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.

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!

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.

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!

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 30^th Facebook will flip the switch and this currently optional upgrade becomes mandatory for all.

So what are some of these “unwritten rules” that you can use to guide your Facebook Page posts? Here are some rules that you may need to adjust for your particular audience:

• Post every day. That may seem excessive to you but as people make more friends and “Like” more pages, your posts may be missed. If you are only posting once or twice a week then it could be a long time between posts if your community misses one or two of them. There are studies that show posting between 3-5 times a day can be good amount for Pages (make sure you are varying your posts and also watch your statistics to see what works best for your community). You can decide that you might take the weekend off but also realize that the weekend is when many people are on Facebook.
• Focus on engagement. You are trying to connect and get response from your community. Ask questions, post helpful tips, links to articles that your audience will “Like” and “Share.” When you make the posts about your audience and what they need, rather than selling, you will develop a richer and deeper relationship with your community. You will sell more as a byproduct of that deeper relationship. Set aside time to follow up on posts and respond to questions on your Wall.
• Have a call to action. Tell people to click the “Like” or to comment on the post. Or have them watch your video or go to your website.
• Don’t oversell or undersell. No one likes a never-ending sales pitch. By the same token, make sure you do highlight your wares from time-to-time! Use the 80-20 rule for sales messages vs. content/connection posts. So if you decide to post five times a week, one of the posts should be a sales message and four posts will be other helpful or fun content for your community.
• Make it fun. Facebook is a social community. People are there to have fun. This is a place where you can let your corporate hair down a little. Stay true to your brand but think of ways to entertain your audience.

Click here to read the free HubSpot White Paper yourself!

Google explains the change best with:

“Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search.”

Read more: Official Google Blog: Search, plus Your World

While Social Network integration is still very much in it’s infancy, it is quickly becoming the future and we must all watch it unfold to stay ahead of the game. Here are some tips on what to look out for and how to build your Social Network data now:

1. Google+ will obviously align with Google’s search while Facebook results will be pushed farther down the rankings. The vice versa will occur with Microsoft’s Facebook-aligned search engine Bing. This will make it important for people to have multiple Social Network accounts so they can achieve high rankings on each search engine – and, in turn, reach the most amount of people possible.
2. Start posting relevant content now! It will take time for Social Search to mature and you’ll want to be on the frontlines when it does. Start thinking about how to make your Social Network postings and shares more relevant to the search results you’d like them associated with. Also, the greater amount of content on your Social Networks the better.
3. Social Search is going to level the playing field by allowing you to leapfrog SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Today, you must compete with highly paid and resourced SEO experts to rank high on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). In the near future, instead of writing articles that have to work their way up to the front page in traditional search, you can instead have your content displayed at the top of the SERP using your preferred Social Network. Keep writing great, focused and relevant content and sharing those articles and posts on Social Networks. The content you contribute will ultimately end up being displayed, allowing other people to find your content and connect with you.

As Social Search matures, Real Estate Rainmaker will keep you in the loop with the latest important updates. Stay tuned!

• Calls-to-action do best “above the fold” – the space where your webpage is viewable to the user without having to scroll down. Accord to heat map analysis, anything “below the fold” will only be viewed by 50% of people who visit the page.
• Your web designer might kick and scream about this, but if your call-to-action blends in too much with your site design, it won’t stand out as much. You want as many eyeballs to land on that call-to-action as possible, so use contrasting colors to make the CTA stand out.
• Whenever you create a new blog post, choose an offer that’s most relevant to the content of the post. Then add a call-to-action to the bottom of that blog post linking to the landing page for that offer. Informational offers such as ebooks, guides, and webinars do very well in this space, because people reading your blog likely are eager to get more free information from you.
• Make it clear in your brief paragraph and/or bullet points what the benefits of the offer are. It’s more than just listing what the offer is comprised of; it takes a bit of spin. Instead of “Includes specifications of product XYZ,” say something like “Find out how XYZ can increase productivity by 50%.” In other words, convey the value of your offer clearly and effectively.
• When creating a thank you page, not only can you bring back the navigation, but you can provide other links to keep the lead engaged. You can include calls-to-action to the next step in the buying cycle, link to your blog, encourage them to follow you on Twitter, ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, and more. You can do a lot more with your thank you pages than just adding tracking code!

Click here to read the free HubSpot White Paper yourself!

Just read a thought-provoking December 19, 2011 opinion piece in The New Yorker by James Surowieck that compares American Airlines “very smart” bankruptcy to underwater homeowners considering a “strategic default.”

Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/12/19/111219ta_talk_surowiecki

Living By Default

by James Surowieck

“….The bursting of the housing bubble has left millions of homeowners across the country owing more than their homes are worth. In some areas, well over half of mortgages are underwater, many so deeply that people owe forty or fifty per cent more than the value of their homes. In other words, a good percentage of Americans are in much the same position as American Airlines: they can still pay their debts, but doing so is like setting a pile of money on fire every month….It’s also possible that a wave of strategic defaults—a De-Occupy Your House movement—would get banks to take mortgage modification more seriously, which would be all for the better. The truth is that banks have been relying on homeowners to do the right thing. It might be time for homeowners to do the smart thing instead.”

Introducing RAINMAKER SOCIAL, the one-of-a-kind collection of tools to enhance your RAINMAKER MEGA SITE and bring it into the Social Age. Social Media and “social search” have arrived. And, the future is now. Here’s why:

• “Inbound links are a good measure of authority, but they are slow. In a social media world, a relevant piece of content on a subject could become outdated in minutes.” – RAINMAKER SOCIAL users love the easy-to-use share tools in the new system compared to the out-dated (and slower) inbound links. With the share tools, you can constantly share content and stay relevant without the wait!
• “Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter are battling over the future of search. It is clear to all of these internet giants that social search is the future.” – These companies basically decide what user’s search. As they enhance Social Search, we all will be taken along for the ride too. That’s why it’s important for RAINMAKER SOCIAL users to hop on the bandwagon now so you get an early start on the future ahead of your competition.
• “Google+ is the fastest growing social network ever.” Google+ is not important – not yet — in the inherent contact database sense like Facebook. However, going forward Google will be using Google+ as its main source of social search data. Because Google is the #1 search engine in the world (no surprise there!) that makes Google+ an important tool in Google’s Social Search Rankings. Bottom line: Social search is coming on fast. Ride the wave…don’t get drowned by it.
• “Facebook’s current share of the search engine market is miniscule… why does Facebook not have at least a negligible portion of the search market? Simple: Private data. … The limitations of private data make Facebook a weak search engine and subsequently resulted in very little usage.” – This however has changed recently with the inclusion of the ability to select your own privacy settings with each individual post. RAINMAKER SOCIAL users are now sharing via the PUBLIC option that is now included. Use this public option as much as possible and you will build a pool of data and results that optimize your chances of being found through Facebook search.
• “Social search is really about more personalized search engine results.” – Search in the future will be personalized. That’s why RAINMAKER SOCIAL users are building their personal search network today.

Don’t miss out on the future. Check out www.RainmakerSocial.com for more information and order today to get a jump on your competition!

For more about integrating search and social marketing read this excellent, free whitepaper: www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-whitepapers/

Jesse Hickman