when working to create a diverse and inclusive space. Adding your pronouns to your name on LinkedIn should be a standard business practice. And, you can check us on this one—LinkedIn actually agrees. LinkedIn has recently updated their profile format to allow people to add their preferred pronouns on LinkedIn.
Taking this small step of including your pronouns is a sign of mutual respect which speaks volumes, telling the person you’re connecting with that you won’t assume their gender, but rather be receptive and open to their gender preferences. Furthermore, it’s a best practice to never presume someone’s gender in general because the ramifications of such a mistake can be utterly embarrassing to you and hurtful to the person you’re trying to reach.
Wondering how this even applies to you? Well, we’ve experienced it firsthand, and can tell you it can often have nothing at all to do with gender preference. When a professional is unfamiliar with the gender or naming conventions of a particular region, country, or area, but makes a gender assumption, nevertheless, confusion and pain result. For example, we have a colleague who goes by the name Jan. Jan is typically a female name here in the US, right? But what about abroad? Well, Jan is often the name for a male. It’s important to know those distinctions based on culture, region, and country, and taking the first step to make that distinguishment yourself promotes inclusivity and eliminates the dangers of business faux pas.
2. Phonetics
We make a lot of assumptions that those interacting with us on LinkedIn are familiar with our culture and the pronunciation of our names. Nd I probably don’t need to remind you of that old adage about what happens when you assume…
There’s a simple way to make it easier for everyone you’re interacting with on LinkedIn, and there’s a built-in pronunciation tool right next to your name. So easy! Your connections can learn how to pronounce your name and vice versa without the awkward conversation having to ask or being corrected if you flub. Remember that learning how to pronounce someone’s name correctly is a sign of respect, and in the business world, this is an absolute essential.
Gone are the days when you can laugh off your inability to pronounce someone else’s name. Taking time to practice and say someone’s name correctly is the first step toward good business relations both inside and outside of your workspace. Simply click the pencil tool on LinkedIn and record a name pronunciation for yourself, then upload it to LinkedIn. Congratulations! You’ve made your first step towards interacting with a prospect far less intimidating.
3. Go Public
Unless you’re actively opposed to using LinkedIn for client development, you need to make your profile public. If you’re not comfortable with all of your information being visible to the public, we recommend making large portions of your profile public. You can easily conceal any information you don’t want to share, like your location or information that you don’t want to display publicly just yet.
Setting your profile to public makes it easier for those who may want to connect with you to refresh their memories as to who you are, what you do, and how you may be able to help them in the future. At the very least, you should make public your profile photo, title, and your name. To do this, head over to your profile on LinkedIn and click edit public profile and URL. Once on this page, you can choose exactly what content you want to make public and which aspects of your profile you might want to keep under wraps.
4. Custom URL
It’s quite difficult to remember your own LinkedIn URL. I mean, hats off to you if you’re able to remember that random list of numbers after linkedin.com, but most of us can’t; however, you can easily customize the section of your LinkedIn profile and the URL to make it easier to remember, more marketable, and a breeze for your audience to find you.
The easiest way to do this is go to your public profile on LinkedIn and click edit public profile and URL. Once on this page, you can choose to update your URL. I recommend trying to secure your first and last name. If you’re unable to do that because you know your name is already taken, or it’s a common name, then you might want to try adding your first and last name, plus your middle initial and perhaps the industry or the practice area in which you work.
Worried you’ll pick the wrong URL? You can always update it later, so there’s wiggle room for changing your industry or practice area. Do try, though, to choose something that’s semi-permanent, as you don’t want to have to be constantly updating that and sending it around to everyone you meet and having to tell them you’ve updated it. Again.
5. Add Image Descriptions
One simple and often overlooked way to make your social media posts on LinkedIn more accessible is to add what LinkedIn refers to as “alt text” to the images that you upload as content. Alt text is used by screen readers to make images and other content more accessible to the visually impaired (hello inclusivity), and it also makes your images more SEO friendly, which helps LinkedIn’s algorithm associate the content of your posts with the content in your images that you upload to social media.
If that sounds convoluted, rest assured it’s not at all difficult. To add alt text to your images, you simply need to upload the image you’d like to share, and then add a description of the content. Remember, the more specific and descriptive you are in writing the alt text, the easier it is for the visually impaired to identify what it is you’re sharing; however, don’t make the mistake of being overly verbose or keyword stuffing. This is a bad practice.
In other words, your alt text should truly reflect a description of what’s in the photo you’re sharing or the content you’re sharing. Don’t just stuff a bunch of keywords related to your particular practice, like business formation, attorney, LLC, attorney, Austin, Texas, etc. all in there because, honestly, it’s not just bad practice… it’s annoying.
6. Diversity in Law Firms
Diversification. We’re not talking about your stock portfolio, but your LinkedIn recommendations. Many large law firms have social media policies that limit the amount of recommendations, client recommendations, and information they can collect from clients. So, you definitely want to comply with your law firm’s or company’s social media policies.
BUT, if your firm doesn’t have a social media policy that prohibits the request of recommendations and allows you to solicit those types of recommendations from your clients, then I highly recommend looking long and hard at your recommendations to determine if they’re diverse and inclusive of the entire type of audience you’d like to attract as clients.
It’s very common to see all of the recommendations skewed towards one demographic or another. We see this a lot with many of our clients who feel most comfortable asking for recommendations from their own clients who are most similarly-situated to their own life, yet they’re open and want to be inclusive to all types of clients. Consider diversifying your recommendations by requesting them from both small and large organizations, from various demographics of individuals, such as males and females, and from those who have worked as clients of yours, as well as those who’ve been your colleagues.
Remember that the more diversity you add to your recommendations, the more your ideal client can envision themselves as your client, because they’ll feel included among their peers.
Now that you’ve armed yourself with these six easy steps to make your LinkedIn profile more inclusive and accessible, be sure to check out our LinkedIn for Client Development Cheat Sheet, which you can download for free.
Diversity and inclusion are wide-reaching topics, and there’s so much more on which to expand. Continue to follow us on social media and check in on our blogs for more helpful insider tips from the folks who live to perfect your digital presence.
