Facebook for real estate professionals

Facebook is an ideal tool to have in your real estate marketing arsenal. Worldwide, more than 1.4 billion active users are on Facebook, making it the largest social networking website in the world.

Brad Sage

Evan Sage

Toronto-based Brad Sage, VP of operations and Evan Sage, VP of sales with Sage Real Estate, summed up the pros of using Facebook for your real estate business in an email to REM:

“Facebook is by far the largest and most influential social networking site and offers the greatest opportunity to help agents move their business forward. The features of the site make it particularly conducive to agents’ marketing efforts when done properly. And you can connect with your sphere any time you have a few spare moments.”

However, they say just being on Facebook is not a strategy “and being on Facebook and only posting your listings is even worse.”

What to use Facebook for

Brad and Evan Sage say agents should use Facebook to:

Engage and stay top of mind with their network.
Deepen the relationships they already have.
Look at what their network is posting and pay attention.
Establish themselves as subject matter experts by adding value through the conversations they have and the content they post.
Connect with potential new clients by getting exposure to their network’s network.
Leverage the Facebook ad platform to boost their business page posts and “get them in front of the people that you want to be in front of.”

Sold on the value of Facebook for real estate professionals but not sure how to get going? First, sign up for an account. Then create a Facebook business page; Facebook walks you through the simple process of setting one up. Some people use their personal page for their real estate work, claiming it humanizes them. Others say the personal page lacks professionalism. It’s your call which option you choose.

Either way, once you create your page, add a Facebook Like button to your website and add your Facebook link to your email signature. Use pictures to personalize your page and regularly post quality status updates and neighbourhood events. Try to include a picture or video with each posting because it’s proven that users are more likely to view a post with visual imagery. Contests, sweepstakes and freebies can help you create buzz. Post frequently – and not just mortgage rate news or industry happenings. Check out the pages of the people quoted in this article for inspiration on how to have a kickass page.

It’s vital that you not just post listings on your Facebook page if you want people to keep coming back. Keep the Pareto Principal in mind – 80 per cent of your postings should detail information that helps your readers and only 20 per cent of postings should be about yourself and your listings.

Know your audience

Jason Haggerty

Jason Haggerty, a sales representative with Decourcey and Company Real Estate in Saint John, N.B., says, “When it comes to marketing in a professional manner online, it’s important to know your audience, be cautious of self-promotion, try to add value and be relevant and positive. For example, if you have a Facebook page and are trying to market a certain product or service, it’s important to realize you do not have to post continuously about that one thing (boring). Find a balance, switch things up and keep things interesting. With the ‘frequency’ it’s easy to flood newsfeeds and from my experience, people don’t enjoy that. You can cause your audience to lose interest, or even worse, create animosity. Social media is very powerful and can be an extremely effective tool depending on how you use it.”

Expanding your reach

Christine Cowern

Christine Cowern, a sales rep with Keller Williams Referred Urban Realty in Toronto, is a proponent of Facebook. She says there’s no question that Facebook has helped expand the reach of her team. “Not only do we have our business page on Facebook but we also promote our listings and blog posts through Facebook. We can geo-target our marketing so that we’re reaching people who live in the geographic area that we work in that are of a certain age (or) gender… so it’s very effective in targeting a specific type of consumer. Canadians spend a huge amount of time online and Facebook is one of the sites that they’re spending the most time engaged with. Not having a presence on the site would be a wasted opportunity in my opinion.”

Cowern continues, “The purpose of the page is equally to build brand recognition. It’s a longer-term investment. The goal is to give our followers enough great information on the real estate market and trends that they think of us when they’re ready to buy or sell a property, whenever that is. It’s getting so common to have a Facebook business page these days that if you don’t have one, you’re already falling behind.”

A common complaint about social media is that it can be time consuming. Sage and Sage address this concern. “Fifty per cent of an agent’s time should be spent prospecting. There has never been a precise recipe for the best prospecting mix, but we all know that if you stop planning for new business and only focus on current clients, a dry period will certainly be in the near future. When you log into Facebook with no purpose or strategy and start chasing squirrels or getting distracted by the video of baby goats doing cute baby goat stuff, that’s when you’re wasting time. But if you develop a strategy and log on and spend x amount of time executing that strategy, and don’t let yourself get distracted, it is a great use of your time.”