Running random advertisements or boosting certain posts is not necessarily the most effective way of getting to the right audience. What Facebook does well is gather data on people’s behaviours, where they go ,what sites they visit and what interests they have. It’s this information that many Agents don’t tap into when marketing themselves for listings or a particular property for Buyers.
Let’s start with posting a listing. What you have to consider first is the image or video, then the wording of the post.
Facebook goes head to head with Google when it comes to your advertising dollar. Remember, Google owns YouTube and Facebook owns Instagram, so for this reason alone Facebook will favour a video over a still image as far as reach goes.
Let’s assume you have played with posts and found the right formula. It’s important to have the post shared, liked and commented on by as many people as possible, prior to boosting the post. This can be done by you sharing it to your business page as an Agent. Then have your Sellers share it and tag the whole family in and prompt them to comment and share the post.
Facebook will favour a post that is already well liked and increase its reach in the market place.
The next step in the process is to define your audience, remembering that Facebook like to group people based on their interests or behaviours. An example of this could be that you want to connect with people who live in a certain suburb and have visited websites like realestate.com.au, these are likely to be active Buyers or Sellers. Facebook will allow you to market to certain groups if they are large enough.
If you are doing your standard “Just Listed or Just Sold” type posts you can tell Facebook to expose it to people within a certain radius of the property, for eg. one or two miles. This strategy will never replace door knocking around a listing, as face to face contact is still the best way to form a relationship.
What social media allows the clever Real Estate Agent to do is ask the question to hundreds or thousands of people, and have a call to action, like fill in a lead form or request a market report. You can then start to form your relationship with people who are active in the market.
Social Media can be a great tool for Real Estate Agent’s and on the flip side it can also be a huge time waster if you don’t have a plan. It helps to get some advice from people who are doing it well and structure your posts to deliver an outcome – like a request for more information.
If you are struggling with how to develop and implement a Social Media Plan talk with Peter Ford at Complete Property Training on 07 54388922 or email peter@completepropertytraining.com.au