Special offer

Facebook Changes: Get Your Business Up to Speed

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with RealSupport Inc.

If you’ve been on Facebook in the past few months, you have noticed some changes taking place. The layout of our pages has changed, apps your friends and acquaintances use are evolving and the importance of our posts and interactivity is being affected. With all of the changes that constantly take place within Facebook everyday, it’s hard to keep up and make sure your social media strategy remains effective.

As a real estate virtual assistant, my team and I have the opportunity of staying in “the know” about the ever changing world of social media. Anyone with a Facebook page will be impacted by these Facebook changes -- business pages especially. Here’s what to look out for and how to keep your page fresh, engaging and productive.

Showcasing Company Milestones
If you’ve transitioned from the “old” page to Facebook’s new Timeline, you now have the opportunity to showcase your agency’s milestones! Want to share the experience of a recent event? Go for it. It’s simple. All you need to do is find the line that runs down the middle of your timeline, select “milestone” and there you go! The whole point of the timeline is to encourage people to spend time on your page rather than take a quick look and move on. So, the more visual activity you have going on, the better!

Make an Offer
Nope, we’re not talking about an offer to purchase, but I like where your head’s at! Right now only a select few companies have access to “Facebook Offers” but the feature will soon be expanded. Find out how to use Facebook Offers and how it can help expand your brand. In a nutshell, this new feature allows businesses to offer/share discounts with their customers/clients by posting offers on their Facebook page. As a real estate expert, you may be wondering “what should I offer?” While you may not have something tangible in mind, offering something like a free consultation or a free home search analysis are a couple of ways to get the ball rolling. These are already things you offer for free, but when someone goes to your page and sees it in print, it makes it all the more alluring.

The best part about Facebook Offers? They don’t cost a thing.

BIG Photo
One of the biggest (and most noticeable) changes we’ve seen on Facebook is the introduction of the cover photo. Instead of the strip of photos across the top of the page, it has now been replaced with one large cover photo. You only get one larger than life photo so choose wisely. This one image should be the ultimate representation of what you, your page and your business is all about. While you want this photo to capture the attention of your viewers, there is one catch. The photo cannot contain any call-to-action graphics. That means no asking people to like or share your page, and NO contact information. Get the details and restriction info about your cover photo here.

So which of these are you going to take advantage of first? Your real estate virtual assistants would love to hear your feedback and how these features are working for your brand. There are many more recent Facebook changes and these are just a few. For more information on utilizing Facebook to better your brand, contact your real estate virtual assistant for a complimentary needs assessment.

Thanks for reading!

Lauren Wille
Marketing Coordinator

Comments (3)

John Pusa
Glendale, CA

Thank you for sharing detailed quality information on facebook changes, get your business up to speed.

Mar 06, 2012 09:03 AM
Charles Stallions Real Estate Services
Charles Stallions Real Estate Services Inc - Gulf Breeze, FL
Buyers Agent 800-309-3414 Pace and Gulf Breeze,Fl.

Gotta love it, FB changes faster than one can keep up with. How do you keep up with all these changes.

Mar 06, 2012 10:07 AM
RealSupport, Inc.
RealSupport Inc. - Schaumburg, IL
- Virtual Real Estate Marketing

Hi John, thank YOU for the comment! We always dive in to the details. It helps people sort out ALL the changes and find out how they can use them to market their business better.

And you're right, Facebook DOES change so quickly. It can be difficult to keep up with at times. One of the benefits of being online all day every day is that we see the changes as they happen, which is why we always let real estate agents know about the updates as quickly as we can! One way to keep up with the changes yourself is to go on Mashable.com, which is a tech news site, each day and look for updates about social media sites. They're always one of the first to report about upcoming changes. Logging into Facebook daily also helps. If you see the changes happen subtly, as they go along, they are easier to keep up with and adjust to when changes are actually made.

Thank you both for commenting! We'd love to hear more of your feedback at any time.

Mar 07, 2012 06:35 AM