Real Estate Social Media Edition – Ranking the Big 4
This is a post in a series ranking the Big 4 social media sites — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare — for B2B, retail, and real estate. Read the introduction for background.
Like traditional real estate marketing tactics, social media is a tool, not an end in itself. You’re not going to get a sale just because you’re doing it. Rather, your social media efforts need to reinforce your story and your brand. Facebook, as I’ll outline, is the big winner here, with the others on a much lower level of utility.
1. Facebook
A real estate agent client I work with recently set up a Facebook account where he posts his listings along with beauty shots of each property. His assistant does most of the page updating, and I’m not sure if he even knows what it’s doing for him. He’s too busy with referrals, working his relationships, and responding to the reputation juice he gets from having his name on sign riders throughout the community. But if he asked, this is what I would tell him:
People like to daydream and look at pretty pictures of nice homes, and Facebook does a very nice job of showcasing properties with well laid out galleries. If you’ve created a page and suggested it to your friends and other associates, you’re doing them a favor. You’re allowing them the chance to preview the houses and lifestyles they covet. From that standpoint, Facebook is about associating your brand with those bitter-sweet aspirations, and the opportunity to be front and center when it’s finally time for them to make a move. Or perhaps a link will get passed on to a friend or family member.
The event scheduling capability is top notch as well, and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have your contact info and website readily available on the Info tab. Getting more exposure for a property with a picture ad can’t hurt either, especially since you can narrow down the target audience by location, gender, age, and education level.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a good means for displaying your resume, and you should feel free to do so in a manner that suits you. If you have connections, people will find their way to your profile. They’ll want to know what kind of realtor you are and LinkedIn can help you shape their thoughts.
3. Twitter
Let’s face it – Twitter is not a regional service and your core community of customers probably isn’t actively using it. Unless you’re a celebrity or you’re building your own real estate company, you’re unlikely to reach buyers and sellers through this channel.
Twitter can be a good way to network within the industry, distribute content, and connect with the media. If these are your goals, make sure to have a sound strategy before you commit yourself long term.
4. Foursquare
Similarly to B2B, Foursquare simply isn’t a good match for real estate unless you have a very specific location based promotional goal. You could imagine, for example, giving away a gift to anyone who checks into an open house, but this would be unlikely to translate into a sale.
You’ve probably guessed by now that if I had to pick one application for realtors, it would be Facebook. It’s easy to update and will get you the most out of your sweat equity, and is by far the best way to connect with your community. Don’t forget, though, that Facebook is part of building a relationship, not a substitute for it.
Ranking the Social Media Big 4 – A Strategy Intro
Okay, let’s settle down and take a deep breath with this Social Media thing. You’re not going to burst into a ball of flames if you don’t do Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and LinkedIn RIGHT NOW.
Saying you don’t have the time and resources is a legitimate concern. So are questions about how your business is actually going to grow through Social Media, or whether these social media sites have anything to do with your customers.
For one, social media isn’t one-size-fits all. A real estate agent is going to use it much differently than a stock broker or a retailer. Two, like all marketing initiatives, you have to do the strategy groundwork to make sure you’re casting your net where your customers are swimming. Last, you better have some good, creative talent in-house, or be prepared to commit to outsourcing if you’re going to make it work, because it isn’t a one shot deal.
With this in mind, I’m doing 3 posts (maybe 4) that rank the big 4 social media sites for different businesses: B2B, retail, real estate, and a yet to be determined 4th option.
The goal is to express that, at the end of the day, you need to make social media work for you, not the other way around.
The first is the B2B Social Media Rankings Edition.
We’ll do the others soon. We’d tell you when, but we’re a small business here and we have lots of things to do, so keep your pants on and subscribe.
Facebook Advertising Changes the Game for Realtors
Old media advertising means picking a communications medium, like TV, a magazine, or a billboard. You have a good estimate of how many eyeballs you’re getting. You also know the demographics, generally, without having to get several online degrees to figure it out. You can measure your ad through special promotions and by watching for sales increases. But you don’t know who saw your ad exactly, how old that person was and where they live, and you can’t filter out the people who aren’t supposed to see your ads. You’re speaking from a soapbox, and hopefully your target market is in the crowd somewhere.
Search ads certainly changed things, with the ability to track impressions and clicks. Facebook, however, takes it another step. Since all of its users are required to enter their age, sex, and other information, they are organizing user data to allow advertisers to only communicate to who they want to communicate. Plus it has many of the same tracking, capping, and reporting tools as Google AdWords (though not nearly as advanced).
So, for a Real Estate agent who wants to use the Facebook advertising platform, and you have a listing for a house priced at $1 million, you can select females over the age of 40 with college educations living within 50 miles of the city where the house is located. This takes the 400+ million Facebook users and distills them down to only the people who fit your target audience, ensuring that your advertising is efficient.
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.
