Advertising Your Real Estate Business on Facebook
Facebook’s latest release added all kinds of new functionality for advertisers who wish to use their platform - some of which is starting to trickle out. On the day of the release I asked the question, Where Are The Real Estate Fan-sumers? and today it’s time to throw down the gauntlet and try and get to that answer.
Putting your brand on Facebook is actually a pretty easy process, better yet it’s free (for now). Just click on the Advertisers link in Facebook’s footer and then Create a Page .
First step is choosing a category for your business. Brokers might want probably want to choose Real Estate under the Local drop down menu. Bloggers might want to choose Communications under the Brand or Product drop down; technology providers or Real Estate 2.0 web sites may want to choose Technology Providers or Service. Add the name of your company or product and then hit Create Page.
Once you’ve create your page you can fill it out much the same with basic profile info. On the surface, a product page is very similar to Facebook’s Groups, though slightly reorganized; you got your wall, discussion forum, events - in fact, the only visible difference that I could see was that it looks like Members have been renamed Fans.
Where it starts to get interesting however, is how the Pages interact with your individual profiles.
Take a moment to click over to my page, for the Future of Real Estate Marketing Blog. If you have a Facebook profile you’ll be given the option to identify yourself as a Fan of this site. Go on, go do it now. I’ll wait…
As you saw, the first question Facebook asks you is if you want to allow this page/brand to send you email updates. This is big, it’s clearly a step towards enabling permission based marketing.
So as the page owner - you have the ability to send communications to your Fans. This is potentially a very powerful way to reach out to your customer base, especially if it’s used judiciously. For real estate brokers, for example, it could be a very nice keep-in-touch program. Imagine if, after every transaction, you asked all your clients to identify themselves as a Fan of your company?
This is doubly powerful, because in addition to opting-in to receive future communications from you, your Facebook Fans acts as a further conduit to reach other future Fans - as they narrowcast their choices to their friends through their mini-feed.
And, even better, they also wear those affiliations proudly on their profile pages too.
Despite all of this, there’s a couple things missing from this right now. There’s no directory of Pages yet, so it’s up to the page owner to promote their brand directly. (Need that link again? Become a fan of the Future of Real Estate Marketing Blog)
Pages are also fairly static right now, it would be great to be able to add custom facebook apps or an RSS feed to page to liven them up a bit.
Finally, I’d love to be able to check out a leader board for each of the Page categories; most popular brands, fastest moving brands etc. That would be an incredibly powerful research aide. If we had that, we might be able to see who is the ultimate real estate brand. No more spitting matches over traffic… let’s just see who has more fans. Trulia or Zillow? ActiveRain or Move? Coldwell Banker or Prudential?
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25 Comment(s)
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Metrowest MA Homes Blog | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
Joel - Thanks for pointing this out. I find I get lost in Facebook. I have not had the time to really get to know the ins and outs of it yet. I did go in and add myself as a fan of your
NikNik | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
I kind of get a MyBlogLog feeling from this new app. It’s nice to have a place where you can perhaps be a bit more personal, as well as provide additional informal information. With that….I hope you fan me! MyTechOpinion
Vinny LaBarbera | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
I had the chance to set up a couple of pages on Facebook for my businesses (one is for http://www.realestatemarketingblog.com) and it was very easy. I am curious to see how effective this is going to be and what kind of response we can drum up with these pages.
I think it is a great, underrated idea right now by the people at Facebook to basically have people opt into this permission based marketing service as you said. This should prove very valuable to real estate professionals if they set them up right.
I think Google has quite a little run for its money here in terms of targeted advertising.
David G from Zillow.com | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
Great post. I’ve been battling to differentiate pages from groups. Can you use the opt-in distribution list today to send broadcast communications to fans? If so, is it free?
Joel Burslem | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
@David - Yup. You can send emails to all your fans and it is free, right now. I suspect FB will begin charging advertisers for this function though eventually… it would only make sense. And I bet advertisers will pay too.
DonnaG. | Nov 9, 2007 | Reply
Joel, great post and thanks for the info…I’ll have to try it out. While on the Facebook topic, I have been seeing some buzz around 2 applications on the Facebook applications Page, CribsFinders and LivePads. Have you had the chance to look at either? I think the power of these apps is the listing of homes on profiles with detailed info.
Along those same lines, kinda wondering why some of the “big guys” like trulia, realtor.com, z, remax, etc don’t have their apps out there? I’m a realtor in Miami and use the apps I mentioned above to promote my listings and have received a handful of leads on a few properties. Just looking for your opinion. Thanks Joel and as usual, great post.
Dan Dashnaw | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
Great post!
I’ve actually scheduled this task for Sunday (tomorrow), so your timing is excellent. I’m curious to see how effective their new advertising platform proves to be - what an interesting time in the social networking space…
I’ll follow-up with our initial results after a week or so of testing. Thanks again!
Best Regards,
Dan Dashnaw
AgentCasts.com - Real Estate Video Tours
http://www.agentcasts.com
Mari Smith | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
Great post, Joel. I shared on my FB profile & with my 250+ participants of my FB intro class at http://facebookfortunes.com.
I’d love to see that Leader Board too. Currently, it seems real difficult to actually find anyone’s FB Pages… unless you’re a fan.
Sounds like you’re ahead of the curve ball for your industry. It’ll be interesting to see where FB Pages & FB Ads take us!
Mark Mayhew | Nov 10, 2007 | Reply
great post, I’d like to mention: Pages differ from groups in one way, you can’t appoint “fans” of your page either Officers or administrators (in groups, you can).
There is at least one app, Top pages, that allows you to post your favorite pages. Check out the page for FacebookEconomy.com to see it in action:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=8431870131&ref=mf
Michael Daly | Nov 11, 2007 | Reply
cool. just did it. thanks for the inspiration! md
Lance | Nov 11, 2007 | Reply
Great post, Joel.
It would be great to see that Leader Board too. Currently, it seems real difficult to actually find anyone’s facebook pages…I wished it were easier to do…
Sounds like you’re ahead of the power curve for your industry. It’ll be interesting to see where user generated content takes us!
Dave Platter | Nov 11, 2007 | Reply
Dave from the REA Group here.
Great post, Joel.
Facebook can have other uses besides customer relationships. For example, our business in Australia, realestate.com.au, tells me they use facebook for recruiting and have already made some hires from candidates sourced there.
Keep up the good work.
dave
Real Estate Times | Nov 12, 2007 | Reply
Excellent story, social networking is an excellent platform for Real Estate business.
Rob | Nov 12, 2007 | Reply
Joel - I’d like to share your article in an upcoming office “newsletter” - any restriction on limited distribution of this piece. Interesting technology that not enough people are aware of.
Kevin Barry | Nov 16, 2007 | Reply
This would a great idea getting your name out. There are tons of people on facebook.
Cecilia Sherrard | Nov 24, 2007 | Reply
I finally did it, thanks to this post… =)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=542029006
Kansas City | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
Social networking is a great platform for real estate businesses. Face Book, MySpace and LinkedIn… any others recommended?
Katherine Dudleston | Dec 3, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the info! Always looking for new marketing and advertising ideas.
Has anyone here used http://www.realtyemailflyers.com
I’ve looked at a lot of email marketing sites, and it seems they have the largest distribution areas for the least amount of money.
Jani | Dec 25, 2007 | Reply
Facebook should allow very targetted advertising and would be ideal for real estate.
They have been running it for some weeks now. Does anyone have results to share from advertising on Facebook?
Jani
PropertyGuru.com.sg - Singapore’s Property Expert
Andrew | Jan 20, 2008 | Reply
Any feedback on results yet? I heard there has been some backlash from Facebook users on all of the new advertising.
Chris Dowell | Jan 22, 2008 | Reply
I’m not sure how it is free. I just spend 3 times more money then I do in adwords and received 0 leads. I don’t think the ads were received well judging by the reponses.
Cyndee Haydon | Mar 12, 2008 | Reply
Joel, I’ve recently created a Facebook page and am learning more about it. One thing explained to me is that “pages” are ok for doing business / being commercial while your Facebook profile is supposed to be commercial free - looking forward to checking yours out.
Rich Rogala | Apr 9, 2008 | Reply
Facebook pages are definitely a great way to create some brand recognition for yourself, if you can get your page spread out there.
A directory is great idea!
Rich
Overland Park Real Estate | Apr 24, 2008 | Reply
Facebook may be a great tool for networking but the actual advertsiing of listings I am not sold on.
Mindy Allen | Jun 29, 2008 | Reply
I have profiles on Facebook and Myspace as well as a few other places. I believe they are great tools for growing your sphere and creating awareness of yourself as an agent in your area… and I have gotten business from there…However, I am not sold on the idea of putting listings there. I think it’s tacky. I don’t see those particular places as the next “go to” place for real estate marketing. I also think that as agents we could drown in all the online marketing options that are out there…to the point where can and will suck away all of our time! I love working in real estate and I want to continue to love it and in order to do that I will continue to keep my personal life and real estate life as separate as I can. However, I do genuinely wish you luck with it.