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Two Easy Steps To Master Facebook

Social Media can be scary. Once you cut through all the confusion and feeling overwhelmed, however, Facebook is a piece of cake. Take it from us: If you master these two easy steps to build your audience and  engage them, your efforts will be rewarded handsomely with more business.

Mastery Step #1: Craft your business page around relevant and targeted people. It’s more desirable to have 200 people that fit your target niche than 1,000 people who don’t. Work hard to attract the right people. Ultimately, your business page is not about the number of fans or likes, it’s about the quality of people. Pick a niche — and scratch it. In real estate there are only 5 types of niches: (1) Geographic; (2) Property type; (3) Transaction type; (4) Lifestyle activity; or (5) Demographic group. Not targeting a niche is usually the biggest mistake real estate professionals make on Facebook (you CAN have more than one FB niche page, you know).

Mastery Step #2: Engage your target niche audience. Engagement sells. Customer engagement is why big companies today promote their Facebook business page more frequently on commercials and advertisements than their website — which they spent big bucks building. Why? Emerging research shows social media consumers are 50% more likely to buy a product from a brand that they “Like” on Facebook. Engage your niche. Talk to your visitors. Post relevant (and noteworthy) content and images. Build trust in your expertise. Show your niche you care about them.

Mastering these two easy steps is key to social marketing success — not to mention the overall success of your real estate business. As my Uncle Zito (the pasta salesman) often told us kids over dessert, “Never call on a fence post.” Marketing to someone that is not interested in your company is a waste of time. Idenfity the people that fit your niche > find where they are online > and go after them. Facebook is that easy.

Posted in Electronic Marketing, Facebook, Lead Generation (Electronic), No Cost Marketing, Social Marketing.

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By Jesse Hickman – May 4, 2012 − 136 views

How Not To Kill Your Social Media Leads

Having trouble converting Social Media leads into real-world sales? Do not fear! The secret lies in your conversion process. Here are helpful hints on how to overcome the black hole of lost social media leads.

Be patient. First understand the difference between a social media lead and a traditional marketing lead. Social leads are connections. Where marketing leads are prospects. Why is this important? Often tradtional sales-related email campaigns will kill the sale with the social media buyer.  Many times you reach social media leads much earlier in the buying process and at a point where they haven’t yet begun to seek solutions as active shoppers.

Adjust your strategy accordingly. Rainmakers craft their message campaigns to provide value and content that incubates the decision-making process. Use content that is designed to answer questions that commonly arise, overcome objections that are frequently heard, and provide opportunities to convert the social media contact into a hard lead.

Nurture their trust. Already your social media efforts have developed trust with your connections. If you continue to show thoughtful leadership in helping them make a decision, social leads become hard-wired to purchase from you rather than the competitor with whom they don’t have that same trusted relationship.

Seal the deal. When the time is right (your connections will let you know when they are ready): Tweak the combination of decision-making and topically-relevant content that is sent to your prospects. By sharing frankly, you can nudge your connections to become prospects and make the jump to active interest. At that point, you do your magic. Follow up with traditional service-based information and put the lead into your the traditional sales process.

Using and practicing these four incubating stages will ramp up your social media conversions in the right direction toward more closed sales!

Posted in Facebook, Lead Generation (Electronic), Social Marketing.

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By Jesse Hickman – April 27, 2012 − 154 views

We Have Embraced The Facebook Timeline And Now See The Benefits. Can You?

The future is now!

The Facebook Timeline for Business Pages is here. Now what? Use this opportunity as a chance to jumpstart (or reinvent!) your Business Page. The Timeline provides a richer canvas for seller expression than ever before and Gooder Group can help launch you into first place with RAINMAKER BIZ PAGE.

Beyond being a turnkey real estate website, integrated social-media and e-mail marketing system, you can now take advantage of the new Cover gallery to personalize and market your Business Page like never before.

Click here to browse the Cover gallery now and discover what RAINMAKER BIZ PAGE can do for you!

If you missed it: For inside tips on the good and bad of the Facebook Business Page Timeline, see our March 2 post.

Posted in Advertising Strategy, Electronic Marketing, Facebook, Networking, No Cost Marketing, Relationship Building, Social Marketing, Traffic Generation.

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By Jesse Hickman – March 30, 2012 − 182 views

Real Estate Rainmaker Now In Mobile-Optimized Format

Great News! Real Estate Rainmaker’s entire online blog post collection – from advertising strategies to website design and beyond – is now available in a mobile-optimized format with the help of BraveNewCode’s premium mobile plugin for WordPress: WPtouch.

Visitors to the blog using their iPhones, Androids or other smartphones are automatically redirected to the mobile version. Subscribers can now view content in a format designed specifically for the small screen size and functionality of their mobile device.

The full text content of Real Estate Rainmaker’s hundreds of blog posts plus the easily navigable categories and tags are available to read and search through at a moment’s notice while you’re on the go. In addition the mobile website provides a simplified search and share options. The mobile sites maintain the look and feel of the full web version for consistency.

There has never been a better time to check out all the helpful information Real Estate Rainmaker has to offer you!

Posted in Blog Topics of the Week, Blogging, General Posts.

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By Jesse Hickman – March 23, 2012 − 169 views

Facebook Business Page Timeline: The Good and the Bad

Beginning this week, Facebook Page administrators will have the option of previewing – and upgrading their Business Page to the new Timeline format. This new format brings about many significant changes and enhancements to the realm of Pages. On top of an entirely fresh interface, you will be able to assign up to five different degrees of access for Page administrators. You will also gain access to real-time analytics which is part of the new Admin Panel that sits atop your Page. While the impact of just how far Facebook is pushing the business and brand Page envelope is yet to be seen, we can try to use it to our benefit by unbiasedly evaluating the options and changes that Facebook provided to us.

  1. The largest – and most obvious – change is the Cover photo replacing the Sidebar profile picture. The Good: With a little over double the screen real estate as before, the Cover gives you the opportunity to display your business or brand’s personality. The Bad: Below are Facebook’s official restrictions for the Cover. The Cover should not contain:

    • Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website.”
    • Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
    • References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features.
    • Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

    In layman’s terms, if you’re considering using a cover photo that contains more than just images be careful. You may be in violation of Facebook’s policy. The Cover photo’s large size also pushes the more pertinent elements of your page – your wall posts and customer interactions – down below the fold where a visitor must scroll to view them.

  2. You can now “pin” wall posts and updates to the top of your Timeline. This feature is meant to allow you to bring more attention to specific posts (or Apps). This change was partly designed as a replacement to the ability of setting a “Landing Page” for a Facebook Page which won’t be allowed in the new layout. The Good: The ability to decide what the user sees first – whether it be a special offer, a link to your website, or that your business won’t be open for Christmas. It’s basically a megaphone for your post. The Bad: The fact is that most users receive updates through their news feed, not from your Page. Most users don’t make a habit of revisiting pages too often so the ability to “pin” loses some of it oomph with that reality.
  3. Facebook has included an entire messaging platform for your Business Page with the latest upgrade. This gives you – and the customer – a way to communicate one-on-one without ever having to leave Facebook. The Good: Since the user has a channel to directly contact you; this messaging platform could keep unwanted complaints from appearing on your Page. The Bad: Very few businesses have the resources to manage such a level of messaging from an external platform such as Facebook.

Facebook has given everyone 30 days to test drive this new Timeline experience and see how to fit it into their business model. Whether you like it or not, March 30th Facebook will flip the switch and this currently optional upgrade becomes mandatory for all.

Posted in Electronic Marketing, Facebook, Networking, Social Marketing.

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By Jesse Hickman – March 2, 2012 − 266 views