Brian Icenhower discusses the secret to Facebook posts for Realtors and how to maximize your reach with your personal page.
Today we are going to talk about Facebook posts for Realtors. What makes a good Facebook post? Why is nobody liking your business-related Facebook posts? How often should you be posting to Facebook? Let’s dive in.
VIDEO: The Secret to Facebook Posts for Realtors
The 4:1 Ratio for Facebook Posting
For every four personal posts you make on Facebook as a Realtor, you should make one business-related post. This ratio seems manageable and well-rounded, because you aren’t bombarding your followers with real estate content. If you only post about real estate, your followers will tune you out — or even worse, they may unfollow you or “mute” you.
Your personal posts that let your followers into your personal life will get a ton more likes than your business-related posts. This is just the facts. A photo of your baby? Hundreds of likes and comments. A photo of your family at the holidays? Tons of engagement. A post about your open house? Two likes, and one is probably your own mother.
Unfortunately, Facebook looks at these response rates to your posts and decides whether you are popular or not. Facebook judges whether your followers really want to see your content. Because Facebook has grown so much and most users have hundreds if not thousands of friends and followers, Facebook is forced to make a judgement call. Which posts are valuable enough to show up on your friends and followers’ news feeds?
As a Realtor, you must use this ratio as a guide to balancing your Facebook posts. Keep your followers engaged with your fun, personal posts, and add a business post every now and then. This will keep Facebook happy, seeing that you are engaging and popular, so you won’t lose your reach to your friends and followers.
Posting vs. Listening and Reacting
One other quick tip to successful Facebook posts for Realtors is to do a lot of listening and reacting — not just posting. The more you care and engage with your followers’ posts, the more they will want to care and engage with your posts.
Here’s another interesting thought. Many very successful Realtors hardly post to Facebook at all. They are only engaging positively with their followers’ posts! Of course, they have their Facebook page with all of their important information, but they don’t spend time crafting posts. They spend their time creating relationships and engaging with their sphere of influence (SOI) on Facebook.
It is more important how you listen and engage with others as Realtor on Facebook than what you are saying in your posts on Facebook.
The 10-10-5 Rule
We ask all of our clients and the agents in their organizations to go into Facebook for 15 minutes a day. Get in and out like a ninja. It’s important to only stay on for 15 minutes because otherwise it is all too easy to get sucked in. Time block it!
Scroll through your timeline and “like” 10 posts every single day.
Comment on 10 posts every single day. Not long comments — a few simple words, an exclamation point at the end for emphasis. Spreading positivity! Of course you can go deeper than this, but I know some Realtors hate interacting on Facebook, let alone creating posts for Facebook. This keeps it simple and makes it doable, even if social media isn’t your favorite thing in the world.
This is the hardest part. You need to do 5 shares or direct messages. So, you are either sharing someone else’s Facebook post, or you are sending them a direct message, and you do this five times a day.
Imagine what this can do if you keep to this 10-10-5 rule every single day! Every one of these interactions makes someone feel awesome. All you are doing is spreading positivity — and you don’t even need to create your own original Facebook post talking about the fact that you’re a Realtor. You are creating impressions on your sphere of influence (SOI) and therefore creating mindshare. And it only took you 15 minutes a day! It can be so fast and so simple.
