Social media marketing is an incredibly powerful tool and these days it is one of the single best ways to find deals as a real estate investor. Having a website is good, but if you don’t drive any people to it, it’s basically no more than an electronic business card. Using Facebook as a real estate investor is an effective way to leverage social media to gather leads, make connections, and network with other investors.
Using Facebook as a real estate investor is effective because is the proverbial 100-pound gorilla in the social media realm. Having an account with a few dozen strangers you call “friends” isn’t going to be effective, though. You must have a game plan in mind when using Facebook as a real estate investor,
First, join “groups” that are on your topic, i.e., real estate investing. Some groups require permission to get in, which is fine – the more the merrier. Don’t post blatant ads that say, “I buy houses” or you will get ignored, shamed, or worse, thrown out of the group. Instead, offer advice, ask questions, and chat with other folks in the groups. Make sure your Facebook “profile” has a professional photo of you and a description of the type of business you are in is the unique angle that makes you different from all the other investors online.
Once you have communicated with some people in these groups, ask them to “friend” you. This will build your following, and make you look like a player (in fact, there are services you can pay to add “fake” followers, so you look important. Stay away from the cheap ones (and especially cheap software), and instead use a service that actually gives you relevant friends in your line of business and interests. Fiverr.com and Upwork.com allow you to hire freelance servicer providers for very affordable fees.
Paid advertising on Facebook is another option. You will need to set up a separate business page from your personal page to do this effectively. With Facebook marketing, you can target your EXACT audience not only based on geography and interests, but you can ask it to target people who are similar to your competitor’s pages! Facebook ads are not cheap – you’re looking at $1 to $2 per click on your ad, so make sure your business Facebook page is professional, compelling, and offers an irresistible bonus for signing up or “liking” you (such as an eBook, real estate form, or other valuable resources). Everyone offers something for signing up on their list on the Internet, so make sure when someone reads your offer they said to themselves, “Holy cr#p, that’s some offer!”
Once you have a following, you can use your use Facebook as a real estate investor to post comments and short articles, like a “blog”, so to speak. In other words, don’t post random news stories, cat videos, and controversial political articles. Instead, post tips, ideas, surveys, and links to relevant real estate articles or websites. A tip when posting – use a nice graphic image to get your post noticed. If you are linking to an article or news website, the image will automatically come up, but if you post a few thoughts or a survey, it will be just a straight text, which doesn’t stand out.
Your aim should be to create posts that will get clicked and that will get shared. To do this, you need to understand what type of content does well on Facebook. Use curiosity in order to encourage people to click. For instance: “You’ll never believe what happens at the end of this video… I nearly lost my mind!”. In other cases, the articles might be purposefully controversial, they might suggest some kind of gossip or they might make outrageous claims. Examples might be “This one upgrade almost DOUBLED my profit on a Flip”. These titles work because people can’t help but be curious. Sure, it’s probably nonsense but what if it’s not? Does it really hurt to take a few seconds to click the link?
But while this method might work, that doesn’t mean that you should be doing it all the time. Why? Because although you’ll get lots of visitors, you’ll also probably damage your reputation – and quite possibly irreparably. People don’t like being tricked and if they feel that one of your articles has conned them, then they will be unlikely to want to click on another of your links in the future.
So what do you do instead? Simple: you create links that are unique, interesting, and bombastic… but that actually deliver. And the main way to do that would be to come up with content that is actually completely original and that puts a new angle on a popular topic. Your objective then should be to come up with content that’s new. That means reading into your topic in-depth, it means combining different related subjects and it means reading scientific research in many cases too. Adding your personality and personal experiences is also a nice touch.
Again the best litmus test is whether you would read it. Ask yourself: would that title be enough that you’d just have to click it if you hadn’t written it yourself? And would the content being delivered live up to your hopes once you did click it? Once you master that, you will find you start to get more people reading your content and more people choosing to follow your page.
I wish you the very best of luck in using Facebook as a real estate investor to do more business!
If you would like to join my Facebook page, just click here. It is full of postings, advice, and videos to help your real estate knowledge!
