The main reason most law firms start using social media is to generate leads. Make sure you are getting the most from your efforts and creating the awareness that will pay off.

I recently read an article on Social Media Today entitled, “7 Reasons You’re Not Generating Leads From Social Media.” Now here’s a topic that looks interesting, since I get asked about the connection between social media and leads quite frequently. As it turns out, lead generation is the top reason most B2B marketers say they are using social media in the first place, so if leads aren’t coming in, it’s probably difficult to justify the time and cost of social media, right?

So using this article as a base, I thought I would talk about 7 ways you can start generating leads from your social media activities.

Go where your prospects are. This may seem obvious, and it is. While I think it’s a good idea to be on all the major platforms, spend most of your time where your next client is hanging out most of the time. This may mean more focus on LinkedIn than Twitter. Or vice versa. Or if your law firm is targeting a specific industry, look for industry-specific social media platforms and start building awareness there.

Provide valuable content. I’ve written quite a few blog posts on the importance of providing good content, so I won’t rehash that here. But if all you are putting out on  your social media pages is information about you, your practice or your law firm, people will quickly grow bored and you will sound completely self-centered. Mix it up with some interesting articles about a topic of interest to your prospects, comment on other people’s posts and retweet valuable information too. Remember, it’s social, so one-way push messages can’t be all you do.

Create strong calls to action and consider creating targeted landing pages. If someone really likes what you have to say, make it easy for them to reach out to you by creating a call to action. It can be something as easy as making your phone number and email address easily accessible. Or better yet, send readers to a landing page where they can find further details, a white paper or some other item of value. In return, ask for their contact information. Targeted landing pages are a great way to expand your database and find out who is really interested in hearing more of what you have to say.

Get the most from your social media real estate. I’m amazed at how many times I go to a law firm’s Twitter page and see no information in the bio space or a Facebook page with nothing on the info page. Whatever you do, provide readers the information they need about your firm, a way to get to your Website easily and other ways to reach out to you as well. Make sure your messaging is consistent throughout all platforms too, so no matter how someone finds you, they see and hear the same thing and walk away with a good idea of what your law firm does.

Integrate email and social media. How many emails do you send a day? I’d be willing to bet it’s at least scores and probably more than 100 on many days. So why not include links to your social media pages in your email signature? If you have an offer on a landing page, include that information there as well. It will generate awareness for your social media work, and it’s easy for someone to forward to a colleague or friend to broaden your reach even more.

Display highly visible social share and follow buttons. While you are adding your social media buttons to your email, make sure they are on your Website too. Not just your home page, but your blog pages, your bio page and possibly your practice area and industry pages. Make it easy for people to share and follow you and your firm, and they will.

Measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. All this is well and good, but in the end, you need to measure how well you are doing and make adjustments as needed. Set up a time to regularly review your social media traffic, activity and audience. Has any business come to your firm that can be directly tied to social media activities? Are you in the right place or should you branch out and try some new platforms?

What do you suggest? Are your social media efforts paying off in leads?

With tons of information all over the Internet, it’s easy for a competing company or an unhappy person to ruin your firm’s pristine image, so do everything you can to protect and manage your reputation.

Putting your firm on social media isn’t something you can just do then ignore. It’s an interactive process that requires time and effort to manage. Monitoring and responding to comments, especially negative ones, is vitally important. According to an article by Bob Tripathi, called “4 Powerful Strategies for Managing your Online Reputation,” the four most important pieces to reputation management are to monitor, listen, respond and amplify.

Monitor. The first piece, of course, is to monitor your firm’s brand. Find out what your competitors and clients are saying about you. Use tools such as Google Alerts and Analytics, SocialMention and SEOMoz to track conversations and keywords relating to your firm. If you don’t monitor you won’t know what’s being said and how to improve and respond.

Listen. Listen to what is being said about your firm across all mediums. Categorize and prioritize conversations about your firm so you can manage them appropriately. Most companies break down conversations into two sections, those that need “immediate attention” and those that require “active listening.” Immediate attention is just that, something that needs to be addressed now. These are the past clients and competition that are talking poorly of your firm. You must decide how to address the situation or conversation before it blows up into something worse. The active listening bracket is full of clients and others that are casually talking about your firm. You want track these too, and respond as needed, to be actively involved in the conversation.

Respond. Respond and act on most negative conversations about your firm – The reason I say “most” is that trolls should be ignored. Normally all these people want is a fight, but you don’t have to be the person or firm that gives them one. This is a perfect example of good public relations. I recommend you create a policy and system for how to respond to nay-sayers. Few have one, so this will put your firm ahead of the competition and allow you to respond much quicker. Analyze what went wrong in these negative situations and make adjustments so it doesn’t happen again. Don’t give in to the temptation to respond harshly to these people, but offer a sympathetic response and offer to correct anything that you possibly can. In most cases, these carefully worded answers will show others following you that you are responsive and care about your customers. That’s a strong message.

Amplify. Once you have responded to the unhappy client, make sure you tell the world. Make sure you turn the negative situation into a positive, rewarding one. People like to see how you treat your clients and customers, and often decide on which firms to use through reviews and referrals. Do all you can to keep everyone happy, and they will reward you with good reviews in the end.

Interesting side note: In a recent study I read, customers who had encountered a negative experience with a company, but had a positive recovery experience were more loyal – by far – than those that had always had positive experiences within the same company. This doesn’t mean you should go out and start failing clients, but it does demonstrate the power of responding to a negative experience in a positive way. It’s well worth the effort from a reputation point of view, as well as a client loyalty perspective.