The Power Of Facebook Groups & Why Agents Should Be Leveraging Them

The best real estate brokerages know how to leverage all the tools at their disposal. In the 21st century, this has social media at the top of the list, with Facebook still reigning supreme. According to the National Association of REALTORS, 77% of real estate agents use social media for their businesses, with 97% of them using Facebook to help reach clients.

Recommendations

One of the most useful benefits Facebook offers Group owners is its recommendations feature. This feature uses a complex algorithm to recommend Facebook Groups to users based on their Facebook interests and browsing history and other Facebook Groups to which they belong. That means, if a Facebook user is browsing different local areas to which they're considering moving, or seeking employment opportunities in states different from the one in which they reside or checking out schools for their children in different districts, Facebook may suggest to those users real-estate-related groups in those particular areas.

That Personal Touch

Personal References

For most people, there's no better source for trusted information about a product, service, or place than another person like them who's owned it, used it, or been there, respectively. Personal references are so widely trusted and approved because those people have nothing to gain from sharing their opinions. Since they aren't selling the thing they're reviewing or recommending or earning a commission from the sale of it, they can be completely honest and forthright about their experiences. This allows agents, who are burdened by that stigma of professional self-interest, to leverage the trust people place in personal references.

Personal Engagement

Specifically, as the member or facilitator of one or more Facebook groups relevant to your industry and service area, you get the benefit of personal engagement with all the other members in a private and intimate setting. There's not such a sense of division between employer and employee, between client and contractor, on a Facebook group—just a profile photo and a name. It's a bunch of friends, acquaintances, and friendly strangers sitting down at a virtual table from their own comfortable, safe spaces and chatting, which is exactly the same type of engagement an agent tries to develop in-person and on the phone with clients, with varying degrees of success.

Topic Focused

Too often, consumers view agents as singularly focused on the sale. In their minds, they're nothing more to an agent than the next fish to catch on the hook. Every conversation with you, then, has the onus of a sales pitch from the outset.

On a Facebook Group, however, no one there is generally talking about a specific home or property for sale, unless perhaps as a point of reference or interest to the whole group. Rather, the group may discuss a particular topic of relevance to the shared focus of the group, such as:

• The state of the current or projected future housing market
• Honing in with one or more experts on a particular housing market or niches, such as condominiums or multifamily homes
• What makes different neighborhoods unique
• The joys and benefits of home-ownership vs. renting
• How to figure out how expensive of a home you can afford to buy
• Why real estate is such a rewarding industry in which to be involved today

For more tips like these, check out the Most Referred Experts website and join eXp Realty.