Facebook officially launched it’s advertising platform (see Techcrunch’s Liveblogging Facebook Advertising Announcement) and it’s a doozy. This builds substantially on its Flyers technology (see Marketing Yourself with Facebook Flyers) and offers marketers and technologists lots more to think about. I’m going to be chewing on this one for a while.

From their press release:

Facebook announced today that 44 websites are using Facebook Beacon to allow users to share information from other websites for distribution to their friends on Facebook. These sites are participating in the launch of Beacon, a new way to socially distribute information on Facebook. Beacon is a core element of the Facebook Ads system for connecting businesses with users and targeting advertising to the audiences they want.

Beacon makes sense for real estate web sites – and one can envision a number of different scenarios. Placing viewed listings into their mini-feed to share with friends and family. “I’ve just found this house on Coldwell Banker’s site – what do you think?” Alternatively, if someone were selling their home they could take their For Sale listing on Zillow and distribute it to everyone in their social graph. A Realtor could add their answered questions from Trulia into their  mini-feed and share with them with their sphere.

Jeremiah Owyang has a great rundown of the new products and talks about Hyper Targeting, Social Ads and rise of the “Fan-Sumer” – a term he’s dubbed to reflect the ability in the new platform for Facebook members to self-identify themselves as fans of particular brands. Says Jeremiah:

Once a member has indicated they are a fan of a brand, that brand can choose to purchase SocialAds (from Facebook Sales or via a self-service platform). A unique endorsement of a product or brand will now appear on that individuals news feed or banner or skyscraper ads. Advertisers can purchase social ads target by profile demographics and profiles, as well as by activities done in Facebook. Payment is an auction-based system available to marketers via both CPM and CPC pricing.

Definitely makes sense from a marketing perspective – who wouldn’t want to reach out to their core fan base?

But the big question I have is this, are there even any brands in real estate that consumers would instantly identify themselves as a fan of? And if not, why not? What are we missing here?

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