We’ve established that having an active presence on Facebook, including a business page, is incredibly important. Some of you may be frustrated because you aren’t getting any interactions and don’t have many fans, and as a result you may feel as though you’re wasting your valuable time maintaining a page that isn’t getting any results!
Luckily, as a team of real estate virtual assistants, we maintain several Facebook business pages on a daily basis and many of them are VERY successful!
Today, we’re prepared to share our top ten tips for making a Facebook business page a success:
1.) Make sure you pick the perfect page name...you don’t ever want the name of your Facebook Business page to just be your name, or even just the name of your company. You want the title of your business page to indicate your geographic location, target demographic, and/or niche. For example, if a Facebook user is searching for events in Chicago, IL, they may type “Chicago, IL in the Facebook search bar. If your Facebook page name has Chicago, IL, it WILL Come up in the search results!! Many of our clients have chosen to have their name or company name in the title along with their geographic location or target demographic. “Annie Agent-Chicago, IL Real Estate,” for example. It’s really important to pick a title that’s “searchable” AND sounds interesting and professional!
2.) Post on your page frequently! The key to a successful business page is to post at least one thing to your Facebook wall a day. If you don’t update frequently, you’re not going to get as much interaction. When Facebook users go to “like” a page, they look to see that the page is active and not dormant for months at a time. The more often you post, the more interesting your page is and the more interaction you’ll get! It’s not enough just to have a page, you have to maintain it! It may take twenty minutes out of your busy day, but it’s twenty minutes well-spent, and if you feel you don’t have the time, your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can take care of your daily social networking maintenance for you!
3.) “Like” as many (relevant) local businesses as you can and add them to your page’s “Favorite Pages.” “Liking” the Facebook business pages of businesses in your community not only shows your support, it also shows that you’re active in both your community and on Facebook. The more people in your community see your presence on Facebook, the bigger presence your page will get! Another thing to take into consideration is that if you become a fan of a local business page, the person who runs the page for that business will likely fan your page back. It’s a great way to build your fan base! After you like a page, you can click “Add to My Page’s Favorites” right under that page’s profile picture and that page will show up in a “Favorite Pages” box on your page. It’s just as important to “Favorite” a business page as it is to like one. It’s a great way to mention local businesses on your page without having to post about them, and it’s another way to show how involved you are in your community. Also, if you put a business page under your favorite pages, they’re likely to put YOUR page under their favorite pages. This leads us to our next trusty tip...
4.) Tag as many (relevant) local businesses, community organizations, and other business pages as possible in your posts. After you “like” another business page, you can tag that page in your wall posts. “Tagging” a page means that when you’re typing that business’s name in your post about them, you press the “@” key and start typing the name of the business. The business name should come up in a drop-down menu right below where you’re typing. (Note: you must “like” their page before you’re able to tag them)
You click on the business name and the title of the business page will show up in your post as a link to that business’s page. Not only are you mentioning another business in a wall post, but you’re linking your fans directly to their page, which could help build their fan base. Another great thing about tagging is that when you tag a business in a post, your post also shows up on THEIR Facebook wall, so you’re also getting the exposure on their page, to all of their fans! This is a great trick to use when you’re maintaining your page, and you should do it often. It’s a great way to look involved in your community, get content on your wall AND on the wall of another Facebook page, and build your fan base all in one post.
5.) Switch up your posts! It’s important that you post a variety of content on your Facebook wall. If your posts all sound the same or are on the same topic, people will quickly start to lose interest in your page and not interact as often as you’d like. If you post a real estate article one day, try posting about an upcoming event in your community the next. Different types of content make you appealing to your fans for different reasons. Posting on local news and community events makes you look involved in your community, posting real estate articles shows your knowledge and expertise in your field, posting exciting updates about your company, (kudos), shows your success as an agent, and posting motivational quotes is a quick and easy way to get a lot of interaction on your page. It’s important to regularly switch-up your posts so you have a well-rounded page that will invite a lot of interaction!
6.) ALWAYS respond to people who comment on your wall posts or post content on your wall. Social networking is largely for interacting with your fans and people in your community, so it’s important to always respond to anyone who contacts you on Facebook. The best way to look friendly and engaging is to always respond to people’s comments on your posts, posts on your wall, and direct messages in your inbox.
Many people don’t take the time to respond to comments and wall posts that people put on their page, and so you can definitely set yourself apart by always taking the time to do this! It shows that you care about your Facebook fans and what they have to say, and starting an interaction could potentially lead to a new client for you!
7.) Let your Facebook friends and your database know about your Facebook page! After you create your page and start posting content, you need to let people know about your page! Send invitations to all of your Facebook friends to become a fan of your page and send an email out to your entire database letting them know about your page and ask them to become a fan. It’s the most efficient way to build your fan base. Also, if you’re reaching out to your database and Facebook friends, that means that you would know your initial fan base personally, which makes it much easier to start interacting with them. Don’t be afraid to let people know about your business page and ask them to become your fan! The biggest part of being active on Facebook is having a solid fan base, and who better to support your business than people you have worked with professionally or know personally?
8.) Make sure your website, blog and email signature(s) have accessible links to your Facebook (and twitter) pages. Many prospective clients will be looking on your website, and a great way to get them to both view and fan your Facebook page is to have a link or button to your business page directly on your main homepage or front-page of your blog. Not only will this drive traffic to your homepage and build up your fan base, but it’ll let prospective and current clients know that you’re on Facebook and have a social networking presence, and they’ll know that they can seek you out on Facebook to ask you questions or begin interacting with you. This is just another way to give your page even more exposure and market your social networking presence even further, and it’s important that you make your Facebook page accessible outside of Facebook! If you don’t know how to do this, your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can help you.
9.) Use Facebook Insights to determine how you can improve. Last week, we discussed Facebook Insights and therefore you already know that Facebook insights put together your business page statistics every week and it is important to use these statistics regularly when you maintain your page because it shows you where your business page is being successful and where it could use work. It shows you quantitative charts and graphs that show what day and what kind of things you posted when you had the most interaction on your page. This information is valuable to you when it comes to creating a social media plan. You can see what days your page was successful and what content you put on the page that day to get such great interaction. You can also change your content and social media plan accordingly. It’s a great resource to use to determine what you need to do to make your page successful, and you should definitely use it! Review our Facebook Insights blog post for an explanation of what these statistics mean!
10.) Run contests and holiday promotions to invite interaction!! Running a contest on your Facebook page is a fantastic way to invite interaction onto your page. You can run photo contests and have the winner be your Facebook Business Page profile picture for the day, or start a discussion in your discussions tab about holiday gift ideas. These are fun and creative ways to get interaction on your page and for you to engage with your fans!
These are our ten tips to a successful Facebook business page, but there’s one another tip we’d like to share: be patient! Your business page isn’t going to become a success overnight. As these tips show, you have to put in some time and effort in order to make your presence known on Facebook and build your fan base. If you don’t have the time, your Real Estate Virtual Assistant would be happy to devise a social media strategy and then help you maintain your Facebook business page on-going. Remember, a successful business page can only do great things for your business!
Happy Friday and Happy Halloween Weekend!
Erica Lawrence
Operations Manager
Comments (17)Subscribe to CommentsComment