The Argument for Real Estate Facebook Marketing

The most common objection to Facebook marketing I get from clients is that there isn’t enough time.  The second is that, even if there was time, it doesn’t work anyway.  Ouch. That’s quite a 1-2 punch.

My response to the first is that it doesn’t need to take up your time if you don’t want it to.  You don’t have to be on it all day, checking every news feed item, posting every 10 minutes.  In fact, over-loading your fans with posts will actually do more harm than good, and you’re better served to keep posts tastefully limited to snippets of valuable information.

For real estate agents, I recommend easing into it by uploading listings.  You’re going to be uploading your listings to the MLS anyway, so hop on over to Facebook and do it there while you’re in the mode.  Pretty soon it will be second nature, and you won’t regret it – Facebook’s photo albums do a very nice job of showcasing property images.

To the second point, that it’s not worth it, I remind clients that there are over 400 million Facebook users.  Currently there are about 1.2 billion internet users on the planet.  That’s a third of all of the internet users in the world – pretty impressive for a site launched only six years ago.  More and more people are using the internal search tool and getting used to the Facebook advertising platform, which is starting to see very high quality advertisers taking advantage of a highly targeted system.

With all of this in mind, how can you not be on Facebook?  At the very least, you’re increasing your awareness and building a following, not unlike an email marketing list.  At best, you’re building on your photo albums and figuring out how to use Facebook to network, converse with potential clients, and generate reliable leads.