Facebook

[Bill Saunders]

Folks, I am still not convinced. Yeah there is value in it, there is value in anything you hear about anything and any new and upcoming internet snake oil... Just look around our industry...everywhere you turn, every spam you get.

Just a penny here, facebook is about reconnecting with friends, or sort of. If you continually remind them, even subliminally that you are an agent (I am talking continually) I feel that subliminal message could work against you... i.e. he/she's just marketing to me, keeping me in play, in the pipeline...

I just attended a workshop put on by realtor.com, and even they mentioned the dangers of overpromotion on FB ... but there was a catch as there always is with r-trd.com and I am worried that I bit. You can have your listings appear on FB... sounded good at the time so I did it...but I am worried, really worried that unknown to me, realtor.com is now spamming my friends in my name, like all those dam*ed games that I keep hiding.

Just a thought. Your friends, real friends and those that you reacquaint with are going to know you are in real estate. The things that have come my way from facebook have been by private message, for them, not me really going out of my way.
I try to bring real estate into it because real estate is part of my life now, like I toured a killer Victorian in the historic district, or I'm sitting an open so come on by and catch up over coffee & cookies because it probably won't be that busy, etc.

Anyway, it is all about if it works and how it works. I just know that if I m thinking about buying a car, I will drive right past the businesses that have the salespeople sitting in a golf cart at the entrance to the lot. I am sure these guys sell a lot of cars. They just aren't going to sell one to me . However you make a valid point that I am not of the facebook generation.

[Lisa D Arnold]

I have both the FB profile page (I guess that's what they call the regular page) and the fan page.  I don't have that many fans, but I find the page useful in making my professional announcements to my friends on my profile page. 

Most of what I post directly on my profile page is just me being me, posting vacation pictures, fun videos from YouTube, talking about my daily nonsense.  Occasionally I may mention something about my work day in all of the nonsense, but doesn't everyone?  I also respond to a lot of my friends, so my profile is very conversational and 2-sided. 

I use my fan page as my professional persona.  I post my new listings, open houses, price reductions, and information about the housing market on there, and then share it with my profile page.  By doing it that way, since I use my professional portrait for my fan page, it makes the posts stand out amongst all of my personal posts. 

Out of an entire week of cheesy 80's videos, pictures of the cats, insane observations about the world, caffeine withdrawals which have included me begging people to stop at Dunkin Donuts and bring a large coffee to me at home when I ran out of coffee beans, announcements of what car show I'm going to be attending and when, updates on my boyfriends shenanigans, and posting of crazy news stories, my friends get, tops, 4 or 5 real estate related posts a week.  And that's on a busy real estate week; more like 1 or 2 on most weeks. 

I feel that it's a good way to remind everyone that while I'm still all fun and games most of the time, when it comes to real estate, I am a professional and I take it seriously.   

But I am always mindful of spamming my sphere, especially since a few of my friends are MLMers and ALL of their posts are about their business.  And I never buy anything from them. 

Has FB worked for me?  Yes!  In the last year or so I've gotten 8 or 9 referrals from my FB friends, usually beginning with them posting on my page asking me to call them about a friend (I love when they do that!) or through a direct message in FB.  Last year, my first sale and my first rental (which became a sales referral out this year) were both FB referrals.  I can't complain and wouldn't change a thing, at least not until the next greatest thing comes along.