Originally written for and published by Inman News.
Social media is just one more way that agents can connect with their clients, prospect for new clients and keep up with old clients. It sounds easy, but with all of the platforms — Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, blogs and more — it can get overwhelming.
But what if there were one tool that could truly help you connect better with your clients? What if it could also help you find that guy you spoke to at your open house but didn’t get his phone number? And what if it could actually replace the dial pad on your phone? Get ready to say hello to integrating social media and customer relationship management at the tap of an app.
Hello by Facebook
Screenshot of Hello by Facebook
I know you have been meaning to connect on Facebook with that looky-loo from your last open house, the father you met at the store pining away for a home to house his burgeoning family or the executive setting up shop on your block.
But you just haven’t mustered up the energy to deal with opening what some see as our modern day Pandora’s box, aka Facebook, which unleashes social media trappings that zap your time.
Hello by Facebook might give Android users the best of both worlds — you can connect pain-free with new contacts simply by having their main phone number or full name.
In Hello by Facebook, you can type in a person’s number or name, and if it is tied to their Facebook account, you can just click “match with a Facebook profile,” select the right name, and you now have access to that person’s world (at least what they share publically), whether they accept your friend request or not.
Before making a call, you can now quickly check their Facebook profile and see what is going on in their world: Is their last child going to college? It might be time for a new home. Are they expecting a child? Perhaps they need more space.
If you do not have the number for a prospective homebuyer or seller, but you know her name and that she is on Facebook, this app will even let you search simultaneously through your personal list of contacts and all of Facebook to find the person in a matter of seconds.
Hello by Facebook also works wonders when you receive a call. With every call you receive (saved in your contacts or not), you can instantly see the person’s Facebook profile (if they call from a number associated with their Facebook account).
Can you imagine the power of this tool? Your caller ID might not capture the name of the person calling off your lawn sign, but if the person has a Facebook account associated with this phone number, you just got their name (and likely their bio) along with access to their interests as publically posted on Facebook.
It works for missed calls, too. This tool is a giant leap forward in making customer relationship management truly integrated (at no additional cost) in our everyday tasks as opposed to isolated, expensive systems that are disjointed from our daily functions.
I would recommend that you have a separate business page that links to the phone numbers from which you call prospective clients. Do not associate those phone numbers with your personal page if you share intimate posts.
At the least, you should ensure your confidential posts are not set to public viewing to protect information that you do not want the general public to know. This app does an excellent job of allowing you to block hidden numbers and unwanted, repetitive callers.
On the other side of the coin, Hello by Facebook can also be an excellent safety precautionary tool. The app allows you to explore more about a random caller before meeting him or her at a listing (such as if you have any mutual Facebook friends) and even share this information with your office and family.
Of course, you can do this in just the regular Facebook app, but it takes more time to copy a number between your dialer app and the original Facebook app or to guess at the spelling of someone’s name that was not retrieved with caller ID.
You should also make sure you have good reviews on Facebook because your ratings will show to potential clients using this app, unbeknownst to you. See the screenshot above for an example.
If a prospective client using the Hello by Facebook app can dial your number from a lawn sign or billboard and then instantly see that you are a five-star agent, you might have just won a new client without trying.
This jewel of an app debuted back in April, and I am in love. So much so that I removed the standard phone dialer from my home screen and made Hello by Facebook the default dialer (they have a video on how to do it), so that I do not have to open a separate app all the time but can just click one phone icon for all-access.
This tool has made connecting on Facebook a breeze, not just with clients but with long-lost friends and family, which makes this a win.
Lee Davenport is a licensed real estate broker, business doctoral student, trainer and coach. Learn more about the training and one-on-one coaching programs that she offers by visiting AgentsAroundAtlanta.com. Follow her on Google Plus and Facebook.
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