Promotion is essential if you want to build a presence for your real estate business. The problem is a lot of Realtors don’t know how to use FB to grow their business.
Real estate is a relationship business. This is the reason Facebook can be so powerful for Realtors. It enables you to easily stay present in the lives of your friends, family and extended community.
Great brands know that being top of mind is essential to two important factors that influence their client’s decisions. First, the more often you are seen the more trust you build in the mind of your clients. Secondly, a home buyer or seller may move from the consideration stage to the action stage at any moment of time. You want to be the Agent that comes to their mind first when they are ready to list or buy.
Being active in your community organizations, sports, or churches is great for building relationships and expanding your circle, while Facebook is great at keeping in touch with those relationships after the sports season is over.
Fortunately, increasing your Facebook activity is not rocket science. Here are 3 techniques to increase your visibility on Facebook and grow your influence among your community.
Technique # 1: Be visual
It doesn’t take much to turn a mundane FB post into an eye-catching one with visual images and youtube videos.
By using catchy images and videos you create an emotional response from the viewer. The goal is to use emotion to compel people to like, comment or share immediately. Bernadette Jiwa of Striking Truths wrote, “We create outstanding visual images that people like to share on Facebook, driving traffic back to our own website.”
The more organic likes and shares on Facebook you have, the more people in your online community see you and the more trusted you become.
To grow your influence share positive and attractive photos that tell a story. Also, share links to fun blog posts that you enjoyed or wrote. Make sure you use a bright and catchy photos or videos with the link.
Below you will notice I’ve included an image of a FB post that I published for StreetText. It uses the visual technique to increase engagement. By having a bright visual image you will increase your exposure. This post saw a 20% engagement level. That means 1 out of every 5 people who saw this clicked the link or liked it. When Facebook sees that amount of activity their algorithms automatically share your post to more of your friends which increases your reach further.
Technique #2: Be useful
Now remember, the purpose of Facebook is to grow your brand and subsequently your business. To do that you need to increase your influence on the web.
Two things are true of influence. It is grown over time and it is grown because you were useful.
The same is true when growing your influence via FB. Make sure your posts are helpful for others and not just entertaining. You can have all the cool pictures of cats you want, “but ultimately usefulness and relevance are key.” – Mark Schaefer of Business Grow
So how do you go about being useful? Being valuable on Facebook can be as simple as answering questions your friends ask the FB community. You can also be useful by posting helpful articles or by bragging about how much you enjoyed working with your client buying their home. Posting interesting facts about your neighborhood and area is another way of both showing off your local expertise and your desire to help others. The key is to keep it short, sweet and fun.
As you read this you will notice that this second technique builds upon the other. When you create an eye catchy post and it is useful people will like it and share it even more so.
Here is an example of a FB post by American company State Farm showing how to use Vanilla extract to make your home smell great. (We are a Canadian company but this is a good example of a business sharing a fact that appeals to a broad audience ) 
Technique #3: Post at the right time
More specifically post at 11am and 5pm.
And make sure you post no more than 2 times per day and at the best times. “The best results were achieved with 2 daily updates, one being around 11am for the most important timezone your fans are in and another posting being at 5pm”, Leo Widrick Co-Founder, Buffer.
You now have everything you need to start growing your Facebook influence. And remember it’s absolutely okay to also post things that politely remind people that you are a Real Estate Agent and you love doing it. That way the next home a FB friend lists will be with you.
The key to growing your influence is posting with others in mind. Ask yourself, is this a post that benefits others and that you would enjoy? If the answer is yes, post it.
I leave you with this great post by a Realtor. If you had success using Facebook I would love to hear your stories. Also if you have a useful technique that you think will be helpful to others, please post it below. Good luck!
P.S. if you are interested, we’ve just released a free eGuide on using Facebook Ads to farm to your local city. We are proud to say that it has already been downloaded over 100 times!
