JD Supra is Now Linked Up to LinkedIn

For lawyers, this is a marriage made in social-networking heaven: JD Supra, a leading site for sharing legal content, is now partnering with LinkedIn, the leading professional-networking site, so that JD Supra content will now be seamlessly integrated into LinkedIn.

The integration will involve two primary features.

First, any lawyer who is a registered user of JD Supra can tether his or her account to his or her LinkedIn profile. All of the lawyer’s JD Supra content will then be displayed on the lawyer’s LinkedIn page. That brilliant brief or insightful article you wrote will be immediately available to anyone who views your profile on LinkedIn. In addition, your JD Supra activity will go out to your LinkedIn network as an update. So, when you add a new document to JD Supra, your LinkedIn network will be notified. Members of your network can recommend, favorite or share the document to their own networks.

Second, and perhaps more significantly, any LinkedIn user is now able to add an application called Legal Updates that will allow them to receive targeted JD Supra content directly through LinkedIn.  When a LinkedIn user installs the application, JD Supra automatically populates the feed with content relevant to the user’s industry (as determined by the user’s profile). A real estate professional, for example, would receive the latest documents posted to JD Supra that relate to real estate law. Then, the user could customize the feed to add or remove subjects or lawyers they want to track.

Non-members of JD Supra who install the application will be able to fully search, browse and view JD Supra documents from directly within LinkedIn. (Searching and viewing documents is possible even without the application, but the application makes it easier.) They will be able to edit the feeds they follow and to share documents with others in their networks. They can also subscribe directly to the JD Supra feed of any individual lawyer.

Members of JD Supra who install the application will also be able to manage their JD Supra accounts.

Anyone can upload documents to JD Supra from directly within LinkedIn. If the person is not registered with JD Supra, they will be prompted to create an account.

Any JD Supra member will be able to tether his or her JD Supra profile to his or her LinkedIn profile, including those who have only the basic, free registration. This will enable your documents from JD Supra to appear on your LinkedIn profile.

However, for your documents to appear in one of the Legal Updates content streams, you must be a premium member of JD Supra. (Read more about its pricing plans.)

A Game Changer for Lawyers

When you consider that LinkedIn has more than 70 million members and that its members are almost all professionals and businesspeople, the integration of JD Supra could be a real game changer for lawyers on LinkedIn. It is noteworthy, in itself, that you be able to highlight your content on your profile and within your network. However, the Legal Updates feature means that your content could now be distributed well beyond your network — and it will be distributed in a targeted way to professionals who have specified an interest in that type of content.

The net effect is opt-in marketing on steroids. Your work will be highlighted to LinkedIn users with an expressed interest in your area of law, whether or not they are part of your LinkedIn network. If a user chooses to subscribe to your feed or favorite a document of yours, that activity is conveyed to the user’s network, further expanding your exposure.

When you consider the potential results of linking your content to a virtually unlimited network of professionals worldwide, you can understand why I started this post calling this a marriage made in social-networking heaven.

To install the app, follow this link.

Below are screenshots showing the new integration. You can also read JD Supra’s press release and watch this introductory video.