Real Estate Agents!! Whatever you do, don’t automate!

Say what?

Automate? Automate what? Where?

There are very few “laws” of social media marketing. Well really, there aren’t any “laws”, just perceived do’s and don’ts.

Today I’m going to tell you the one, single, law for real estate agents who use Facebook for lead generation.

Ready?

Here it is.

Do not automate the posting of your real estate listings to Facebook.

Ever.

Let’s look at your two options….

First of all, posting your listings on your Facebook personal profile is breeding ground for getting your profile shut down, closed out, deleted, by Facebook.

It’s blatantly against their terms of use.

Say what? You’ve never known anyone who has had their profile deleted by Facebook? You say you are too small and inconsequential and Facebook won’t notice?

Ok, aside from the fact that you are breaking your word… yes, you lied. When you signed up to use Facebook you agreed to their terms of use, so if you are ok with lying, so be it. There isn’t anything I can do to change that and quite frankly, if you are going to lie about something so small, I guarantee, you’ve got bigger issues to deal with than listing automation on Facebook.

Image courtesy of [Stoonn] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Now, aside from the whole lying issue, don’t fool yourself. Facebook looks at the little guy. They check to see if you are using your personal profile for business. People you are connected with may report you. Who knows how they’ll find out, they will. Eventually. When they find out (it’s not a matter of if, it’s when), they won’t give you any warning. You’ll lose everything… all your photos, all your friends and connections, all your work to build a network.

Why on earth would you put your efforts into something that will be deleted? Oh, wait. You’ve never seen Facebook delete a profile? Does it help that I have? That I know, personally, three profiles that were deleted because they were blatantly using their profile for business? Additionally, I know, through my networks, of 4 others who have had profiles deleted. Both in the real estate industry and outside of it. Profiles. I’m not talking about pages, I’m talking about personal profiles. All that work, gone.

Me, little ole me, someone who doesn’t have a massive network, knows 7 people who have had to deal with their unfortunate choice to “game” Facebook’s terms of service. I’m one user out of millions. I guarantee, there are more. Many more.

Ok, so you get the whole “no posting listings on your Facebook personal profile” thing. You intend to have them automatically posted to your Facebook business page.

That’s ok, right?

Well, yes . . . and no.

Yes, it’s within Facebook’s terms of service. You won’t have your page shut down for doing that.

However, what is your goal for your Facebook page? Is it to just have yet another place to “syndicate” your listings – so your sellers are happy you are advertising on Facebook?

It is?

What a waste.

Really. It’s a waste to use your Facebook business page like that.

Your Facebook business page has so much potential as a lead generating tool for your real estate business. Maximize that potential!

Instead of automating your listings, schedule them to post, but do it this way…

• Pick a listing
• Pick a feature
• Upload a photo of said feature to Facebook
• Ask a question from your prospects about the feature
• Include a link to the listing IDX
• Schedule the posting for high use period
• Rinse. Repeat.

Do five to ten listings at once. With the scheduling feature, you can have days or weeks of listings ready to go, within about 30 minutes of your time.

You’ll also have created an engagement focused post – promoting your listings (making your sellers happy) and encouraging engagement and feedback from your prospects, which generates more leads (making you happy).

Ok – now do you see why automating the posting of your real estate listings isn’t a good thing, even if it’s allowed by Facebook? I totally and completely understand the need to leverage your time. Believe me, I do. I think that is probably one of the number on things real estate agents deal with.

However, real estate listing automation doesn’t truly leverage your time as it brings you no results. Leverage your time like I showed you above and you will see results.