In this day and age, social networks have a major influence on all aspects of our lives — both in business and in private. And with that in mind, we can confidently state that the same is true for the work done by real estate agents.
For instance, real estate agents use platforms such as Facebook to interact with potential clients, fostering long-term relations with home buyers and sellers in their area. However, doing this successfully does take a fair amount of work and Internet savviness — which is precisely what we’ll talk about right here!
Where To Start
If you want to use the power of Facebook to find new leads and advertise your real estate agency, know that this social network can be an incredibly powerful tool. That being said, you need to know where to begin.
On Facebook, professional marketing is focused on the construction of a proper business page. There are plenty of agents that prefer to advertise their work via their personal Facebook profiles. However, we recommend creating a dedicated business page instead.
First of all, a business page lets you present a more professional presence than a personal profile ever could. Second of all, there are certain marketing features that are only found on a business page; features that you can’t access using a personal profile.
Also, bear in mind that simply creating a page is far from enough. Most of your competing agents and agencies will likely have an online presence in 2020 — which includes a Facebook page. Keeping that in mind, you need to take the necessary steps to make sure your business persona on Facebook attracts more leads than your competition.
Cover Photos
The cover photo of your Facebook profile is something akin to the exterior of a home; it’s the absolute first thing people will see upon landing on your page. Thus, you want to utilize this space as best you can to advertise your business.
Mind you, we don’t recommend placing flashy advertising banners with your logo here. Instead, you can use the cover photo space to highlight which homes you’re currently selling. That’s a great way for people to gain immediate value from your profile in terms of information.
Tabs and Content
Your business profile on Facebook can contain a wide variety of tabs. As a real estate agent, we recommend using this option to showcase featured listings on your Facebook page. Obviously, the way you want to frame the content on your Facebook page varies — just remember that you’d be wise to keep the majority of your content focused on your customers and potential leads; don’t allow more than 20% to be dedicated to the blatant promotion of your own agency. This will encourage your page visitors to interact with your business profile more freely.
User Interaction
The previous section leads us to the next important aspect of using Facebook for marketing as a real estate agent — user interaction. When users post comments on your page content, you should always try to provide a prompt response, regardless of whether the comments are bad or good!
If you constantly engage in communication with your visitors, any potential clients will gain the impression that you care and are eager to help. Try to provide useful information whenever possible — recommend crews that can help them with relocation, provide details on fitting neighborhoods for each prospective buyer, etc.
Multimedia Content
One of the best Facebook marketing tips for real estate agents is to use some sort of graphics, such as videos or images, in your Facebook posts. All relevant research points to the fact that people tend to engage much better with graphic content than with walls of text.
If your posts contain some sort of relevant photo, people will be more likely to take it into account while searching for specific information. When it comes to interactions, users are most efficiently prompted by video content.
A Local Focus
When you’re using Facebook marketing as a real estate agent, there’s one crucial thing to always keep in mind — your target audience. The content you produce has to be in tune with the interests of your potential clients, and you should make sure that you provide content that’s relevant to your local community.
Post about local events, educational institutions, popular businesses in the area; all in all, talk about anything unique to the local community that might attract people to your profile.
Be Informative and Interesting
While providing content to your target audience, another one of our Facebook marketing tips for real estate agents is to consistently strive to be informative and interesting. That means sharing content that’s relevant to the real estate industry in the region, or fun facts related to your work. If you manage to do this on a constant basis, you will find people are more inclined to comment and like your posts.
Also, you should note that it’s not just about the information that you’re presenting — the way you’re presenting it matters as well. In other words, it doesn’t hurt to use some humor to lighten up your profile from time to time. Of course, make sure that you’re using it in a tasteful manner, and without seeming jovial to the point of unprofessionalism.
Rely on Data
Using Facebook for marketing as a real estate agent means having access to an array of useful analytics. For instance, Facebook Insights is a data-driven component of Facebook that serves to help you with analytics. Indeed, you can learn incredibly crucial data regarding your followers, including their location; this allows you to shape your content in line with your target demographic.