Once upon a time there were print real estate advertisements only, newspapers, flyers and so on. Then the MLS computer systems came along with sharing listing information among real estate members. In the early 2000s, IDX was the next big thing with letting the listing information reach the public through other brokers' and agents' websites, providing additional exposure to properties by aggregating home buyer traffic on 3rd party websites. Listing syndication, single property websites with SEO and listing widgets followed and property information reached new destinations - places where home buyers were gathering and searching on: classified sites, Google and other search engines and blogs.
And now we have something new and fresh and powerful emerging from the horizon ! Ready?
Introducing the Facebook Listing Pages for your RealBird Single Property Websites
Facebook recently launched their new Facebook Platform including the "Like" button for the web. The "Like" button is a small widget that website and blog owners can add to their sites. Visitors with a Facebook account (~400 million of them) can like and recommend the content on their network. However, most implementations are "simple" sharing solutions only and do not utilize the full Facebook Open Graph platform.
The RealBird solution that we released last Friday takes this concept one step further. It is a full Facebook Open Graph implementation. Best of all, it's really, really simple for both you and your users.
How does it work?
The Facebook Open Graph platform enables real world objects (people, books, landmarks, places, products etc.) that are presented on the Web to become part of the Facebook social graph. At its basic level, the social graph is the set of 1) nodes or objects (You, a landmark, a place, a business, a real estate listing) and 2) their relationships or connections (connection between You and your friends, You and a business, You and a real estate listing etc.). Messages such as status updates travel between the 1) nodes via these 2) connections.
The RealBird implementation of the Facebook Open Graph platform enables you, the RealBird member to create a Facebook Listing Page attached to the social graph. With a single click, you can create a Facebook Listing Page for your RealBird single property website and invite friends, sellers and potential buyers to create a connection between their Facebook account and your listing by clicking the "Like" button themselves. Once they do, they establish a relationship to your Facebook Listing Page. All the status updates that you post on these Facebook Listing Pages in the future will show up in those people's News Feed who liked your property.
Sounds complicated? It's not !
Below are the simple steps you have to do to enable this feature on your RealBird account and to create a Facebook Listing Page for your listing. Takes literally less then a minute.
- Login to RealBird or register here for free (free for up to 2 listings and only $99/year for unlimited listings).
- Connect your Facebook account with RealBird (takes only 5 seconds)
- Visit your own RealBird single property websites and click "Like" (takes 1 second)
- An "Admin Page" link will appear next to the Like widget at the footer area of your RealBird website, above the translation tools. Clicking that will take you to the automatically created Facebook Listing Page. It is also auto-populated with your main property photo, listing info and link to your property website on RealBird
That's it. It is this simple. From here on, you will be able to manage your Facebook Listing Page just like any other Facebook Pages and post updates, such as price reductions, new photos, open home dates etc. and every Facebook user who liked your property will be automatically notified about these events.
Connecting your Facebook account to RealBird (it's secure, we do not see your Facebook credentials)
"Like" your RealBird property website
There is a small "Like" button above the fold, on the top of your RealBird property websites and a full "Like" widget at the bottom. The bottom one also has an "Admin Page" link as shown below (assuming you connected Facebook to RealBird in Step 1). The Admin Page link is only visible for you, the listing website owner.
Listing courtesy of Mike Conner of City Realty inc in Olympia, WA
Manage your status updates via the Facebook Listing Page
The arrows show the auto-populated photos, description, the status update entries and Facebook Page tabs.
How to build a fan base for your listing?
The most important step is to invite your seller, the current owner of the property, and ask him/her to "Like" your RealBird listing website. When they do, their Facebook friends will be notified via their News Feed. You may also want to aks the seller to invite their own friends and family to "Like" the property, and when those people do, all the friends of the friend of the seller will be notified as well. The more people like the property, the more of them will be notified via their News Feed, and the more likely it will be that your Facebook Listing Page becomes a viral marketing hub.
What updates should I post on the Facebook Listing Pages?
Pretty much anything that is relevant to the sales cycle. For example:
- Price reductions
- Open home dates
- New pictures
- Neighborhood events and info
Only the imagination is the limit. Just make sure, that it's related to the property in some ways. And just like with any other Facebook Page, make sure that you are approachable, that you include some call for actions every now and then and also make sure that you do not overload your "fans" with too frequent updates. Probably one update per day is enough, in most cases it will be even less.
If you are not a RealBird member yet, you can register here for free (free for up to 2 listings and only $99/year for unlimited listing marketing). Otherwise just login to RealBird and follow the simple steps above to get started.
-- Zoltan
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