Optmizing Your Real Estate Facebook Business Page

As of March 31st all Facebook Business Pages were converted to the new Timeline format – whether you wanted it or not!  So what exactly does this mean?

For one thing you lost the ability to set a default landing page for new followers — so now it is important that your cover photo and default tabs are setup correctly to entice people to like your page as well as making sure you still convey your message.

Tip #1: Regular Posting

Since your posts are now in a time line format consistent posting is now more important than ever, otherwise your fans will see posts at the top that are old.  The time line puts more emphasis on posts (you can now spotlight and pin posts).  Another suggestion for Agents who do not post on a regular basis is to incorporate more images and videos into your posts. These seem more timeless to the average person (doesn’t matter if you posted it 3 days ago – it is still useful).

Tip #2: Step up Your Marketing

As I stated before with the loss of the preset landing page, you are left with having to use your cover images and tabs as engagement points.

REALTORS® should focus locally, so if your page is about the St. Paul Minnesota area, then have a strong cover with local images and a strong (non selling – as this is against FB TOS) impact statement like “Living in St. Paul” or “Everything St. Paul” is key. Then you need to strategically think about your default tabs.

Tip #3: Utilize Those tabs!

The new timeline format now places your tabs under your cover photo.  The first one is already set to be your photo tab (you cannot change it), but the next 3 can be for any application you want.  The most popular way these tabs are being used – creating HTML pages within Facebook. These HTML pages are used as mini websites within Facebook. Examples can be: Lifestyle, Community, Dream Homes or REO information, etc.  Each tab can have a custom image so go ahead and create images that portray the tab – you can even duplicate a page on your professional website and pop that into Facebook.  The other good news is that HTML space is now 810 pixels vs the old 520 pixels.  This creates many options by the way of design and for those of you who like to keep them in Facebook with 810 pixels you can design just about anything.

Tip #4: You’re a Square

You no longer have a long profile image to work with. The new timeline profile picture is a square, and it cuts into your Timeline Cover image. So keep this in mind when you are designing that image.  The avatar (profile picture) and the cover  photo are the two things, at minimum, someone will see when they visit your page.

Tip #5: A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words

We already know adding photos or videos to your posts is a must but do you realize that with the new timeline format by simply adding visual elements you can produce a much better consumer experience.

So how do you stack up? Go ahead and share the link to your Facebook Business Profile Page and we’ll take a look and let you know how you stack up.  We will choose 2 at random and give you a complete SEO assessment for free!

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75 Real Estate Blogging Topics

Twice a month (if not more) I speak with REALTORS® at local boards and MLSs about using social media networks effectively – one major question I get is “WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT!”. So I’ve complied a quick list for you. My suggestion would be to export this list into a word doc. and create sub categories under each applicable topic.What I mean by that:

Topic (from below) – Land Lord or Tenant Issues

Sub categories for multiple blog posts: Process of Approving a Tenant (credit check etc.), What Signing a Lease Entails, Explain Broker Fees

Blogging Topics for Real Estate Professionals

1. Architecture or housing styles in your area
2. Historic buildings
3. Market statistics for your area, including average prices and absorption rates
4. 10 most common code violations found by local inspectors
5. Home maintenance
6. Senior housing
7. Pet  friendly housing
8. Staging ideas
9. Local events
10. Top 10 lists
11. Renting vs. buying
12. A lender who did a great job
13. Things that go wrong with real estate sales
14. Home owners insurance
15. Gardening and landscaping
16. Your city council
17. A new development
18. Decorating ideas
19. Real estate industry news – with your own unique commentary
20. Mortgages news
21. Interest Rates
22. Credit scores
23. Consumer hoaxes and scams
24. First time home buyer programs
25. Second homes
26. Investment properties
27. Foreclosure
28. Property flipping
29. Home energy conservation
30. Final walk through
31. Equity stripping scams
32. Transportation & Parking
33. Schools
34. Churches/Houses of worship
35. Day Care
36. Pest control
37. The home buying process
38. The home selling process
39. Moving with children
40. Moving checklist
41. Moving with pets
42. Places to eat
43. Places to shop
44. Commentary on local news stories
45. Commentary on local public policy
46. Environmental issues
47. Land lord or tenant issues
48. How to sell a house
49. How not to sell a house
50. Building trends
51. Parks
52. Property taxes
53. Open houses
54. Active listings/New listings
55. Trends in kitchen design
56. Area events for children
57. The local zoo
58. Where to play golf
59. Coffee shops
60. Women home buyers
61. Advice for FSBO’s
62. Mortgage fraud
63. Types of mortgages
64. Home owners associations
65. Credit repair
66. Fair housing issues
67. Luxury properties
68. Liens
69. Refinancing
70. List of community resource links
71. Explain Good Faith Estimate
72. Tips on organizing a garage sale
73. Cost-of-living comparison for different cities or neighborhoods in your local market (side by side comparison)
74. Bargain hunter’s guide (lunch for under $10, furniture outlets, clothing store sales, cheapest gas stations)
75. Go through your email, is there a question or comment from one of your clients that can be made into a post?

I hope this helps! Create a content grid with these topics and you’ll ALWAYS have something to blog about. Don’t know what a content grid is – just ask! We’re happy to help.

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30 Tweet-able Topics

Sometimes it’s difficult – sitting in front of your computer screen – trying to figure out what to post on your social media sites…we’ve complied a list of ’30 Thing to Tweet About’ to help you along!

1. New announcements from your niche – upcoming market trends, house that just sold etc.
2. Teaser previews of offerings you are working on.
3. Related interesting news from the industry – market stats, offer free snap shots etc.
4. Trivia related to your business: history, technology, market, anything relevant to your niche!
5. Ask for suggestions: people love to help someone out.
6. Events you are holding: this informs as well as gets you attendees.
7. Events you are participating in: this shows you are active.
8. Witty one-liners: this can be jokes, daily wisdom or just about anything else.
9. Helping people find opportunities: Helping people solve problems is the best thing you can do to promote your brand.
10. Popular events: tweet about the upcoming school play, festivals, town soccer game (hyper local tweets)
11. Unexpected developments: Was Gmail down today? Tweet about it!
12. Regular industry news: yup, this doesn’t hurt if mixed in.
13. Sales announcements: Tweet about any sales announcements you might have.
14. Open houses: tweet address and time of open house to your niche – don’t forget about a special offer to stop by!
15. Ask for customer feedback: Invite people to share their experiences selling or buying a home with you.
16. Participate in the relevant hash tags conversations to get more visibility.
17. Set up and announce tweet chats based on brand-related hash tags.
18. Follow people and make acknowledgement via tweets.
19. Thank people who have recently followed you in a ‘Thank You Tweet’.
20. Post the latest updates from your blog along with the link. (you can use this site:
    https://bitly.com/
    to shorten the URL)
21. Direct people to other social media channels you own by tweeting about them.
22. Search on your brand name, past #keywords, relevant business and niche keywords (
    http://twitter.com/#!/search
    ) and respond to tweets revolving around those hash tags.
23. Create Twitter lists of industry-relevant analysts, well-wishers or customers, and announce the lists publicly.  This sends a positive message to your followers.
24. Participate in trending topics and viral hash tags to rope in some attention. Ensure your opinion are related to your brand somehow.
25. Tweet-greet your followers daily. Saying small things like “good morning,” or asking about their holiday weekend.
26. Tweet and tag your best employee/follower/business affiliate of the week. This keeps the connections and personalization flowing.
27. Announce weekly deals, giveaways and specials (free dinner for a special follower, discount on commission during the month of June)
28. For business-to-business companies, follow conversations on Twitter and build them up. Twitter is the best place for making your opinion heard.
29. Give daily twitter tips or quick definitions/explanations on keywords within your niche using your industry expertise. (example: home liens, APR, equity etc.)
30. Make regular #FillInTheBlankFriday tweets with some incentives or freebies to the winners.

What other Tweets do you find best? Please share!

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3 Secrets to Boost your Organic SEO

The phrase ‘Organic SEO’, or organic search engine optimization, is used to describe the positioning of a website or blog on search engine result pages. The ‘organic’ part of that term indicates that the rankings that site or blog receives is directly related to the amount of hits/interaction it gets from people searching for that source (based on keyword and other SEO practices done by the site owner) – NOT how much the site owners pays to boost the site’s SEO rankings; which is also referred to as pay-per-click.

There are 3 key factors that play a major role in your website or blog’s organic SEO rankings – unique and fresh content, how immersed you are in social networking and blogging and the amount of back links you’ve built to point to your website/blog.

1. Unique Content: I do not care what you’ve heard from any SEO ‘expert’ you’ve talked to – content is still king. Now I do agree that my use of the word ‘content’ is used loosely…what I mean is how you are utilizing your keywords, meta information, header tags, photo and video keywords, anchor text etc. in your content to boost your one site SEO. I feel that updating your content is the cheapest and easiest way to boost organic SEO – and a LOT of REALTORS® just do not take the time to do it! Please read more on keywords density/placement, scannable content and the use of long tail keywords in another post of ours.
2. Social Media and Blogging: If you do not currently use at least one social media site or blog to further your online marketing please take a moment, step back from your computer and do the ‘you should’ve had a V8 – head bump’. Social media is free, easy to use and should be a MAJOR part in EVERY REALTORS® ONLINE PRESENCE. Search engines LOVE a constant stream of new content – which is exactly what is found on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, ActiveRain etc. Marketing through imagery has also taken a front seat in organic SEO and Ill let you in on a little secret – Google owns YouTube and Yahoo owns Flickr – so I suggest using those sites (with proper keywords) to market listings, community information, a town walk through, virtual tours etc.
3. Back Links: In my experience many REALTORS® have no idea what back links are – when in reality they are pretty self explanatory…they are links created that point back to your website or blog. Now you must keep in mind putting your real estate blog URL on an affiliate page of a lumber company or nail salon (basically a source that in no way relates to your website/content) will not offer benefit in your organic SEO ventures. We posted a great article that explains how to create and effective use back links – check it out!

Hopefully this helped you create a new approach to your web marketing for 2012 – what have you done this year to optimize your website or blog?

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I’ve Set Up My Real Estate Blog…Now What?

I’m sure many of our followers have been to seminar after seminar where they are told ‘all real estate professionals MUST have a blog…’ – and that I do agree with, but once your blog is setup and you’re ready to post many REALTORS® run into 2 problems:

1. What the heck do I, as a REALTOR®, blog about?

2. What type of lead capture tools does my blog have to get me business?

These are very common questions and without some direction many REALTORS® get overwhelmed and scrap the whole idea of blogging. When you finally give in and decide to create a blog you should sit down and create a blogging plan. Jot down notes on your target audience (their age, salary, lifestyle etc.), your niche market(s) – and from that information your KEYWORDS! You can think up multiple blogs posts by having a great list of keywords focused around your audience and niche market.

What to blog about (again keep in mind your ideal reader and niche market):

• Answer questions proposed by past or current clients at open houses, showings etc.
• Profiles on local home builders
• ‘25’ unknown facts about your city/town etc.
• ‘10’ steps to home buying/selling
• Pros and cons (renting vs buying, types of mortgages)
• Client success stories or testimonials are great to throw into the mix
• Local school information
• Local Shopping
• Transportation or proximity to major cities or attractions
• Condo complexes
• New construction
• Retirement homes
• Seasonal properties
• Market statistics for those analytically driven buyers/sellers! This will also be helpful is you create local snapshots to send to prospects every month.

So you’ve written your posts and maintain a steady flow of articles, have evergreen topics (meaning topics that are always relevant) as well as more timely article topics…what tools or features does your blog have to capture leads? While the ‘once in awhile’ email question is always great there are far better – easier – ways to capture leads through your blog.

What lead capture tools do I have:

• Email capture form
• Pop over subscription box
• RSS feed subscription
• Comment registration

Let us know if this helps – what lead capture features do you use? Also if you need some tips on writing a blog post, we have those too!

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Here’s a Freebee…Blogging Checklist:

• Have an eye catching title
• Have keywords in title
• Have compelling introduction
• Have keywords in first paragraph
• Have bolded keywords
• Have scannable content
• Have descriptions and tags
• Have photos and/or videos
• Entice closing to create interaction

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Get Better Interaction on Facebook with These 3 Quick Tips

Facebook Tips:

1. Post before 12pm or after 6pm – you will get 65% more interaction
2. Videos and photos get 85% more interaction than simple text updates
3. Supply your prospects, colleagues and clients with resources and viable information.

Every REALTOR® should have at least 3 business pages:

• Geographical: that offers local town or county information as well as real estate information in that area
• Niche: if you specialize in REOs, foreclosures, buyers or sellers create a page that is specific to YOUR strengths!
• Agent Referral Page: this page should include NOTHING listing related but rather serve as a community of REALTORS across the US. That way you can leverage referrals.

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RE/Advantage specializes in Real Estate Website Design, IDX Solutions, and Internet Technology. We have been working with the Real Estate Industry for over 10 years so we understand what makes a site work for you and your buyers and sellers. After all we have been developing real estate web sites, Internet tools and marketing strategies since 1997. No one provides a more comprehensive, well-thought-out site and tool set for your Internet presence. We provide you with not only the tools to manage and customize your site, but the peace of mind that comes from knowing we are here to help if you need us.

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