How to help build your business with a Facebook Business Page
Two-thirds of Facebook users say they visit a local business Facebook page at least once a week.
Written by Mark Armstrong, CEO and Co-founder of RateMyAgent
With the onset of COVID-19 causing uncertainty and disruption in the real estate market and buyers and sellers spooked by exaggerated media headlines of falling house prices, how can real estate agents stand out from their competition and continue to grow their business?
Agents who are early adopters of social media marketing have been doing this for a long time, building trust, creating connections, prospecting and closing deals through free tools such as a Facebook Business Page.
Gone are the days when real estate agents can just solely rely on face-to-face networking and going door-to-door to flash a friendly smile and hand out a flyer. Nowadays, this traditional strategy does not cut it. You can’t ignore social media sites such as Facebook which has a huge audience of 2.4 billion people using it every month (16 million in Australia) and two-thirds of Facebook users say they visit a local business Facebook page at least once a week.
The best part is that it’s free to set up your Facebook Business Page and once you’ve created your page, you can use it to post content, livestream, showcase reviews, link to your website, and communicate and engage with your followers.
What can you do on your Facebook Business Page that you can’t on your Facebook personal profile?
Your Facebook Business Page is like a shopfront to market to prospective vendors and buyers . A Facebook Page is a public presence similar to a personal profile, but allows fans and followers to “like” the business or brand. Followers receive content updates from the Page on their News Feed. There’s a number of key things you can do that will give you an advantage when using a Facebook Business Page, compared to a personal profile.
Advertising
Without advertising and other features of a business page, scaling your business via Facebook marketing can be difficult. Your business is able to raise brand awareness, schedule and track advertising campaigns, collect detailed audience insights, and interact with users who seek customer service. For example, if you want to find prospective buyers for a property listing, you can target your ad to audiences living in specific postcodes.
Customer reviews
We know how important online reviews are – 82% of consumers read online reviews¹. And 76% of people trust online reviews as much as recommendations from family and friends, including 89% of 35-54 year olds². So it makes sense to ensure you have customer reviews on your Facebook Business Page. The dedicated reviews tab for your Business Page allows customers to leave reviews, and you can also reply to these reviews.
Access analytics
Your Facebook Business page provides analytics, which give insights about what’s happening on your pages. For example, in your analytics overview, you can see at a glance how many likes, views, post engagements, comments, and shares each page is generating. You can use these insights to help you improve your audience engagement and create content that is timely, relevant and useful to your audience.
And don’t forget, nosey (or should I say inquisitive) prospective customers and clients may also visit your personal Facebook page so it’s still a great way to showcase your personality and how you connect with your community (and remember, keep it professional!). It’s also worth noting that if you would rather your prospects not see latest photos of you having a few to many pints or pinot’s update your privacy settings on your personal profile so that non-friends can only see certain information.
In the next Espresso Series, I will take you through easy steps on how to set up and effectively use your Facebook Business Page.
Espresso Series
RateMyAgent is here to help as you navigate this ‘new normal’ world with the launch of our free weekly webinar. The Espresso Series are short 15-minute educational sessions to help you learn practical skills so you can thrive in a changing environment
Every Wednesday, Mark Armstrong, RateMyAgent CEO & Co-founder will host and deliver these webinar sessions in addition to Subject Matter Experts from our business and industry leaders.
**Espresso Series is no longer running. All recordings are available here.**
When: Every Wednesday at 2pm AEST
Wednesday 20th May topic: “How to setup and effectively use your Facebook Business profile” plus Q&A with Mark.
Host: Mark Armstrong, CEO and Co-founder of RateMyAgent.
¹,² https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey
