facebook marketing

How To Generate Lots Of Good Real Estate Content For Your Facebook Business Page

Over on our Facebook group, Facebook for Real Estate Agents, we are hot and heavy into maximizing Facebook for real estate lead generation.

The questions I’m getting both here on the blog and in the Facebook group have inspired me to write an in-depth series on Facebook lead generation for real estate agents. This post is the second in the series, with The Facebook Funnel – The Real Estate Lead Generation Process Using Facebook being the series pilot.

Direct from The Facebook Funnel – The Real Estate Lead Generation Process Using Facebook, today I’m going to teach you about getting a prospect to come to your Facebook business page.

In order to get a prospect to come your page, you’ve got to give them something they want. Something that compels them to want more from you. Something that entices them to come to your page and explore and ultimately, to like your page. That something is called content.

Let’s dig deeper . . .

Every day there are questions such as this one . . .

How do you generate enough good content on your Facebook business page to get people to reach out to you to buy or sell real estate with you?

This question is at the top of most real estate agents minds when they are trying to figure out how to use Facebook to lead generate.

It is multifaceted though.

You’ve got the “how do you generate enough good content” question and the “get people to reach out to you for your services” question.

Today I’m going to address the first part of the question:

How do you generate enough good real estate content on your Facebook business page?

Ok.

First and foremost, you must understand the Facebook funnel. The real estate lead generation process using Facebook.

Go. Take a moment to understand it. It’s about 3 minutes of your time.

I’ll wait.

Now that you are back . . .

Do you remember when I taught you how to build your own real estate content calendar?

Well, you need to do that.

The starting point for “enough good real estate content” is having a master plan aka a content calendar, guiding you with this content.

Make a master calendar with an eye towards the type of content you want to share.

For example, pin point the days and times you want to share home maintenance tips, promote listings, promote blog posts, answer questions, ask questions, post testimonials, promote kudos’ about your town/city, etc.

Now, once you’ve got the master content calendar down, you need to start heading out and finding the content.

Do your research.

Over on my Inman Next post I gave 4 tricks to planning your content in advance.

Check it out. I gave some awesome content resources on there.

The key is, you will need to be well read and knowledgable and you’ll need to make sure it shows.

The other key is, making it “good”. By good I mean engaging, interesting, thought provoking.

There are good ways and bad ways to share your real estate content on your Facebook business page.

The bad way . . . .

Constantly providing just a link (with no thoughtful dialogue on your part) on your page.
Constantly providing content that the consumer isn’t interested in, but providing it just for the sake of having activity on your page.

What is content your consumer doesn’t care about?

Well, they don’t care about the latest Case/Schiller report.
They don’t care about what the interest rate is today.
They don’t care about being told they should work with a REALTOR©. They don’t like being talked at.
They don’t care about content that is not focused on their real estate needs
They don’t care about content they can easily get elsewhere

The good way . . .

Now flip this around.

Often, you can provide the almost identical information but in a different way.

When you are sharing a link, talk with (not at or to) your prospect and share with them why they should take their time to click on and go to the link source.
Provide content they are interested in and care about.

driving traffic with good content — Image courtesy of [Naypong] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What is content your consumer cares about?

They like knowing that their choice to buy or sell now is a good one. This means instead of telling them now is a great time to buy or sell, that you address their needs and wants for buying or selling. It means that you address their emotional reasons. Don’t just say “now is the time to buy”, that simply doesn’t work. They hear it all . the . time . from people who want money from them.
They like knowing that the loan they are getting now is perfect for them. This means instead of telling them they’ll be a failure if the interest rates rise, tell them about different loan options and what kind of buyer each option would be best for. Appeal to the emotions with a touch on the practical. No matter how practical the person, emotion will always rule the final decision when it comes to the purchase of a personal residence. Always.
They like having a conversation. This means you need to have dialogue. It means that even if they don’t respond on your page, you need to write your post to them just as if they are standing in front of you and just asked you a question. And then, after you’ve answered their question, you need to ask them a question.
They like knowing they know what they are doing, whether they really do or not. Empower your prospects. Help them to better understand the process.

So there it is.

Between the content you create yourself, essentially your blog posts that consist of answers and solutions for the consumer, and the content you curate, you’ll have no troubles finding enough good real estate content for your Facebook business page.

Have you struggled with finding enough good real estate content to fill your Facebook business page?

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.

by Christina Ethridge Leave a Comment

How to extend the life of your Facebook posts

Katie Lance, with Katie Lance Consulting, recently shared an excellent tip on how to extend the life of your Facebook posts over on Inman|Next. It’s a quick video, with a detailed “how-to”.

Click here to watch the short video.

It’s not just about extending the life of a post. It’s about promoting a post. It’s about crossing over your platforms, to reach different audiences. To drive traffic between your platforms.

My question for you is, are you already doing this? If so, how is it working for you? Are you seeing more activity from it?

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.

by Christina Ethridge 7 Comments

Hey Real Estate Agents! Your Facebook Personal Profile Does Not Generate Business For You, Even If You Think It Does.

Do you know what I hear every day?

Real Estate agents telling me that they get more business from their Facebook personal profile than from their Facebook business page.

Your personal sphere — Image courtesy of [dan] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let’s set aside the fact that they aren’t actually “getting” business from their Facebook personal profile. That’s a whole other post, but suffice it to say, business obtained from your Facebook personal profile is not lead generating.

It’s called working your sphere. You already know these people. You are staying top of mind for them via your personal profile. You should be expecting them to do business with you and to refer their friends and colleagues.

You are not “generating” them as a lead. They are more than a lead. They are a prospect (if they aren’t already friends, family or closed clients). They are connected with you, even if you haven’t met them in real life, they are already in a relationship with you. That’s called nurturing and conversion, not generating.

If you aren’t doing business with people you already know, people you are already friends with, people you hang out “IRL” with and are connected with them on Facebook, then you need to get the heck out of the real estate business.

You don’t “get” a lead that you already had, from your Facebook personal profile. Your Facebook personal profile is your sphere. Your “mets”. They may even give you referrals, if they remember you at the right moment. It’s easier to nurture people you already know. It’s very important, too.

However, you can not solely rely on people you already know. You’ve been taught to add to your database. Meet people. Get their contact information. The bigger your database, the bigger your business. If you aren’t adding to your database, you’ll go out of business. It’s that simple.

Well, you don’t typically meet people on your Facebook personal profile. That’s where your Facebook business page comes in.

Your Facebook business page is not the same thing as working your sphere. It’s a step in the process. It’s a part of the real estate lead generation funnel.

Your Facebook business page is a lead generation funnel for your “un-mets”.

A lead is someone you are not already connected to and do not know.

Spokes and hub — Image courtesy of [Danilo Rizzuti] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You must have a lead generation process. A big one. Done daily. Guess what that means? A Facebook business page for your real estate business is an excellent way to generate “un-mets” – people you do not know, yet hope to do business with in the future.

When you bring it in as a part of the funnel, when you use it thoroughly and with detailed, focused thought, you’ll generate leads. Lots of them. You’ll be adding to your database at a faster rate than via your Facebook personal profile is even possible.

There is so much power in a Facebook business page. More power than any Facebook personal profile could ever have. For one, it’s indexable. That means that the search engines “crawl” your page and share your content in search engines. That means you have yet another “finger” in SEO juice (rankings). This is a good thing. A very good thing.

The other power? You can drive traffic to the page (which is non-threatening to un-mets) and allow them to get to a trust point with you . . . enough that when you offer them something free in exchange for their contact information, they are likely to give it to you. At that point, with an excellent long-term nurturing and follow-up system in place, you are golden. They are yours.

Don’t make the mistake in thinking that your Facebook personal profile is “generating” business for you. It’s not. It’s simply filtering the business that was already there, yours for the taking. It’s kind of like being in the right place at the right time and hearing the right conversation at the right time.

You need actual lead generation. You need it constant. Some of the biggest producers in real estate already know this. Now you do too.

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.