How to Make the Most of Facebook: A Guide for Estate Agents

Social media can be a hugely powerful tool for business of all types when it’s used correctly.

If you want to get your estate agency in front of a local audience, Facebook, in particular, has many benefits. It’s not only the most widely used social media platform on the planet, but it also allows you to post different types of content including detailed articles and video.

Creating a Facebook Page

The first step is to create a branded Facebook page for your business. It’s free to do and relatively easy to set up.

The mistake many businesses make is they don’t fill in all the different page sections so it’s important to make sure you do that. Use quality images and don’t forget to include your estate agency details such as an address, contact details and link to your website.

Setting Goals for Your Facebook Page

As with any marketing activity, any content you post must have a reason to exist. You need to be clear about what you are trying to achieve with every piece of content.

Many businesses take an ad hoc approach and don’t have much in the way of a strategy when it comes to posting content. They quickly get disheartened when the platform doesn’t deliver the results they were expecting. Goals might include:

• Increasing awareness locally of your business.
• Selling properties and create leads.
• Driving traffic to your main website.
• Building a community around your business.

Settle these in your mind and produce content that is designed to achieve specific results.

Have a Posting Strategy

Great content gets shared. That may sound simple but it’s the foundation of social media for businesses, especially Facebook. Here are our four top tips for getting it right:

1. Post regularly

Keeping your Facebook page live is important. You should be posting at least a couple of times a day with content that is relevant and engaging. This doesn’t have to be a post selling a property either, it could be something you’ve seen somewhere in the news that you think your audience will be interested in.

2. Post quality content

Quality content is vital and it’s what will keep your audience watching out for what you post next and leaving messages in the comments section. Ensure that the content is well-written, has a purpose and comes with a high-quality image (posts with images or video tend to get shared more).

3. Don’t spam your fans

Don’t forget, however, that posting too much can be negative too. If you are filling someone’s timeline with countless messages, they are likely to tune out and turn you off. It’s important to get the balance right.

4. Vary your posts

Widening the scope of what you post is also essential. While you’re operating within a specific niche, you can afford to stray beyond the boundaries.

Yes, you want to post those property details but you can also include interesting news articles, advice on how to hunt for a house and even humorous articles related to your industry. You can even use live video to give your fans a virtual tour around a property if you want to spice things up.

Engage, Don’t Be Salesy

Take the time to join local groups and get involved. Offer advice to those that are looking for it. If someone writes a good review on your site, reply and thank them. If they write a bad review, also reply. See if you can help them out, apologise or explain how you have put in measures to prevent a particular problem happening again.

In addition, take the time to connect with other local businesses and build a relationship with them, share their posts and comment on their Facebook pages. You’ll usually find at least a few who will return the favour.

In short, don’t always be in a hurry to sell.

Give It Time to Work

Like many organic marketing activities, building a presence on Facebook so that it contributes to sales and provides exposure for your business takes time and effort. Set aside a period each day to engage with the site and keep at it.

Facebook Ads

Finally, there is another, more direct way to use the platform and that’s through paid Facebook Ads. This allows you to target a specific audience, in your case, people who are looking to buy or sell a property in your local area.

The platform allows you to set your budget and target a wide range of demographics and interests. Get it right and it can prove a valuable tool in addition to your organic Facebook page development.

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