Corporate Reputation & Social Selling Strategy

Proven personal success as Top 10 LinkedIn Legal Influencer: 

David's ranking as #9 in the Top 100 LinkedIn Legal Influencers (Q1 2025) by TBD Marketing demonstrates he doesn't just teach theory, he practices and succeeds at what he teaches. His own LinkedIn presence serves as a working example of effective thought leadership in professional services markets.

Experience across corporate and commercial environments: 

David's career includes significant time at corporate and commercial firms including Eversheds Sutherland (where he was Marketing Director for the Midlands region and the European Employment Law team), KPMG Corporate Finance (UK Marketing Manager), Geldards (Executive Board member and Marketing & Business Development Director), and Irwin Mitchell. This experience provides understanding of corporate firm cultures, partner dynamics, and B2B business development that consultants with only consumer-facing experience lack.

Understanding of long sales cycle B2B dynamics: 

Corporate legal business development operates over months or years with multiple decision-makers, formal procurement processes, and relationship-based instruction patterns. David's strategies account for these dynamics rather than applying consumer marketing tactics inappropriate for corporate markets.

Commercial awareness and business focus: 

Having worked closely with corporate partners serving major businesses across sectors, David understands that corporate clients value commercial awareness as much as legal expertise. His social media strategies emphasise demonstrating business understanding and sector knowledge, not just legal technicality.

Change management expertise in professional services cultures:

Corporate law firms present unique change management challenges including partner autonomy, scepticism about marketing, and cultural resistance to social media visibility. David's approach addresses these challenges through evidence-based business cases, partner-appropriate training, and governance that maintains professional standards while enabling participation.

Measurement against business development outcomes: 

Unlike consultants focused on social media metrics, David measures effectiveness against business development outcomes relevant to corporate practices: panel appointments, tender shortlisting, instruction conversion, share of voice in target sectors, and relationship development with key accounts. This focus resonates with commercially-minded corporate partners.

Practical, implementation-focused approach: 

Training provides implementable frameworks, templates, and plans rather than just inspiration. Consulting includes hands-on implementation support, not just recommendations in reports. The focus is achieving business results, not producing marketing deliverables.

Credibility with sceptical audiences: 

Corporate partners and senior professionals are often skeptical about marketing and social media. David's senior leadership experience at Partner and Director level, commercial focus, and no-nonsense approach builds credibility with audiences that dismiss traditional marketing consultants.

This comprehensive full-day program addresses social media strategy specifically for corporate legal markets:

Platform selection and strategic prioritisation for B2B markets: 

Not all social media platforms serve the same purpose in corporate legal business development. The training covers LinkedIn as the primary platform for B2B professional services reaching decision-makers and influencers, Twitter/X for thought leadership, media engagement, and real-time commentary on business issues, sector-specific platforms and communities where target clients gather, emerging platforms, and when they warrant attention, and how to prioritise limited resources across platforms for maximum business development impact. Participants learn how to select platforms strategically based on where their specific target clients' research expertise and decision-making take place, avoiding the trap of being everywhere superficially rather than being highly effective where it matters most.

Content strategy for B2B thought leadership: 

The workshop provides detailed frameworks for developing content that demonstrates expertise while providing genuine value to business decision-makers. This includes creating content that demonstrates commercial understanding and sector knowledge, translating technical expertise into business impact for client audiences, developing signature perspectives and points of view that differentiate from competitors, balancing expertise with technical credibility, creating content formats appropriate for different stakeholder types (C-suite, procurement, technical buyers), and building sustainable content creation processes that don't overwhelm busy professionals. Participants learn how to move beyond promotional content to genuine value creation that builds trust and credibility over time.

Account-based marketing and social selling: 

Corporate legal services increasingly adopt account-based approaches, focusing resources on key targets. The workshop covers identifying and prioritising target accounts, mapping decision-makers and influencers within target organisations, using social media for relationship mapping and intelligence gathering, coordinating social engagement across multiple firm members targeting the same account, measuring social media contributions to account relationship development, and integrating social selling into broader account management programs. Participants learn systematic approaches to using social media to develop and deepen relationships with specific target clients and prospects.

Employee advocacy at scale: 

The training provides comprehensive frameworks for building employee advocacy programs in corporate legal firms. This includes building buy-in among sceptical partners and senior professionals, creating participation pathways for different types of professionals (from active thought leaders to occasional contributors), providing content support and resources, making participation sustainable, governance and compliance ensuring quality and professional standards, recognition and rewards driving sustained participation, and measurement demonstrating business development impact. The workshop addresses unique challenges in corporate legal cultures, including professional autonomy, scepticism toward marketing, and high client service pressures.

Thought leadership program development: 

Beyond individual social media presence, firms need coordinated thought leadership strategies. Participants learn how to identify and develop the professionals with potential to become recognized experts, support professionals in developing their expertise into valuable content and commentary, coordinate messaging across the firm while maintaining individual authenticity, use expertise for business development including speaking, publishing, and client development, connect expertise to competitive positioning and market differentiation, and measure expertise impact on brand perception and business outcomes.

Social listening and business intelligence: 

Social media provides valuable intelligence for business development and market understanding. The workshop covers monitoring target clients and prospects for business intelligence and relationship insights, tracking competitors and market trends, identifying buying signals and engagement opportunities, understanding client concerns and challenges through social listening, using intelligence to inform business development strategy and client conversations, and tools and approaches for efficient social listening in corporate legal contexts.

Integration with broader business development strategy: 

Social media doesn't exist in isolation from other business development activities. The workshop covers integrating social media with CRM and client relationship management systems, connecting social media to events, webinars, and thought leadership programs, aligning social media with content marketing and public relations strategies, supporting business development activities, including pitches and tenders with social media intelligence, and ensuring consistent messaging across all touchpoints. Participants learn how to position social media as one component of integrated business development rather than a separate activity.

Measurement and ROI in long-cycle B2B markets: 

Corporate legal business development operates over extended timeframes, making attribution challenging. The workshop provides frameworks for measuring social media effectiveness in a long sales cycle environment,s including tracking relationship development with target accounts, measuring engagement from key decision-makers and influencers, attributing new business and panel appointments to social media contribution, calculating cost per relationship or influenced opportunity, demonstrating share of voice and thought leadership positioning improvements, and reporting effectiveness to sceptical leadership. Participants develop measurement approaches appropriate for their specific market, sales cycle, and culture.

Paid social media and advertising strategies: 

For firms with a budget for paid social media, the training covers when paid social makes sense in corporate legal markets, LinkedIn advertising capabilities and B2B targeting, account-based marketing campaigns targeting specific organisationsrecognised, content promotion and expertise amplification, event promotion and attendance driving, lead generation and nurturing campaigns, and budget allocation and ROI measurement. Participants learn how to use paid social strategically, supporting broader business development objectives rather than as a standalone tactic.

Crisis management and reputation protection: 

Corporate legal firms face reputational risks that require social media preparedness. The workshop covers monitoring for reputation threats and emerging issues, crisis response protocols and governance, managing harmful content and online criticism, protecting firm and individual reputations during challenges, and preparing professionals to handle difficult situations. The training addresses how to handle situations in which professionals post inappropriately or raise compliance concerns.