To make your Facebook page the go-to site for all things related to the area where you do business, here are 10 topics to spark your content creativity.

Facebook can be a key component of any real estate agent’s marketing plan. But you need to have the right Facebook set-up. Then, you need to post appealing content on a regular basis.

If you only have a personal profile page, it’s smart to set up a business page (go to the bottom of the left column and click on “page”). When you post real estate-related posts on a business page, they automatically appear on your personal page, plus you can manually share them to your personal page as many times as you wish.

Unlike your personal page, a business page allows you to track how many views and how much interaction each post gets. Past clients can leave reviews — an excellent marketing tool. And, you can only “boost” posts on a business page.

Facebook marketing’s biggest payoff, however, comes from content that grabs prospects’ attention and keeps them coming back for more. To make your Facebook page the go-to site for all things related to the area where you do business, here are 10 topics to spark your content creativity.

Business news

1. Day-to-day real estate business

Everybody has to live somewhere, so people are rabidly interested in real estate — what’s available, how much it sells for, what their house is worth, whether they can afford a house and what’s new on the market.

So draw attention by posting new listings, just solds, upcoming open houses, etc. and offer property search capability. You can add an IDX search feature on your Facebook page itself, or you can hyperlink the page to your own website’s search feature.

You can promote your website itself if you do it cleverly. For every post, try to incorporate high-quality photos and/or videos. Property videos themselves make great stand-alone posts if use your own YouTube or Vimeo channel.

2. Real estate trends

National Association of Realtors newsletters, local and national real estate news sources (such as Inman) as well as state and local Realtor associations are excellent sources of statistics.

If you can create a nice chart to convey those statistics visually, that effort will pay off. So will doing an elevator pitch-style video regarding trends.

3. The magic of good staging or decorating

Facebook regulars love before-and-after photos derived from staging a property. That gives you a way to boost a current listing as well as prospect for new business.

Based on Facebook users’ enthusiasm for before-and-afters, you’d think people would eat-up home improvement ideas. But they don’t seem to.

However, you can experiment yourself. Different audiences in different markets behave differently. It costs nothing to try a variety of decorating, DIY and landscape improvement project posts — see what works and doesn’t.

4. Seasonal or area-specific advice

For example, during California’s dry summers, you might create posts that show how to create a defensible space on a property, how to make a home more fire resistant, how to craft emergency plans and bug-out bags and how to decide which papers should be among the items you ought to take can be welcome information.

5. Do the expected in unexpected ways

Every agency has a variety of canned Facebook messages and graphics for every conceivable occasion. And everyone posts theirs on exact date of the holiday.

Your post will only stand out if it is funny, offbeat or delivered on a different day. For example, if you want to wish your Facebook followers a happy Thanksgiving and actually have them see it, post good wishes the week before the holiday, and include your grandmother’s magical cranberry sauce recipe that can be made a week in advance.

Mix business with fun 

1. Lifestyle photos and videos and posts

Make it a point to alternate business and lifestyle posts. In fact, if you want to go a little heavier on the lifestyle posts than the business, you’re still fostering interest in your market.

Post food and entertainment news, restaurant openings and closings, beautiful views, spectacular sunsets, special events in your area, seasonal festivals, even photos from the farmer’s market and street scenes make good posts.

People love to see their towns looking their best and prospective buyers considering your area are interested in what life is like in your town throughout the year.

2. Personal posts

Showcase your market through your own activities. Posting a photo of your dog among others at the annual fundraising walk for animal causes or selfies with friends at fun local events allows Facebook followers to feel they know you without actually providing much private information.

You, your friends and your animals are props in a post about how much fun your market area is.

3. Run a poll or ask for advice

You can ask about anything — a marketing strategy you’re thinking about using, whether the cartoons an artist drew of you would look professional in the right circumstances, what followers are most looking forward to doing this summer or what the best Halloween treats are.

Ask for recommendations such as the best places to walk your dog or where to get the best brownies. Note: Stay far away from politics and other controversial topics. Hosting a brawl on your Facebook page is counterproductive.

4. Share videos and video links promoting your town

Historic home tours, visitor-oriented videos featuring whatever your town is best known for (beer, wine, chocolate, ice cream, cars), showpiece gardens, highlights of each season and so forth. Videos, in general, pull a larger audience and deserve more frequent use.

5. Feature real estate humor

You can buy real estate-related cartoons by hiring a local cartoonist or using a national service like Glasbergen Cartoon Service. You can tell funny stories from your own experience (is there a single agent who hasn’t had at least one showing where a person stepped out of the shower just as you opened the bathroom door?).

You can show terrible real estate photos (it’s best to mine them from a market outside your own).

You can be on the lookout for unintentional sign humor and post photos of those. Or you can find real estate humor on Pinterest and share examples. A laugh is sometimes the greatest gift you can deliver. So feel free to be funny.

For more Facebook content ideas, check out “23 fresh Facebook post ideas for real estate agents.”

Figure out what works

Track your posts and the response to them. Post more of the type of items that get the most views and interaction and fewer of those that don’t. Keep doing that. Regularly. And you’ll be fine.

Nicole Solari is owner and managing broker of The Solari Group in Solano and Napa Counties in Northern California. Nicole runs one of the highest producing brokerages in all of Northern California.

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