Yesterday in part 1 of this series we explored how Facebook can provide value to your real estate business. Today, we’ll be going over some practical, hands-on techniques that can be used to find potential clients and generate leads.

It’s all about interaction on Facebook. It’s a “social” network: interacting, adding friends, talking to users, joining groups, etc. are all vital in order to make the most out of Facebook. The more friends you have (and the more your interact with them), the farther your reach will be and the more opportunities you have to find new, high-value leads.

The Key to Facebook is in the News Feed. When you first login to Facebook, the majority of the page (the entire left side) is used for the “news feed.” When any of your friends update their status, write on your wall, upload new pictures or do virtually anything on Facebook, it will show under your news feed as it’s happening. This means that when users comment on your wall, all of THEIR friends will see your information. When they join your group, all of THEIR friends will see your information. This is where it gets powerful…if you have 20 people a day interacting with you and they each have 100 friends, that’s 2,000 people (mostly local) that will see your name and may potentially click through to your profile - every day, for free.

If you don’t have a fan page for yourself, you’re missing out. Facebook allows users to create pages for anyone (including themselves). These are different from profiles in that they can showcase your business more than your personal profile can. An example of this would be “Danny Greene” (whom I just picked randomly) and has 74 “fans” of his real estate business.

Once your page is online, Users can become fans of you. From there, they can leave comments, read more about your business and you can interact as well. Fan pages even provide the opportunity to email all users in a group (i.e. about new listings, open houses or any other newsworthy things you’re doing). This keeps your potential clients actively involved with you and keeps you at the forefront of their minds.

To create a Facebook page for yourself visit this link: http://www.Facebook.com/pages/create.php

Advertise on Facebook. If you have an advertising budget, Facebook is absolutely worth a try. It’s one of the most targeted ways to reach your potential customers. One really powerful thing about the Facebook advertising system is that it even allows you to promote your fan pages (see above) rather than some static, external site. The ads are also extremely targeted: you can place ads that will show only to demographics that you select (i.e. Boston residents age 25-35) and they will be directed back to the Facebook fan page where they will see your information. This is another opportunity to build relationships. Another opportunity to generate leads.

You can learn more about the Facebook ad platform here: http://www.Facebook.com/business/?socialads

To recap, four simple tips to get the most from Facebook are:

Interact with the community. Get out there and add friends, send messages and talk to your audience. This gives you dozens (hundreds?) of personal connections with potential real estate clients.

Use the news feed to your advantage. To do this, get people talking to you and interacting with you on some level, every day.

Setup a fan page. Get your business and your brand a page where users can discuss your business and you can interact on a more targeted level

If you have a budget, advertise. With thousands of local visitors you can target, there’s few places can provide the return on investment that Facebook can.

And of course, the final step is to add me to your friends :)