15,673 People Saw This On Facebook
It’s amazing what people look at and share on Facebook.
I don’t have to tell you that politics gets people riled up…
But with all the pictures of candidates, food, vacations, grumpy cats and funny gifs, you’d be surprised how many people also like to look at homes on Facebook.
In fact, 15,673 people saw, liked, commented on or shared a post we made recently about one of our listings! The ad shown below blew up so fast that we sold the home in hours!
Facebook has really become a big part of our marketing strategy, so if you are planning on selling your home soon please consider how important massive exposure on the world's most popular social network will be for getting your home sold.
Why Your Home Needs To Be Marketed On Facebook
If you have a home for sale, your property needs to be featured on Facebook. Period.
Sure, you can sell your home without using Facebook, but you are likely going to leave some money on the table. Why?
Because 1 in 7 people on the planet are on Facebook and they are all linked together through common friendships.
This means that we can target the likely buyer for your home with our marketing on Facebook, unlike ALL OTHER SOURCES where targeting is highly limited.
Targeted Ad On Facebook
How To Market A Home For Sale On Facebook
So the ad above got the home sold in just a few hours, so is that all it takes?
Actually no.
You first have to spend years of building a network on Facebook that ensures that you can reach the majority of prospective buyers for the home.
You would be amazed at how Facebook allows us to restrict the ads showing on their site. We can isolate (target) income levels, home ownership status, and we can utilize an algorithm Facebook has developed to calculate whether or not somebody is likely to move. Imagine that, just marketing your home to people who earn enough money to buy it and who are likely to move!
So the key is not to advertise your home for sale on Facebook, rather it's to get the most well connected real estate company to utilize their massive following and target the marketing to the right people who are most likely ready, willing, and able to buy your home.
How To Evaluate Real Estate Companies On Facebook
There are two quick things you should know before you start evaluating real estate companies on Facebook.
Page Likes - A real estate company's reach is limited by its network of followers on Facebook. A company with 200 "likes" will promote its content to one-tenth the number of people than does a company with 2000 "likes." Each one of these "likes" represents a marketing platform of several hundred people (the number of friends each company fan possesses on Facebook). So take a quick look at the number of people who have "liked" the real estate company's Facebook page, as it could reveal the scope of their reach (warning: the number of "likes" can be manipulated so this is only 1 of the statistics that you should research).
Customer Reviews - Reviews by others online are a great resource when it comes time to choosing which product or service that you want to buy. I regularly read reviews when buying anything (like products on Amazon) because it tells me what others have found. As far as reviews go, I think customers typically do 1 of 3 things:
- Write no review - The majority of people simply do not write reviews. It takes effort and it takes time, and most were not (pardon the pun) "MOVED" significantly enough by their real estate agent to bother to leave a review.
- Write a negative review - A small percentage of people will be so unhappy with their agent that they take time to leave a negative review. You can learn a lot about these reviews. Often times the comments will reveal that the author of the review received really bad service and perhaps was even harmed financially. Sometimes the reviews are negative but the author was not even a customer of the company (do you really care about the opinion of somebody who did not work with the real estate company?). So reading negative reviews is enlightening and they won't always dissuade you from interviewing the agent.
- Write a positive review - A small percentage of people will be so thrilled with their experience that they feel compelled to share it with their friends and families. Facebook is one place where people are likely to provide reviews of real estate companies.
If a company has reviews ... READ THEM! If a company has few or no reviews ... ASK YOURSELF WHY? If a company does not have seriously thrilled customers, what are the odds you will be thrilled with your experience? Don't you want your real estate company to treat you so well that you feel compelled to write a 5-star review for them once the transaction has concluded?
Post Engagement- Now here's the real deal. This is the one that cannot be manipulated or faked to make you think something good is happening. It's simple. Engagement. How many people are reading and interacting with the post on Facebook.
Just like in the Facebook ad shown above, you can see the number of likes and shares the ad has received.
How Facebook Engagement Expands The Buyer Pool For Your Home
When somebody engages with a post on Facebook, some of their friends are able to see this engagement. Thus, if 68 people "like" a post, it could mean that thousands of their friends (collectively) see the post in their timelines. If 9 people take the time to comment and somebody even shares the ad, you can bet this property is very well know within the circles of people who could be shopping for such a property.
The companies that are marketing well on Facebook will have MANY ads with lots of engagement (likes, comments, and shares).
So if you are trying to decide between several real estate companies, look at each company's Facebook page and examine the engagement on the past fifty posts or so.
Ask yourself: Are they posting regularly (4 or 5 times per day)? Do they have more than a handful of likes, comments and shares? Are the comments from their agents, or from potential buyers? It's easy to tell if you look at enough of them.
In my experience, most real estate companies do not know how to market a home for sale on Facebook. If they even take the time to post on Facebook, the ad goes mostly unseen and has limited engagement. When you see all of their property listings on Facebook with zero (or fewer than 10) likes, you can be assured that the post has not reached its potential.
The Facebook Ad shown above helped us sell the home in just a few hours, and it is just one of several hundred that you can view on our Facebook page where we market homes for sale in Tallahassee. If you would like to see what we can do for you and your home on Facebook, simply drop me a note and we'll schedule a time to BLOW YOUR MIND and earn your five-star review.
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