Do you struggle with creating engagement on your Facebook business page? Let me just say… you are not alone.

Real estate agents are always telling me that they struggle with creating engagement on their Facebook businesses pages and they are looking for help.

I host a Facebook for Real Estate agents group and I asked members what they would like to see me train on… and the most requested training was creating engagement on my Facebook business page.

This was both a surprise and not a surprise to me.

A surprise because I thought agents would want to learn more about lead generation and not a surprise because I realized that real estate agents think that creating engagement will result in leads.

In other words, it seems as though it is believed that stirring up engagement on our Facebook business pages will result in capturing more leads.

The truth is, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Focusing on creating engagement on our business pages does not mean we capture more leads. In fact, it often means the opposite.

A highly “engaged” Facebook business page is all-too-often the front to a very busy, stressed-out, and poor, Facebook business page admin.

If your real goal is to build a better business… to create a consistent flow of real estate leads… then here are a few things you need to keep in mind when it comes to using your Facebook business page to generate business.

1) Your page is a conduit, not a destination

Here’s where the paradigm shift begins. We need to pivot from “trying to create engagement” on our business pages to realizing that our page is a conduit between people we’ve never met and our database.

Your Facebook business page is not a destination. It is not a community. It is a funnel. A conduit. It’s the slide between the masses on Facebook and your database.

In other words, stop trying to create a “community” on your page and focus instead on creating a valuable conduit between Facebook and your database.

In reality, you want to create your community within your database, not on a “rented” platform.

2) Stop trying to create engagement and start focusing on providing value

What does that look like? It looks like giving the answers to your prospects problems.

When you try to only give them home searches or CMA’s, you are seen as a salesman, irrelevant to them, and someone who doesn’t understand their journey.

Stop being self-serving and start actually serving. Consumers don’t care why they shouldn’t sell FSBO. They dismiss articles and such that promote using real estate agents. In other words, don’t fall for the industry thought on “teaching the public how valuable real estate agents are” because you will get no where, fast.

Instead, show them how valuable you are. Show them they mean something beyond the transaction. And if they don’t actually mean something beyond the transaction to you – take your smarmy salesman tactics to the local used car dealership and push your wares there.

Remember, you need to help them, with their real problems… not what you perceive their problems to be.

Our industry is never short of advice on what the they think the consumer wants or needs. Unfortunately, we’re wrong. Pretty much all the time. Just look at the offerings that are out there for consumers… “get your home value instantly” and “check out these homes for sale” and “get this home buyers guide” etc. etc. etc.

Find out what their real problems are… problems and challenges they face along their entire homeownership journey. Then, give them solutions. And no, “use a real estate agent” is not a solution.

Let’s face it. Problems aren’t solved simply because a consumer uses a real estate agent. In fact, problems are often created when another person gets involved, so don’t resort to sales tactics that the consumer sees right through.

Start solving their real problems along their home ownership journey without attaching a “sale” to it.

3) Ignore the “engagement numbers” and focus on the “audience” numbers

Always remember, that 99% of your tribe are simply going to lurk. They will not engage and trying to change their behavior is virtually impossible.

There is actually a 1% rule when it comes to Internet culture. Rather than fight the rule, leverage the rule.

Know that engagement is not the goal, but acquirement is. You want to acquire audiences that are highly targeted and you want to nurture them so that when you do “ask for the sale” they respond to you. Your audiences include targeted page likes, website visitors, your email database and your snail mail database.

Your offline audiences must be included in this as well. Add your offline audiences into your email database as quickly as possible. Your goal is to bring all audiences into your email database.

In truth, there is nothing wrong with engagement, it’s just that we need to stop focusing on it. Stop looking at that metric. Focus on your audience numbers rather than your engagement numbers.