Tim Prizeman’s Kelso Consulting has produced a great report on this subject which is available from http://www.kelsopr.com/downloads
He reports that there has been a dramatic rise in LinkedIn usage amongst the larger firms with almost half the personnel having a LinkedIn account compared to under a quarter last year.
Law firms
- Of the 85,000 partners and employees in the top 50 law firms (excluding the Magic Circle) over 40,000 now have LinkedIn accounts (47%).
- The number of people following the top 50 law firms on LinkedIn in 2011 is nearly 50,000 – double the amount of followers last year.
- Law firms with the lowest LinkedIn usage are Berrymans Lace Mawer (21%), Slaughter & May (27%) and Beachcroft (27%). Those with the highest are Olswang (68%),Charles Russell (64%), Lovells (62%), Allen & Overy (62%) and Osborne Clarke (61%).
Accountancy firms
- There are 13,000 personnel with LinkedIn accounts in mid tier firms. A typical firm has seen its people using LinkedIn grow by around 80% and followers have nearly tripled to over 23,000.
- Laggards include Smith & Williamson and Begbies Traynor and Rawlinson & Hunter amongst the strongest adopters.
It’s a shame that the analysis doesn’t extend to surveying partnerships – although the property industry tends to lag in its use of social media.
Although the report is short and warns about dead and half-hearted accounts, it contains tables showing statistics on the LinkedIn usage of the top 50 law firms (excluding the Magic Circle) and the top 35 accountancy firms (excluding the Big Four). No doubt it will be valuable evidence for those still trying to achieve buy in for social media initiatives. There are some nice tips too for the marketing folk.
