Facebook is no longer just a social media platform. With over 1.86 billion monthly active users, it has become a platform which businesses just can’t neglect. With such a huge user base, Facebook is being used today to advertise brands, the products they offer, and professional services.

Today, Facebook’s success for connecting consumers with business covers almost all industries, with the exception of pornography (that’s against their rules and regulations, look it up). For agents, selling a Property quickly and for a good price is important and to do that, Facebook is the best advertising platform.

If you aren’t using Facebook to its full potential as an agent, then it’s definitely time to start doing that. To get you started, we have compiled a rough checklist that you can use to navigate the murky waters of Facebook Advertising.

Create a Business Page

Never, ever, ever, ever use your personal account to promote business. Keep your business life separate from your personal one. Using your personal account for advertising listings, asking for referrals, and business updates, looks unprofessional. To clients, it will look like you are not serious about your profession which puts a serious question mark over the integrity of your business approach. After all, your personal profile is, well, personal. It should stay that way. Another reason to not use a personal account is that it puts you in violation with Facebook terms and agreements. The State of Rights and Responsibilities states “You will not use your personal profile for commercial gain.” Also, you can’t advertise your personal profile, your business page you can.

Now that you know why creating a separate business page is important, create one and fill out all the details like the services you provide, your experience, link to the main website as well as contact information and working hours. Once this is done, it’s time to invite your friends and family to like the page and start promoting your listings.

Remember, you can still invite your friends, family and extended circle to live that page. It’s just going to keep things “tidy”.

Promoting Listings

After you have created your business page, it’s time to promote your listings. That’s your main objective for using Facebook. Here are a few property ads that we created for Edge Realty, a fictional brokerage, as samples for you. We will walk you through each step of exactly what you have to do to create ads like this (or better) for your listings:

In order to do that, you have to do the following:

Add All The Right Details:

Create a great copy for the property which includes:

1. Property Price
2. Location (State, City, Neighborhood)
3. Description (# of bedrooms, bathrooms, unique features, sq. footage, etc.)
4. Link to your website with more details

You can add more details to the copy which you feel would be important to homebuyers as that would help your post to get better engagement. For example, the property that you are listing is a corner lot house or it might have a great history, maybe a celebrity lived there once. You should also add appropriate hashtags like #realestate, #firsttimehomebuyer, #listings, etc. in the copy.

Once you have the copy, make sure you add great pictures of the property which highlight its positive features in the post. If you are in the business of selling luxury properties, then investing in a virtual tour of the property would be really worth it. Once your post is ready, go ahead and post it for the public to see.

Promote That Post:

You might have a large number of followers on your Facebook business page BUT when you post an update, it doesn’t mean all of them would see it. Actually, a very small percentage does. That’s how Facebook operates, if you want to make more money through Facebook, then you have to give them a cut of your advertising budget so they can promote your business through Ads.

Now that you have created the right message and visuals for the listing, it’s time to “boost” your post to get more “impressions”, which is basically the number of people who have seen your post.

1. Step # 1 – Click on “Boost Post”
2. Step # 2 – Select your target audience.
   • Change age to 25+
   • Target specific regions using country, state, city and zip codes
   • Target specific behaviors like life events, for example recently married couples or couples who are likely to move in near future
3. Step # 3 – Select your budget starting from $20
4. Step # 4 – Select the duration of the campaign
5. Step # 5 – Add a payment method and click “boost”.

Voila’, you turned out to be a real social savvy agent! Facebook will now review your ad and, if you did everything correctly, your ads will start running soon. But wait, did I explicitly mention that your Ad should be catchy enough for the audience to take an action? I repeat, THE CATCHIER, THE BETTER!

Create Facebook Ads Account:

Advertising on Facebook is not limited to just posting and promoting your posts. You can create ad campaigns specifically designed to target a particular demographic to drive more traffic to your website, get more followers on Facebook, or promote your services. In order to do that on Facebook, you will need to create Facebook Ad Account. This is a pretty simple process.

1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/business/
2. Click on “create an advert”.
3. Next, you will have to choose your “campaign objective”
   Let’s say you want to drive more traffic to your website which has all the listings on it, then you would be selecting “Traffic” as campaign objective, name your campaign and proceed. (You can learn more about campaign objectives by clicking here)
4. Next, you will have to provide Facebook with a few details of the people you would like to reach out to. This is where you can do hyperlocal targeting on Facebook. Pick the demographics and areas that you feel that potential buyers for that property type reside. You can use zip codes to be very specific. Use Facebook’s detailed targeting section to find the audience that you want to show your ads to. Go to “Life Events” section and there you can find a category for people who are newly wed and might be looking for a new place. You can also find people who are “likely to move”. That audience is basically a goldmine for seller agents.
5. Next section is “placement” which is basically where you want to show your ads. By default, it’s going to be automatic and if you are new to Facebook advertising, I would recommend leaving it like that until you start seeing results and then adjust your campaign. If you want to edit placements, then you can choose to exclude Instagram and Facebook’s audience network so your ads only show on Facebook itself. There are also different positions within Facebook where your ads can appear (Feeds, Instant Articles, In-Stream Videos, Right Column) so if you want, you can change that as well.
6. Next step is your budget and scheduling. You will have to specify daily or lifetime budget for your campaign, starting and ending date as well as how would you like to be charged for your ads. The last part can be different depending on which objective you chose initially. To put it simply, you can be charged for “Link Clicks” or “Ad Views”. I suggest that you choose the daily budget campaign because if you are reading this I suppose you are a newbie in advertising this way. The approach you need is TEST, ANALYZE, and UPDATE. You obviously won’t want to spend your money on a thing which is not giving you enough results!
7. This last step will be a test for your creativity!
   Here you will be able to choose the type of ad you want to run. Here are your options:
   1. Carousel Ads in which you can show multiple images of the property
   2. Single image ad with one powerful shot of property
   3. Single Video ad which can be the virtual tour of the property
   4. Slideshow ad with a looping video of 10 images
   5. Or a canvas, a combination of images and videos.
      Once you have selected the type of ad you want to run, it’s time to create the ad for your listing.
      • Text – This is where you will write the copy for the listed property, highlighting its key features to catch the attention of your audience. (Need Icons For These)
      • URL – This is where you want to direct anyone who clicks on your ad for more details about your property. Ideally, this can be linked to your website or the page of MLS that your property is on.
      • Images or Video – Depending on what kind of ad you are running, you will be adding a single image, multiple images, or video over here.
      • Headline – Your headline is one of the most highlighted parts of the overall ad. Make sure you create an engaging headline.
      • Link Description – Here you can add additional text to emphasize why people should visit your website. It can be; learn more about the property, watch a virtual tour video, or contact the agent to get the pricing, etc. Please note that this text won’t appear in all the ad placements.

Call To Action:

You can choose which type of button you want to be showcased in your ad. You do have an option to NOT show any button at all but we highly recommend having one. There are 10 different CTA’s available which you can pick from:

• Apply Now (This can be a free property consultations that you offer)
• Book Now
• Contact Us
• Download
• Learn More
• Request Time
• See Menu
• Show Now
• Sign Up
• Watch More

That’s it. Once you have finalized the CTA, it’s time to review the ad. You will be able to see how the ad will be displayed click on “Place Order” button and the ad will go reviewed and approved by Facebook.

Create Separate Tabs For Listings:

Instead of having a lot of listings on the home feed of your business page, you can create a separate tab for them which will give your followers the freedom to view them or not. This way you are not vomiting your listings on your followers. There are third party plugins which can help you do that which are very easy to install and use and can be integrated with your page. You will need to use IFRAME or Woobox in order to set up a separate tab.

You can also create a few more tabs for recently sold properties, testimonials, virtual tours, tips for buyers or sellers, and so on. There are several such ideas that you can put into action to leverage Facebook tabs for business. Just take a stance and sky is the limit for you mate!

Here’s a really good blog by HubSpot that will walk you through the steps of creating tabs on your Facebook Business Page:
How to Create Custom Tabs for Your Facebook Business Page

Regardless of which type of ad you choose, you will need to add a catchy headline, write a great copy for the property, and use the right call-to-action for the viewers so they can move to the next step that is picking up the phone and calling you.

Once you master the art of Facebook advertising, you will be able to promote your listings to the right people and sell it quickly, for a higher price. That means you will be able to close more deals per year. If you have any questions or would like some help in getting started with Facebook, send me an email at [email protected].

If you would like to make more money as an agent, take a look at GREL – Real Estate Agent Licence through which you get online training, tools, real estate scripts and branding to help you succeed in your local and international market.

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