Facebook Marketing for Realtors

Facebook is probably one of the biggest innovations in the web over the past decade. It is indeed the largest social media site with over a billion users all around the globe. With a very large number of users who log in on a daily basis, most brands take advantage of this site to expose and market their brands.

The most significant part of Facebook marketing is the accessibility and easy access to information. You can search for your specific target market just by filtering the people by demographics, interests and even by exact geographical location. This becomes an opportunity for start-up businesses and budding entrepreneurs to openly promote their products and services

As a brand and a realtor, here are some important tips for beginners on how to utilize Facebook for your business:

Kinds of Facebook Ads

Coming from a public page that can be created for free, you can purchase the paid ads offers from Facebook. There are many kinds of paid ads. First, you can build one that directs to your public page, or your actual site. You can even make ads to publicize your events.

These ads on Facebook can be bought through an auction. The brands are required to pay for every click, action and impression. There are a wide number of formats for the paid ads, depending on how you want to promote. You can even make and publish all sorts of advertisements yourself, using Facebook’s free public page inferface or by using an ads API developer.

Facebook marketing presently has 10 various ad categories that fall in the Ad classification:

1. Event ad
2. App ad
3. Mobile App ad
4. Domain ad
5. Page like ad
6. Coupon or Offer ad
7. Page post link ad
8. Page post video ad
9. Page post photo ad
10. Page post text ad

These ads would require you as a business to input your desired text, photo thumbnail and meta description. Each type comes with a specific number of characters and photo size. You just need to maximize your ads, and make sure your descriptions would entice viewers to click on it.

Facebook has also developed a feature that would allow users to hide your ad, if they refuse to like the page. A dialog box would then appear, asking for an opinion from the user on why he or she declined to like the ad. This can be a very helpful info for you to specify further improvements.

Customize Your Ads

Another significant tool that Facebook can do is to customize your ads, according to the people you want to target. You can have your ads linked to a related page they previously liked, or even previous external links they visited.

Facebook also gives you a powerful analytics tool to give you an idea on how well your marketing scheme is doing. You can view the trend in how many people reaches your posts, or the rate of growth of your followers. With this, you can have an idea on which ads works, and which one doesn’t.

The A- List of Facebook Marketing Strategies

While other people use Facebook to chat with their friends or to share pictures and videos, business people use it for marketing and branding. In order to become successful through gaining traffic and sales, businesses should use the most effective strategies of Facebook marketing. Have a look as this article will list down some of them:

• Making use of the site’s existing traffic. It is essential to have a company website because it will serve as a hub where people purchase the products and know everything about the particular services. To maximize existing traffic, insert clickable social media icons on the website which can redirect the user to the company’s Facebook page or any social media pages it has.

It is recommended to put these icons on the homepage header because they are noticeable on this area. This action could also provide better CTR (click-through rate) placements.

• Displaying fan page URLs by using e-mail signatures. When sending e-mails to potential customers, include fan page URLs beneath the email message or signature. By doing this, there will be an increase in traffic or following if the recipients click these attached URLs.
• Sending out email blasts. One way of letting people know that a particular business has a Facebook page is through sending email blasts. AWeber and MailChimp are some of the tools used in e-mail marketing.
• In-store promotion of a Facebook page. Offline promotion is an ideal way of telling people that a business is now on Facebook. Print and include the Facebook page URLs on store’s wall, glass doors, business cards, paper bags and etc.
• Knowing when is the best time to post and schedule the status updates. By consistently planning the posting schedule, target audience will be more engaged in liking, sharing and commenting on posts especially if they are educational and entertaining.
• Using Facebook Ads. They can help in gaining followers and business growth. They are also used to create Facebook marketing campaigns. Plus, they are not that expensive.
• Creating Facebook Contests. Facebook users like a particular fan page in order to participate in its contests. Conducting a simple photo contest can increase Facebook likes for up to 5 times more than a regular post. Prizes to be given away may vary ranging from items to services. Don’t forget to do promotions during the contest period to draw more fans.
• Using Facebook’s “@” Feature. Tagging people and other pages with this feature will make them feel recognized. Therefore, it establishes relationships between the business and its customers.
• Developing Facebook custom tabs and apps. It is an additional option that can be used to gain more likes and fans by allowing fans to access event details, deals and other exclusive advantages.
• Engaging with own Facebook community and other Facebook fan pages. This is like a win-win situation. Apart from building strong relationship to customers, it could also create fan conversions when additional people will like the page upon seeing it on other Facebook pages.
• Joining and creating Facebook groups. Their privacy is classified into three: open, closed and secret.
• Open Facebook group is typically used for increasing brand awareness and growing network. Therefore, it should focus on interactions and participations from the fans.
• Closed Facebook group can be seen by anyone but only the members can see the posts inside it. It is mainly used for customer support services.
• A secret group is only seen by members and is used for confidential discussions.

Even if these 3 groups have different functionalities, the ultimate goal is to build the ideal relationship for every group type.

There are a lot of Facebook marketing strategies out there but having the above-mentioned examples on hand is enough for businesses to do marketing wonders.

Benefits of Facebook Marketing

The number of Facebook users are growing exponentially. This means the amount of people you can reach through Facebook becomes almost limitless. Here are some of the reasons why Facebook Marketing is the best way to improve your digital marketing:

1. It is cost-effective and boasts faster return on investment. Facebook marketing is a very accessible entry point for start-ups. Just by creating a public page for your brand, you can jumpstart your promotions and publicity schemes for free. The fees only occur when you start signing up for sponsored ads, which depend on the length of the exposure and type of ad you want to acquire.
2. The good thing about paid ads is that the results can be observed right away through specific metrics like reach, number of people who viewed and more importantly, the increase in your site traffic. You can filter the people according to demographics, to aim at your specific target market. The good thing about social media is that you have the information about the users, ready at hand. This is ideal for local marketing, especially when you need to target a specific age range and geographical location. For sponsored ads, the link is designed to appear to people who liked similar or related pages.
3. You can easily see how people respond to your posts. With every post you create, viewers can send their insights and suggestions through the comment section. Whether it’s a constructive criticism, a positive review or even a rant, Facebook allows you to hear out your customer’s demands and needs, so you can have more room for improvement. It can be a good threshold to getting “viral”. If there’s something very special about social media, it’s the fast paced cycle of fads and trends.
4. Any video or photo posted online can have a good chance to circulate around the net. Facebook is very flexible when it comes to reaching out your audience. It can offer sponsored ads, or ads through recommendation. It can promote any form including events, offers, pages or external links. It can also be designed to fit mobile browsers, especially if you’re promoting a mobile app.
5. If you want a platform where you can freely check your immediate competitors, Facebook is the best way to do it. Through the ‘Pages to Watch’ feature, the site allows you to see the trend behind a certain page’s growth and posts. This might not be fully valuable, but it can help you set a benchmark on how to assess your brand’s success in marketing.
6. Facebook can be an interactive platform for your marketing programs. You can ask your followers to answer a quick poll, to fill up a sign up sheet, or even for promos. Facebook can even support a third party website embedded into your public page.

It will improve your SEO ranking. When your page is a popular link on social media and your posts are frequently being shared by your followers, search engine recognize your site better. This is why client engagement and link sharing in social media is very powerful.

Sharing the Pro’s Tips on Facebook Marketing

Thinking of how to improve marketing strategies on Facebook? Ever wonder what tactics are being used by professionals? There’s no need to worry because this article will show some examples of the hottest Facebook marketing tips and tactics today:

• Consider using ActionSprout. If marketers think that Facebook pages are the real battlegrounds on Facebook, think again. Users typically interact with the page updates appearing in their news feeds apart from visiting the actual Facebook pages. ActionSprout is a good additional custom tab on Facebook pages. While most Facebook pages require users to visit their pages before doing any actions, ActionSprout works differently by letting marketers create action options directly on the news feed. Once users have already clicked the action of their choice in the news feed update, they will be automatically redirected to another page in order to continue the completion of the action.

• Boost announcements for new products. Boosted posts for a newly launched product can increase the demand as well as the fans that like the page. It is ideal for small scale business even though it is not recommended by some Facebook marketing Do not hesitate to test this kind of technique. After all, refusal of recommendation doesn’t mean that this is ineffective and will not work.

• Make use of website custom audiences. While Facebook ads are used to target a specific audience, running a Facebook ad through the use of “Power Editor” can target all the visitors of a Facebook page (website custom audiences). In order to increase leads and potential customers, Facebook ads should be creative.

• Increase PR Efforts. Facebook is not only used for marketing campaigns, it can also support the brand’s publicity efforts. A lot of journalists rely on Facebook to look for stories. With the help of the said social media platform, sharing stories is now easy. As a result, there will be faster information delivery to the public especially if there are emerging issues and breaking news regarding new developments, etc.

• Use Facebook’s audience insights. Better return of investments can be generated if a business knows how to target a particular type of audience for advertising and optimize content strategies after understanding the audience insights. This will let the marketers see what’s engaging for audience and what type of post does this audience like. By investing time to understand their insights, fans will become more receptive on posted contents.

• Do split testing on Facebook ads. Finding the right keywords to use is crucial for Facebook advertising. To prevent wasting money, it is recommended to do a split advertising test first. Allocate portions of advertising budget on running a variety of ads one at a time. Then, study the comparisons to assess which particular advertisement works best. Only split testing can answer what particular benefit can a marketer get if he targets a narrow or wider audience.

Before anything else, it is important to plan ahead. This can give marketers enough time to develop Facebook marketing campaigns and incorporate these tips and tactics afterwards.

How to Compete in Facebook Marketing: Tips and Tricks

In a very competitive platform such as Facebook, many businesses and brand end up doing creative things just to win over their target market share. This vast social media site is all about competition, and to win over others, here are some this to consider in Facebook marketing:

Description, Thumbnail and Headline

If you’re going to use sponsored ads, maximize your chance to promote your brand. This can be done through many ways. First, you need to give your viewers an idea, in a concise way, through the Meta description. This is the short description that would appear next to your ad. Also, choosing the right thumbnail on your post is highly essential. When Facebook users browse through the site, they barely even notice the ads, unless the photo is highly striking, and would eventually catch their interest. More importantly, the ad title should be short, yet, appealing. You can try mixing up teaser style that would spark curiosity, or a full headline that would compel the reader to click.

Checking out other pages

To succeed in Facebook marketing, you need to follow other pages. This might seem like an odd tip, but by following and getting a benchmark from other similar pages, you can have an idea on the trends customer feedback and insights from their end. Moreover, you can also check the average likes and number of followers they have. This can be a good start on assessing your room for improvement.

Try not to post anything during the peak hours. Yes, you might be thinking that the most strategic time to post is when a lot of people are online. However, it is also during these times that the people’s new feed gets bombarded with stories, posts and links. By posting during non-peak hours, the tendency is that people would be seeing your post upon checking their feeds. This can be before 8am or after 6pm.

Creativity is key

Be creative on your posts. Again, following the trend is an important aspect in this part. Most people nowadays, share and repost photos that are exceptionally funny, motivating and provides insights. These photos come in forms of doodle photos, captioned photos or simply text photos. The trick here is to incorporate your brand well to the gist of every post.

Post questions

If you want to improve on your customer interaction, you need to ask some pools or survey to your followers. This is an easy way to increase likes, and improve engagement and also to hear out their ideas. It is ideal to ask questions that are open-ended, and are likely to stir up meaningful conversations among users. This might even invite more people to join the discussion, and like your page.

Digital Customer Care

Show that you care. Facebook is a very good platform to show how much you value customer insights, so you need to take advantage of this opportunity. Customers are more likely to trust a brand that could be easily reached through social media. You can do this by replying to comments, and showing that you immediately address issues and concerns raised by page followers.

Getting to Know the “Dos” and “Don’ts” of Facebook Marketing

About 1.39 billion users are active on using Facebook and half of them log in every day. There are 5 newly-created profiles every second and approximately 30 million fan pages belong to businesses. On top of all this, about 1 billion Facebook searches are made every day.

Given all the statistics, it is important to use Facebook marketing strategies in order to catch up with the growing number of active Facebook users and fan pages.

While it is hard for marketers to build loyal followings on Facebook fan pages, knowing the “dos” and “don’ts” is essential for them to see what’s working and what’s not in the field of Facebook marketing.

This article will compile some of the important things to apply and the classic mistakes to avoid as a Facebook marketer.

• Draw fans by being authentic. Use Facebook to post original contents that should not be missed. In the end, let people know what makes a company stands out among the rest.
• Value customer service at all times. Satisfied customers keep coming back for more and might also end up recommending the business to their connections. In order to keep them coming back, a facebook marketer must be able to listen and quickly respond to customer queries.
• Set-up Facebook fan pages, not profile accounts. Using profile accounts for business is clearly a violation of Facebook policies. Also, Facebook pages have certain privileges on analytics, ads and apps which are not applicable in profile accounts. While facebook pages can accommodate unlimited fans, profile accounts can only accommodate 5,000 friends/connections.
• Develop solid posting strategies. Content and consistency are the two main keys to have a firm posting strategy. Identify the marketing goals first then come up with solid posting strategies that can achieve the ideal results.
• Understand customers’ needs by getting their feedbacks. What they will say is important for the improvement of products and services. There are a lot of ways for them to give feedbacks. Some of these include:
  • Completing surveys
  • Responding to posts
  • Giving recommendations

Remember that investing time on reading customer feedbacks is good for any business.

• Never spam Facebook pages. Spamming people is worst thing to do in marketing because it can lead to the loss of followers and prospective customers. It is important to mix up contents through sharing videos, quotes and articles as well as asking questions about particular issues. Contents that contain pushy marketing messages are considered as spams.

• Do not measure success through the number of likes. The real basis for having a successful Facebook page are the following: engagement, conversions and reach. Getting a lot of likes doesn’t equate to having connections. They are built through customer interactions.

• Do not be confined with using marketing strategies on Facebook alone. Relying solely on it is effective but integrating it with other marketing strategies of social media platforms is more effective. Doing cross-promotional strategies on various social media networks could expand the content’s reach.

Moving forward, it is essential to apply these “dos” and “don’ts” of Facebook marketing because Facebook isn’t definitely going anywhere.