What Makes a Great Facebook Page for Real Estate Agents?

A great Facebook business page does more than just promote a property with a picture and a “buy here” button. In fact, the best ones stick with the 80/20 ratio of engaging content to promotions. In other words, for every 8 fun posts, they make 2 that directly promote a property or deal.

I know that doesn’t sound like much but don’t worry, we’ll cover how realtors can bend the rules a little to promote and be social at the same time later in this post.

For now, just get familiar with the basic elements of a great Facebook page. They’re relatively simple and the rules apply for most other social media channels as well.

Here’s the 3 critical elements of a great Facebook page:

1. It’s social

2. Uses great photos & videos

3. Maintains an identity (keeps the same tone and look throughout the page) 

1. Its Social

The first and most important part of your page is that it’s social and encourages people to interact. Facebook rewards those posts that get higher likes, shares and comments by putting you in more feeds – which gains you even more likes, shares and engagement. That’s how posts go viral.

To keep your page social, avoid pushing promotions down peoples throats. Instead, share things that are both fun and related to your industry like tips and how-to’s for example.

2. It Uses Outstanding Photos and Videos

When you’re thumbing Facebook, which do you look at first: words or photos? I’m guessing it’s photos. So having and exceptional photo of a great home makes people stop, then read what you’re saying and then engage by liking, commenting or sharing.

If you’re short on photos, you can always share posts from related business pages like those of home design sites and travel pages. Sharing a sweet home design is always in style and it’s related to what you do. Travel also speaks to the lifestyle and you get bonus points if you share an article that’s about fun things to do in an area where you sell homes. 

3. It Maintains an Identity

You want to treat your page like it’s a person and not a place to post everything you find interesting. The best FB pages have a singular tone and style (this applies to all social media accounts). 

Have you ever scrolled through Facebook and seen a friend post something that you didn’t agree with? Maybe they expressed a political view or something religious you didn’t agree with, for example. If you shared that, it wouldn’t be natural and it wouldn’t be consistent with the image you’re portraying so you scroll past it. Keep it similar on your FB real estate pages. 

By posting things like nice homes, bright photos, design tips, sharing useful real estate related articles you’re coming across as the “helpful guide” rather than the hard salesperson. The helpful guide tonality is much better received and feels more trustworthy when it comes to big decisions like buying homes.

If you’re unclear on the tone of your page, you may want to sit down and come up with a set of simple rules before moving forward. For example: 

• Never use curse words or slang
• Always use contractions (it’s vs it is) to keep it conversational and social
• Photos must be bright and consistent with the page
• Etc.

Those are just a few potential guidelines but you can come up with more for your brand. Buffer’s done a great job of boiling tone down to a four quadrant image that can help you develop your style:

3. Zillow

Its just a video with simple solutions for cleaning your home and it has over a 1,000 likes, 233k views, and dozens of comments. The lesson here? Take some time to find, make and share videos related to real estate like cleaning tips, lifestyle tips, traveling tips, etc. Each of these topics speak to people who buy homes and they’re engaging. Zillow has clearly figured this out and they’ve been rewarded with more than a million followers.

Tools for Promoting Your Page

You’re probably wondering how you can manage regular social media updates with your busy schedule. Worry not because we have a few tools you can start using to update your Facebook page today.

For scheduling posts: We use Buffer which connects to your Facebook and other social media accounts and automatically posts things you’ve scheduled. For example, I can spend an hour on Sunday to make my posts for the next week or two and then forget about it. The posts you schedule will drip out on the days and times you’ve set them for. Buffer also connects to Pinterest, Google +, Linkedin and more. 

Additionally, you can creep on the pages we’ve highlighted above to see what’s working for them and then duplicate their strategy on your page – if you’re looking for post ideas.

If you’re searching for inspirational ideas for ads, check out adespresso’s ad gallery. They have thousands of ad images from thousands of industries which you can search for free to get ideas.

Found this article today – https://neighborhoodloans.com/real-estate-marketing/ – and it lists ONE HUNDRED and ELEVEN marketing ideas. That’s right 111. So if you scroll this list you SHOULD be able to find a least one that fits for you!

Time to take your marketing to the next level.

We all want to stay ahead of our competition… avoid these 4 mistakes and you can be at the top of market!

1. Turn on “summer hours” and assume investors and clients are taking a break.
2. Ignore opportunities to LEARN & GROW. (Solution: take the CREE Course!)
3. Forget to set your personal goals.
4. Stop marketing. (Solution: Keep your momentum by staying in front of your potential new clients with new initiatives. Contact us if you want some ideas.)

In Monday’s commercial real estate news – we’ll give you a look at where smart HNW money is going, why investors are still interested in U.S. commercial real estate, the highest priced deals in town, and so much more! Read More