When is the last time you explored Facebook ads for your law firm? If it’s been never — or just not recently — then it’s time you took a look because this monster social media platform is doing more for business, including law firms, than ever before to help you find and target your ideal clients.

Here are four distinct ways attorneys can use Facebook to zero in on their ideal target market:

Life Events

Many legal practice areas correlate to certain life events. For example, an estate planning attorney may want to engage with high net worth individuals who are newly engaged or newly married for asset protection services. Since most people tend to post major life events on their Facebook timelines, there are a lot of life events to choose from, including what I just mentioned above. Here’s how that selection might look for an estate planning attorney in L.A., where there are currently 8,300 individuals with a net worth over $1 million who are either newly engaged or newly married:

Or say you are a family law practitioner in L.A. and want to target newly separated individuals who may need a divorce attorney soon. Right now, there are 2,600 of these people with net incomes of $100K-$500K:

Custom Audiences

This advanced feature allows you to import your existing contact list into Facebook so you can target your ads to current clients and prospects. You can also create a Custom Audience based on visitors to your website:

Once you have uploaded your contacts, Facebook has additional targeting options so you can target ads by income, zip code, job function, net worth, marital status, interests, and more. This is an incredibly powerful targeting tool tailor-made for law firms that have a good handle on their ideal target market.

Lookalike Audiences

Once you have created a Custom Audiences list on Facebook, the site has a feature called Lookalike Audiences that will target other people who are similar to those in your Custom Audiences list:

To create a Lookalike Audience, Facebook examines the common qualities of the people in your Custom Audience and then finds other people in the region you specify who best match the qualities of your Custom Audience. You can use any of the Facebook targeting options to narrow your Lookalike list.

Layer Targeting Options

One of the most powerful features of Facebook ad targeting is the ability to layer targeting options on top of one another to create a highly specific audience. Here are just a few of the options available — as you can see, they are fairly granular!

For more information on Facebook ad targeting, watch this short video:

Work with and test various Facebook targeted ads to discover what resonates with your specific target market. For just a few dollars a day, Facebook ads are a great way to expand your social media reach beyond your profile page.