Facebook Business Page Setup

So, you are setting up your Facebook business page for your real estate business. AWESOME! I do have a question for you though….”Do you know why you are setting up a Facebook business page?”
What? Why on earth would I ask you “why?” Isn’t the “why” obvious? You want a Facebook “presence.” You want to “be everywhere.” You want to give your real estate business “legitimacy.”
But again, I ask you “why?” What is your end goal? And yet again, you might be thinking… “Well duh, my end goal is real estate transactions! Besides, everyone else is there, I guess I need to be there too.”
All too often, if not most of the time, we jump into things without understanding the “thing” we are jumping into. What’s our strategy for using it? What’s our plan for generating leads from it? Is it a place we should be vs. a place we think we need to be? Will our time and energy spent on this “thing” produce viable fruit? In other words, will it result in closings?
And no, “hope marketing” is not a viable reason for being somewhere or doing something. What’s “hope marketing” you ask? It’s that place we go in our minds when we think… “Well, doing this can’t hurt.” or “If I can get my name out there, the hope is that the right person, in the right frame of mind, will see my name and remember it when they are ready to buy or sell real estate.”
Guys, that is a ridiculous reason for doing anything. We should have clear, precise, distinct goals when using Facebook. We need to understand how Facebook works. We need to have a plan and that plan, includes how we set up our Facebook business page from the very beginning.

“You need clear, precise, distinct goals when using Facebook for real estate.” 

Here’s the deal… Facebook business pages exist so that you can connect with your “unmets.” You know, people you’ve never met before. It’s called “lead generation.” Bringing in leads that you don’t know yet, bringing them into your sphere (also known as your database) and then nurturing those leads into clients and closings.
To that end, you definitely need to setup your Facebook business page in a way that nurtures that strategy, that produces the end results… connecting you with people you’ve never met before. And it’s to that end that I give you these “best practices” for setting up your business page.

Your First Mistake

First, you aren’t a local business!
Most agents hop on the “local business” category for their Facebook business page and this is usually their first mistake in the actual hands-on creation process. YOU aren’t a local business. YOU are a real estate agent.
Think about it. Who or what is your business? Your business is YOU. You are “selling” your services. You aren’t selling retail products. You aren’t looking for walk-ins (in fact, if you are a busy agent, you are rarely even IN the office) so why on earth do you want to waste valuable “real estate” on Facebook with a massive “map and address?”
Instead, choose the Brand/Product category and the Service/Real Estate Agent subcategory and utilize the space now available for call-to-action, lead capture links rather than a map of your brokerage.

What’s The Goal?

Second of all, you have to ignore what you see everyone else doing… because they are doing it wrong!
Remember, your goal is to use it for funneling your unmets into your database. The kicker is, most real estate agents are not using their Facebook business pages to connect with their unmets. They are using their pages as, yet another, online brochure about themselves.
They ask all of their friends and family to “like” their page. They treat it like a second personal profile and then are confused and wonder why they should even have a Facebook business page if they’ve got a personal profile.
If you want clients and closings, don’t follow the crowd. Ignore them. And proceed to do the opposite.

It Isn’t About You!

Third, your Facebook business page isn’t about you!
We think that since we are putting “our business” onto Facebook, we need to share as much as possible about “our business.” We treat our pages like an online brochure.

“We treat our Facebook pages like an online brochure, & no one is interested” 

Quite frankly, no one is interested in you. They are interested in what you can give or do for them. We filter out the sales crap and seek out resources. GIVE THEM RESOURCES!
Your Facebook business page is about your future client. It’s about them. It’s about their wants, desires, hopes, needs, problems, dreams… it’s about them.
Don’t treat your page like a brochure. Treat it like a resource that your future clients are accessing. YES! Have your contact information there. YES! Learn how to drive traffic to resources. YES! Learn how to sell without selling. But NO! Don’t treat it like a brochure about you.
Your future client discover just how awesome you are through your actions and deeds. These hold much more power than your words.

Lead Capture

Fourth, your Facebook business page isn’t about branding, nor is it about exposure. It’s about lead capture.
Now, before you get all up in arms and fight this concept, consider this… when you focus on branding and exposure, that’s all you get. Maybe. Possibly. It takes a whole lot of time and money, lots and lots of money, to get to a point that people think only and always of your brand. In fact… it’s a lot of money down the toilet.
But, when you have a strategy in place… when you have a plan focused on lead generation, you not only reap the results of that focus, but you also get the benefits of presence. In other words, focusing on lead generation will “get your name in front of multitudes of people.” You’ll get the exposure you desire while simultaneously putting food on your table because you’ve got closings.

Shiny Objects

Fifth, No, you don’t want to put your IDX on your Facebook business page.
Doh! Did I just say that out loud? I’m positioning myself to be dismissed by vendors and real estate agents alike here. You see, vendors have a product to sell you and they like that you are thinking in terms that your business page is “just another web presence.” They can sell you something. Something that doesn’t work. Something we “think” works, but it doesn’t. Something that is actually a shiny object or billed as the next silver bullet.
And still, your colleagues will insist putting IDX on their Facebook business page changed their businesses, overnight. Ok, maybe not that extreme but, they will tell you that they’ve gotten leads from it. But when you dig deeper and ask how many, how often, who, what, when, where, why…. they don’t have a factual answer for you. That’s because they didn’t track it. So what they tell you is anecdotal (at best).
You don’t want IDX on your Facebook business page for a number of reasons… one of which is that it’s a waste of time and money. Our business pages are actually viewed by less than 2% of our audience. That means out of 100 people who come in contact with our actual page (not just a NewsFeed post) fewer than 2 of them actually VISIT our page (and quite frankly, those 2 are probably our competitors or a vendor who wants to sell us something).
The second reason is because you want to leverage Facebook. If you don’t drive traffic interested in seeing homes to a page that you can pixel (your IDX on your website), you are wasting a whole lot of time and money. This one is “The Biggie.”

Facebook is Not Your “Home-Base.”

Finally, do not make Facebook your “home-base.”
Here’s what I mean… you need to have an online “home-base,” your own website. By “your own” I mean, your own. Not your brokers. You need your own domain… that you bought and registered yourself. You need your own website that allows you to embed Facebook pixels.
As agents we like when things are done for us… but the problem is, most “done for you” isn’t in your best interest. So you’ve got to understand the why and then outsource appropriately.
Definitely do not use Facebook as your home-base. With Facebook now promoting a form of blogging on their platform, many people will spend the time and energy just using Facebook as their home-base, and when something happens (like Facebook shutting down your account, or changing the rules or whatever) you lose out. You threw out every moment of time and penny spent.
OWN your home-base and leverage Facebook as a resource to drive traffic to your home-base.

The Big Question

Now, I’ve got a question for you…
What did I show you today that will change how you use Facebook?