Here's how to maximise your achievement and profile
Congratulations, you have been recognised as a finalist in the Australasian Law awards – a fantastic and well-deserved achievement.
The awards are not only a celebration of the legal industry’s best and brightest, they also provide a great opportunity to share your nomination and success with current clients, prospective clients and partners.
To help you leverage your award nomination, our checklist provides the opportunity for reaching key audiences and maximising your achievement and profile.
At a firm level, share the success on various social media accounts. Remember to talk your audience’s language and for maximum engagement adapt the tone and message for each different social channel.
Encourage the team to share on their respective personal social media accounts. This will further increase your reach and the spread of the message within new ‘circles’.
Sharing personal success stories is high engagement content. For each engagement or comment received ensure you respond – after all, it is ‘social’ media.
It will not only remind current and lapsed clients of your professional pedigree, but open the door for future referrals and business. And remember – do follow up after the event with any successes or highlights from the evening.
An award nomination being featured on your homepage is a powerful marketing message. Remember, all digital marketing efforts should drive traffic to your website, so it is important to show a consistent approach across all your digital marketing.
To really engage your website visitors, post a feature article to accompany the nomination. Providing insight into your career, coupled with personal commentary, not only gives the award context, but adds a sense of humanity – a quality that is increasingly important in the professional services industry.
However, there is plenty more you can do, particularly through your social media, to maximise exposure and your expert profile. Don’t sit back and assume that nothing further can be done until after the final results are announced.
Perhaps the most underutilised communication window is the period in the immediate lead-up to the awards evening. The anticipation of an awards night encourages engagement, so use social media to continue the conversation on the countdown to the awards night and winner announcements. This will continue to cement your profile as an industry leader.
Start by using the award night’s hashtag (#AusLawAwards) in all your posts so that they are easily found and shared. Congratulate your fellow nominees, highlight some of the key deals of the year, thank your team – all will increase your reach.
On the night of the awards, add to the buzz by posting updates of the evening, the winners or acknowledge great acceptance speeches. And importantly, post your pictures! Everyone loves the glitz and glamour and images encourage comments, sharing and engagement.
Don’t forget, just because the party’s over the conversation doesn’t have to end. This step is often overlooked, but just like non-digital marketing, event follow up is an equally important part of networking. If you win, fantastic, you have a lot more to talk about across all channels. If you don’t, continue to use social media to ensure that you acknowledge the winners, thank the organisers and continue to grow your network by engaging with the connections made during the countdown.
About the author:
Nicole Shelley is an accredited CPA and management accountant who built her career in finance, strategic planning and practice management roles for leading professional services firms including global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. Taking advantage of the emerging digital opportunities, Shelley has leveraged her background and marketing experience to become a trusted adviser to law firms working in partnership with in-house teams on their digital marketing and social media strategies and implementation.
Working for digital marketing agency Pepper IT. Pepper IT understands both social media and law firms. With a team that boasts not only one of the leading authorities in all things digital, but also team members with over 27 years combined experience working in major global and leading law firms, a rare combination of digital and professional services sector expertise.
