I recently had a conversation with someone interested in using our services.  The crux of the conversation ended up that this person decided not to use our services.  That wasn’t the issue I had. Our services aren’t for everyone.

What actually came up that concerned me was something that clearly, I’ve not been able to communicate.  I need to change that.

This person said that from their research, Facebook leads were just too far out to go after. They were too far out for closings. They decided to stick with their PPC and work on their organic search.

Wow.  I failed.  Big time.

I’ve failed to show several things here:

The value in using Facebook, for one, and the value in having at least three online lead channels in your real estate business.

One of the awesome things about creating, building and maintaining a Facebook business page is that it will strongly enhance your online presence, organically.

The beauty about Facebook business pages is that they are indexable. This means they show up in keyword searches in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. This means you have another chance to have an additional resource for the consumer, ranking very high on these search engines.

In other words, you’ll knock your competition out of the search rankings, the more options you have showing up on page one. There are only ten places you know.

In many (if not most) cases, Facebook pages will outrank your website.

This is powerful for your online presence. It gives you yet another point of connection for prospects as they use the search engines.

The other issue I failed to address was the singular focus on PPC as a better lead source than Facebook.

Here’s the deal . . .

When Google comes out as saying that click-thru’s in ads are down, significantly, you know two things . . .

1. That it will take more money to get the same results
2. You better start leveraging and finding other ways to bring in leads.

Lead generation for your real estate business should never be a one “source” channel. You really need to set up your lead generation like a stool with three legs.

Three legs of online lead generation sources. When one changes, because it will, often faster than you can react, you’ll be stuck high and dry if you haven’t created other strong lead generation channels.

Take the Craigslist changes in November 2013 as a perfect example. So many agents were tied up using Craigslist as their main (if not one and only) lead generation source (not just online, but their entire lead generation focused solely on Craigslist) that many just crashed when Craigslist took away links in posts.

It was huge repercussion.

The uproar in the real estate community was very loud.

You do not want to be in the position of many of these agents, struggling when that lead source changes, stops working, disappears, etc.

You must must must have three online lead generation channels.

As far as “taking too long to close” . . . there is this idea out there that certain kinds of online real estate leads are ripe for the picking and others are dead (no lead is dead).

Here’s the thing about “taking too long to close”. It’s not true. I’m just talking about different sources of online leads here.

Online leads are in all different stages of the home buying/selling process. All different stages. Despite what some SEO experts might be telling you, people searching google for “City Homes For Sale” are no closer to closing than any other online lead.

The key is, you’ve got to have a system in place that nurtures the lead through the process, whether that process takes ten days or ten years.

Here’s a fantastic plus for Facebook leads vs. PPC leads:

Facebook leads are better overall for several reasons . . .

• Once they feel “connected” with you, they are loyal. Very loyal. If you keep them engaged, keep nurturing them via other methods, keep connecting with them, you’ll have a long-term, loyal client.

• They make referrals. Lots of them. If they like you, even if they haven’t used your services yet, they will refer their friends, family and acquaintances and they will take pride in that referral.

• The length of time to close is the same as any other “online” lead, no more, no less. However, the power behind the connection (with loyalty and referrals) is much more enhanced with a Facebook lead than it is with a typical PPC lead.

So which one is better? You need both, plus one more.