Today  I’m going to be walking through all of the struggles, all the main struggles you as real estate agent have using Facebook for your real estate business.

Struggles like, let’s see here:

How do you find “real” real estate leads on Facebook?

How do you get in front of the right people at the right time?

What should you be posting that people actually like and are interested in?

How do you turn pages likes into closings?

How do you get more reach and engagement on your post, without having to pay more money? How do you follow up the leads you are getting so they don’t end up in the non-interested pile? How do you do all of this when you don’t have enough time? You don’t have the extra money? And you’re not techie?”

What I am going to do today, is I want to talk about your post, your content, the stuff you post on the page to get people to engage with you.

In the first series, we talked about your page set up and the essence of your page and why most of your pages aren’t doing anything for you, aren’t getting any results, etc.

Guess what? I am asking that again today, so if you’re new with me and just happened to find this article in for the first time please, do me a favor and share with me in the comments what your struggles are when it comes to using Facebook for your real estate business

If it’s one of the struggles mentioned above, go ahead and list it again, so I know that there is more than just a few people who have the same struggle. I know a lot of you have the same struggles, but if you have a new struggle or something specific please put it in the comments so I can help you.  

What Do You Put On Your Page?

So today like I said I want to talk about your posting and your content and I think this is one of the ones that surprised me how many agents struggle with this one.

Why did it surprise me? I don’t know, I guess I was really trying to figure out why this surprised me, I figured it was pretty simple to figure out what people liked in general, what they like to see.

Then I realized we forget, we have like this disconnect between people we are with in real life and different things like that related to real estate vs. virtual. It’s like we have a roadblock or a barrier and so we start throwing out what I call “canned crap.”

We will do something like national statistics, even local statistics, forgetting that our audience that’s on Facebook, there’s only very few of them that maybe in that six month window of actually buying or selling at any given moment.

So what do you put on your page to be able to engage them over time, over years, when they’re not actively buying and selling? How do we keep their attention in this entire newsfeed, in all of this stuff they’re getting thrown at them? How do we keep their attention so they want to stay connected to our page? Stay connected to us, so they will refer people to us. How do we do that?

We’re going to talk about this today. My question for you is, do you struggle with what to put on your page? Like what to post, what to put on there, and then do you struggle with hearing about the Facebook algorithm changes and all the things they say you should be doing, or you shouldn’t be doing?

Do you feel this labyrinth, this game you have to constantly play, let me know in the comments below if that’s a struggle for you, because I know it is even for my Leads and Leverage members.

We give them information, we give them things to do and it is still a struggle. We feel like we play games with the algorithm, or we must stay ahead of the algorithm, and I am here to show you today, you don’t have to game anything.

In fact, here is the best part, if you are consistent and you use the posting schedule that I’m giving you in the link below, and if you never fail to put anything up, that is 80% of the game. You have to make sure it's stuff people are interested in. I give you a posting schedule, I give you ideas on there.

I want to make sure you’re putting things out that people are interested in, in ways people are interested in them. I think sometimes, we just want to hand over the content to a vendor ot to an assistant or a VA or things like that because we don’t see the value of being the voice on that page.  

We think of it as running ads in a newspaper- again, you need to read the first article number one, to really get what I’m saying here, but your Facebook business page is the virtual you. It’s literally you, in virtual form.

Make Your Posts Conversational

So you want to make sure it sounds like you, that the page is having conversations like you would, I mean would you stand around in a room of a whole bunch of people and just say, “New blog post, link” or “National stats, link” or “Home tour, link” or “New listing, link,” would you stand around in real life and actually do that?

That’s what we do on our pages. We just throw up stuff, we think if we put stuff up, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. No, we are supposed to be initiating conversations, or even having “pretend” conversations and I’ll explain what I mean by that.

When you’re someone who is an agent, and you’re in the room and you hear conversations going on, and you have something of value to contribute to the conversation, and it’s open, you can contribute. People liked your page so you can contribute.  Do you go “New blog post, link” or, do you say, “Oh that’s interesting, someone else was struggling with that same thing and this was the solution that they found,” or “this is the resource they used” or “you don’t know what to do here?”

I actually know somebody who knows about that, here it is.” Would you be more like that or would you be like, “new listing, new blog post, new home tour.” See what we end up looking like is someone saying, “blah, blah, blah” instead of someone trying to initiate a conversation.

If for example, if people you know are struggling with, let’s say, they’re struggling with the feeling like they’re going to be priced out of, the real estate market because that is going on in our market right now. So they feel like they’re going to be priced out of the real estate market. Are you going to give into that panic and fear by saying, “Yeah, you should buy now” or are you going to educate them?  

In the history of my market, every 8 -10 years we have this surge, it’s typically because the surge started in California, this is my market, peoples home value went up, they sold, bailed California and came here. That’s what happens, It’s historic, it happens, every time. This is the fourth time in my mind, I know that this happened, the third time I’ve dealt with it in real estate.

So not only in my mind, but I also have the stats for this, so this is something I would educate people on. Every single time, our income has caught up to it. It may take a couple of years, we may end up getting priced out, but our income caught up because more jobs, more industry, more etc. Things happen, we grow.

Do we just say, “yeah, you should buy” or, do we educate people and let me know, honestly if they can’t buy right now they might temporarily be pushed out of the market, but this historically, is what’s been happening.

Speak To The Lifestyle About Where You Live

That’s just a really broad example but there are other things, like lifestyle.

Maybe people really aspire to live in a certain neighborhood or live a certain lifestyle, so we’re not going to talk about buying and selling, we’re gonna talk about what it’s like to live in that neighborhood.

Do they have RV’s, do they have ATV’s, do they have swimming pools, etc. whatever they have you need to help people with those lifestyle pieces. If it’s swimming pools, do we need to create a resource list of swimming pool companies or pool guys or resources, what can we help people with?

What can we share about our town or our city or our area that’s lifestyle related.  What events, without becoming the activities director, what events would the person you’re trying to reach be interested in?

Those are all local ideas. People like local. Period. Plain and simple, they like local. Take lots of photos.  

They also like home tours, DIY’s, remodels, etc.

They’re totally not interested in national stats. National stats mean absolutely nothing to them because they can’t translate them. They have no idea, and if you can’t translate them knowing this is what’s happening nationally, but honestly nationally is meaningless, but I do know in my market, what happens in California does affects us about 18 months later, typically.  

So I know that, so I can educate them with what is going on, here is etc, we have like 18-36 months.  I can educate people on what’s going on in the market. It helps people know to should I sell now? If I am thinking of selling in the five years, is now the time to sell? Or should I wait five years?

If I’m thinking about buying, if I’m thinking about moving or thinking about investing in a rental, like all of these things, you could just educate people. It’s really, really important that you are educating people, but on a local level and make darn sure you actually understand the stats in your market.

Know The Stats In Your Market

You’ve gotta know, you’ve got to know what the actual sales are, not just the little hot sheet thing your MLS spews out to you. Or the little numbers MLS spews out because honestly, that doesn’t really tell anything.

Like recently, ours  came out and people shared them and I’m looking at them going, “Okay, there’s more listings on the market or less listings on the market, higher sales,” but I noticed the days on market had gone up 10% and I’m like “okay, that’s a sign we are starting to see some push back, that we’re starting to see a little bit.”

I would take that and go deeper, not just on the overall thing, because MLS data is beyond our county. It’s everything in the MLS, I would go look by county, and then by towns and then I would look in the price points.

You need to know your market, and if you’re not a numbers person, sorry you have to become a numbers person, you’ve got to know this data, this is how you educate people.It’s not about giving them numbers, it’s about knowing without a doubt that you’ve got 18 months to buy or 36 months to buy. It’s kinda like having a crystal ball in a sense.  

Now clearly, you’re not going to know everything perfectly, but if you know your market inside and out, the data, the numbers, you can see the trends, not just what people are showing you, but within niches, because in every single time there is a depreciating market or down market.

There is always a little a niche, that’s appreciating, always. It could be in down markets, it could be a very specific price range, a very specific investors property, it could be just land, it could be something that’s usually just doing good in down markets.

In up markets, something is usually still pretty tight, so you just have to know the data. You’ve got to know it, you can’t just spew the data. You have to educate based on the data, you need to explain why this is important.

You Need to be YOU on Your Facebook Page

This is where you get their trust on your post, and everything, you need to be YOU on your Facebook page.

You can’t use someone else, you have to know your stuff.  There are always fun stuff you can do and I will get into that in a minute. You really need to be teaching people, and if you are teaching people and educating them, guess who is going to look at you and believe you and listen to you when you say, “Zillow estimates are horrible”?

They’re not going to believe you if they don’t already know, like and trust you. They’re not going to, no matter how much data you throw at them, but if they know, like and trust you and they know you’re going to have their back, then guess what? Guess what, you have their back, they’re going to trust you when you say, “Zillow is always off, and here let me give you a real value compared to what Zillow said, let me show it to you.”  

So if you want them to like, know and trust you, you have to be educating them all along on everything. Totally all the time. It’s really, really important that you’re doing this.

Review Part 1 of this series!
Okay, so I have way more to give, way more to talk to you about, we have to talk about the schedule. What type of things you should be putting up, etc.

The Facebook Posting Schedule

Today is the day for the Facebook posting schedule, I will be talking about when exactly you should be posting, what you should be posting on there.

Then we really need to talk about your consistency, how hyperlocal you should get, using a third party platform to help you post and about your listings and open houses, etc.

So we are going to talk about all of that today. One of my members asked, “Is it good to do blog posts and link to your website or better to go to a landing page of some sort in order to try to capture email?”  

So here is what you want to do, you want to make sure that you are thinking what is the next logical step in the journey. Every blog post you write should have some sort of lead magnet in it, and that is really easy. That is what I call a content upgrade which is really easy to do, in fact, your blog post could actually be put in a PDF form and that could be your content upgrade. You could have an email option there.

Now, when you’re trying to get people to know, like and trust you, you gotta give them value without asking for anything.

When you’re doing a blog post, you need to make sure the post aren’t canned, the posts have value in them and let people know if you’re going to post them on Facebook.

Let people know why they would want to click-through and go to that blog post,

Like why? What problem does it solve for them? What question does it answer for them?

Include a lead magnet (checklist, guide, download, etc.) Things like that; it’s an extra step, but you can get this stuff for free, for nothing. You want to be thinking about that.

Then later in your blog post and anything like that, no, you don’t want to require an email, you just want them to go.

Pixel Your Website Traffic

Another thing about that is, you get the traffic. You can pixel the website traffic, Like for example, the people who watch my Facebook  live videos; they are all apart of my video view audience, so I’m not losing anything by giving things away for free, without requiring an opt-in,

I am actually gaining. I am gaining a video view audience, I am gaining relationships with you.

So you need to be thinking about your next logical step in the process, their next logical micro-step.

Build Page Likes On Your Page

Really what you want to be doing is to really communicating with your potential audience. You could build page likes through page like ads, through doing things like this then inviting everyone who likes it to page like it.

Make sure that whatever you’re going to use to build page likes will actually get people to engage, click page likes etc. You really need to be a source of information for people. You need to be a source of translation of information.

There is a lot of information, but if you could curate for people very specific to their problems and what they need, that’s where your value is going to come in, that’s what’s going to be huge for you.

When To Schedule Your Posts

Let’s talk about your schedule.

Every single day of the week, you need to have something going out on your page. It should be a minimum of four items, to a maximum of six. This is for real estate pages very specifically.

Again, that’s what the calendar says. You want to have varying types of content. What I mean by varying types, I mean you want to have, if you can, I challenge you, a live stream. Not everyday, but at least once a week, a couple of times if possible. Pre-recorded video, these are yours that you have created.

A photo, a text type post, a link, where you share a link in a post. That’s the tech stuff, that’s the type of stuff. No matter, what has gone on in Facebook history, it has always been, people always excel when they have a variety of types of content.

Okay, so link post, video post, live and pre-recorded, photo post, text only. You want to make sure you have that variety.

Why?

Because if Facebook thinks you’re trying to game the system and thinks your only posting what they want you to do, they have to adjust the algorithm constantly and then people crash.

For example, a couple of years ago when text-only post were push, push out there people would start taking out the pre populated stuff that comes in when put a link in. They would take that out and make it a text-only post.

So Facebook went, “Okay, fine” We’re gonna change this up, we’re gonna do this. Now, what they’re doing in some cases if you put a link in, in your post, they’re giving more reach to the post you allow it to populate with whatever photo is at that link then they are to the people uploading a photo and a link.

If you don’t know what I mean on that, I don’t know how to explain that any better at the moment, but just know if you try to game the system and that’s all you do. You’re going to eat it, it’s not going to work.

What Kind Of Content Do People Want?

Do a variety of things, a variety of types. Okay? That’s number one. Now as far as what kind of content, what do people want? Well your number one key is hyperlocal.

Get your butt out in your town and take photos.

Get your butt out in your town and check-in as your business page at different businesses.

Get your butt out in your town and start meeting business owners. Do videos about their business and etc.

Get your butt out into your town and start involving yourself in different events. I’m not talking about the typical events every single realtor goes to, I am talking about go to wine tastings, go to the pubs that have games, like the world cup. Go and find the best place to watch the world cup.

Go to any local brew stuff, go to a humane society event. If there is a golf event go to that.

Get yourself out of the sphere that every realtor does this thing and go out to the community. Like be out there, share this with people, let people know ahead of time that these events are available even if you’re not going to be there. Celebrate the opening of a new park, you know celebrate with town about a new sculpture or new things the library has.

I am trying to think of stuff right off the top of my head that’s happened in our community recently. All of these types of things be a resource for the lifestyle of your area to help promote the lifestyle, to help promote what it’s like to live there.

Get involved, join a board, join a committee. When you’re  out in town at a store, take a quick picture of the store you're at or whatever restaurant you're at, take a picture of the food, take a picture of your meal and share it.

Just say, I had this amazing blah, blah, blah at blah, blah, blah. If it’s horrible, don’t give a horrible review. Just share, maybe you could figure out someone who’d like it. There are places that we don’t like to eat at in our town, because the food is just okay and we don’t like the environment and the service isn’t that great, but there are people we know and love, who absolutely love these places.

So just say, what type of person would like this page?  If it’s not for me, I could say, “if you like blah, blah, blah than you would love this place.” That’s the kind of stuff you want to put out on your page. That’s the kind of thing people are looking at, you need to be hyperlocal.

Leverage Content From Other Places

The other thing you could do is leverage other things from other places, so people really like home tours, they like to look. They are a little more voyeuristic and they want to look inside other people’s  houses, remodels, etc. so share those.

They can be from anywhere in the country, but share those, absolutely share those. Give people a reason to want to keep coming back to your page.

There is a Facebook page I absolutely love called “For the Love of Old Houses” and they share old houses, circa 1930 and older. I really like looking at all the pictures they share, etc. It is just fun to look at and do. We don’t have an old house, it’s like 50 years old, so I like to look at those, what are they doing with it, what is the style, etc. I just like to and I’m not buying right now, it’s fun to do that.

Be that resource in your community, be that person who shares that kind of stuff, share quotes, share memes, share things that are related to your community etc.

In our next training we’re going to talk about running ads and getting leads, which build on each other. We are going to talk about follow up, the best ways to follow up.

How to leverage your time, we’re gonna talk about all kinds of things. Why am I talking about all of this? Well, I really want to walk through this. I really want you to have the answers you need to move forward.

In the meantime, I want to make sure that I am going through all of these and giving you the resources, tools and answers to your struggles. If you have any questions whatsoever post them in the comments below.