The sheer number of attorneys competing for business today, especially in consumer law, makes it virtually impossible to grow a law firm organically by word of mouth. You must be much more proactive and intentional about your business development efforts than just sitting back and letting your work speak for itself.

One of the best reasons for attorneys to use social media for business development is because of its reach and cost effectiveness. But you have to have a system and a process in place to maximize the benefit from social media for business development. Here is a 5-step process we have used over the years that has resulted in generating hundreds of new leads every month, both for our company and our clients:

1. Set up a targeted landing page. Your landing page is separate from – but can be connected to – your website. It should feature content that addresses the specific needs of your target market and have one compelling call-to-action that gets them to connect with you.

2. On the landing page offer them something of value.  Offer visitors a free special report on a topic of interest to them. Again, it must address a specific need of your target market. Remember, clients may not care about legal precedents, but they are very likely to care about how to save money during a divorce.

3. Drive traffic to your landing page by promoting it via your social media networks. You can announce your free special report on your Facebook fan page, post a Tweet or promote by including the link to your LinkedIn account. You can also hone in more directly on your target market through Facebook Ads, which you can run for just a few dollars a day.

4. Visitors to your landing page can only obtain your valuable information if they give you their contact information (name and email address) and by agreeing to opt into your database and be contacted by your law firm for further follow-up.

5. Use their contact information to follow up with them. When you connect with visitors to your landing page, you qualify them to see if they are a good prospect for you and then offer them a complimentary consultation, if that’s part of your business model.