One of my favorite sessions at Real Estate Connect SF was a panel answering the question: “Is Facebook bigger than Google?”
What do you think? With Facebook approaching 500 million fans – they are certainly in the right position!
The panelists who spoke during this session were:
- Drew Burks, Broker, Web Real Estate Tools, @sdrealtors
- Nicole Nicolay, Founder & CCO, Agent Evolution, @nik_nik
- Dale Chumbley, Realtor with Prudential NW Properties, @DaleChumbley
Drew Burks spoke about recent changes in Facebook and their new ‘open graph’ platform.
He emphasized that everyone should add the ‘like’ plugin to their blog (something I need to do ASAP!) It’s one of the easiest ways for people to share you info on Facebook. Also ‘liking’ a post or page helps to index you in the world of search. This stat was staggering:
“Facebook indexes 25 BILLION pieces of information a month!”
Drew’s shirt says it best: “Google Me” – this is his business card. I love it!
Nicole talked about Facebook ads and gave some excellent advice:
- Set your goals. What do you want to accomplish?
- Establish your target criteria. There is a tremendous amount of targeting you can do when creating your ads – including demographic, gender, age, likes, interests, and so much more.
- Have compelling content. She spoke a lot about the ‘nature of the network’ – we aren’t likely to click on ads unless they are eye-catching, interesting, funny, or are very relevant to us.
Also, Nicole said to make sure that the link on your ad is the your most productive link – whether that is a link back to your page or back to your website. Historically the links that work best are link back to your Facebook page. It’s easier for someone to ‘like’ a page and then get to know you and your brand before they transact with you.
Dale Chumbley, famous for his 365 Things to Do in Vancouver page (which now has over 11K fans), spoke about Facebook pages – do/don’t and the tremendous opportunity.
One of the biggest opportunities agents have is that they know their communities and the ins and outs of neighborhoods better than anyone. On Dale’s page there is no mention of him as a real estate agent. All of his content resides on his blog – so he will always ‘own’ the content – in case anything happens to Facebook. He blogs everyday and links to his blog posts once daily. He said he started his blog 146 days ago and his Facebook page is now #4 on Google when someone searches for his county and #2 on Google when someone searches for his city.
He does caution about starting a ‘365’ page – it’s a lot of work and a big commitment! But whether your community is large or small, any community could benefit from having a community page created from someone who knows it best – a real estate agent!
Overall I thought this was an excellent panel because they talked about each facet of Facebook and how a real estate agent can maximize this huge opportunity. Thanks Drew, Nicole and Dale for doing a fantastic job!
Would you love your opinions on this – leave me your feedback and comments below!
By they way, a video of this session, (along with all conference videos) will be available soon to Inman Premium Members. Sign up now for only $99 and get a 1 year Inman Premium Membership which includes ALL post-conference video.
Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News
