Creating a brand on Facebook for your Real Estate business is as important as a first impression, because it may likely be a leads first impression of you!

Your potential customers will form an impression – and make a judgement – about your entire business in less than one second. And as they say: you may never get a second chance to make a first impression.

That’s why deliberately creating your brand is so important.

By being intentional and putting effort into your branding, you can purposely create an impression about your business and evoke a desired emotion from your customers.

Branding isn’t just about a logo, a business card, or a catchy tagline, branding is built up from every single experience a client has with your business.

In this article Garry Wise, co-founder of the Paperless Agent and co-owner of GoodLife Realty, talks through five (easy) steps to start creating, building, and promoting your brand using Facebook.

Facebook makes building a brand easier than ever before

Facebook is the place to be online for businesses: there are estimated 1.44 billion monthly active Facebook users (1 out of 2 people who are on the internet are using this platform) and they are on the site for an average of 40 minutes a day.

This creates a golden opportunity to build and promote your brand.

The five steps for creating, growing, and promoting a brand on Facebook are:

• Step 1: Craft your Brand Message
• Step 2: Create your Facebook Business Page
• Step 3: Post Pictures and Content Consistent with your Brand Message
• Step 4: Tell Stories to Promote your Brand
• Step 5: Run a Simple Ad to Promote your Brand

Now, let’s get into the specifics on how these five steps can be implemented into your business.

Step 1: Craft your Brand Message

If you haven’t created your own brand message, it’s being created for you (and that’s not a good thing)!

The Brand Message is the roadmap for your business; it’s essential. It gets you thinking about your customer, what they care about, and what they want from you. The Brand Message is the foundation of who you are, what you want to be known for, and what you want your brand to be about. Then it’s time to become purposeful about creating that impression.

This screenshot below lists seven questions that will prompt you into crafting your Brand Message (the answers shown below are for Garry and his team, yours will probably be different).

Once you have the answers, condense that information down into a single statement that captures the essence of your business brand.

If you don’t make an intentional decision to craft a Brand Message, the consumer will make their own decision about your brand! Whenever you stay silent and allow others to make up that story for themselves you are risk for the wrong story to be told.

NOTE: If you currently have a brand that you don’t like or that doesn’t accurately represent your business, it can be changed but you do need to actively work on that making that change.

Businesses re-brand ALL. THE. TIME.

The statement below is the Brand Message for GoodLife Realty:

This is who we serve and how we and what makes us different. All marketing and every potential consumer touchpoint stems from, and is evaluated against, the Brand Message.

As a real estate agent, it is important to make a marketing splash on Facebook because, as we saw earlier, your potential customers are already hangin’ out on the platform.

A great Facebook business page will show off your marketing skills and for a professional who is making a promise to list, market, and sell homes, the ability to market really matters. 

Your Facebook business page is a demonstration (to potential clients) of results being delivered in advance.

Step 2: Create your Facebook Business Page

If you don’t already have a Facebook business page for your brokerage, start by setting one up by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/ and follow the simple step-by-step Facebook prompts. You can get it up and running within minutes.

Select the type of business (Local Business is recommended as there is a special feature for Real Estate Agents, but if you are a one-person business you can also select Artist, Band or Public Figure).

Step 3: Post Content & Photos Consistent with your Brand Message

The content (photos, text, and video) posted on the Facebook business page shows up in your followers’ news feeds. This is where you want to really be intentional about what is shared because a brand impression is constantly being created.

Visual images are an essential part of storytelling, so for this reason, good quality photos are important when posting to your business page. Make the effort to hire a professional photographer; a blurry image will have a negative impact on the brand that you trying to create.

We’ve snuck in a extra branding layer to our photos for GoodLife Realty by using Canva to add in a logo and phone number (see below).

Here are a few types of relevant content that can be shared to your Facebook business page:

Share Articles

Articles that are important to your followers can be shared on your Facebook business page. Talk to your followers about things that interest them (as long as it is consistent with your brand message and/or shows off your professional skills).

Photos are always important to catch more than a passing glance in the news feed so both the text, the article subject matter, and the photo for said article needs to reflect your Brand Messaging (for example, a photo of a dilapidated building isn’t going to work with a luxury brand).

Facebook doesn’t require too much updating – once or twice a week is fine if that is all that you can manage. However, if you have neglected your Facebook business page and haven’t been posting for a few months, then take advantage of our Facebook Instant Credibility App (which our The Paperless Agent Coaching Club members have access to) which will automatically post a month’s worth of backdated content for you (in other words, the app will make it look like your business page isn’t quite as neglected).

This app was actually created by our team at The Paperless Agent especially for our members to use on their Facebook business pages (sign up to become a member of The Paperless Agent Coaching Club).

Step 4: Tell Stories to Promote your Brand

Your brand is a story, so tell it. The three easiest ways to tell stories center on people, places, or news.

People:

People-related stories on Facebook include telling your followers the purpose of your business, why it exists, and how you got started. In real estate this might mean telling the story about why you decided to get your real estate license and start working with people.

This is the background that no one knows and it connects you to your followers; it makes you easy to relate to. For example, Garry gets personal by telling the emotional story of how he got into the real estate business after his father passed away and overnight, his entire world changed.

Your story reminds your customers that you are human, that you have personal cares and concerns, and that you care about others (which means you probably care about them, too). Your true story means a lot more than, “I got into real estate serve my customers with thrust and integrity”.

Blah.

Tell stories about what your business is doing in your community. Use people stories to shout your existing customers’ successes (such as purchasing their first home) from the rooftops. This connects with potential clients and gives them a sense of what you can do for them. Let potential clients know that you are going to take care of them through stories and not just words.

A nifty feature that goes along with telling your customers’ success stories is tagging, a feature that allows you to link the post and photo to the people you are talking about. This serves a few functions:  it shows the story is authentic and involves real people, tagging notifies the client so they are likely to add a comment to the post, and the tagged post will also appear on the clients’ personal page so it is easy to share.

Another way to create a People story is by sharing your expertise. As a real estate professional, part of what you offer your customers is expert advice and knowledge to guide them in making real estate decisions.

For your customers to know that you have that expertise you need to show them. Don’t assume that your customers know or understand the knowledge that you have to offer. Potential clients will make a purchase decision based on competence.

Now, tell your story many different ways and on many different channels to re-enforce the brand message.

Places:

When posting images and videos of homes on Facebook, don’t limit yourself to the listings you have available for sale. You can also post about customers’ homes, remodels they may have made, or cool ways they’ve decorated their new space.

Articles and images showing local celebrity homes or the most expensive home are also great subjects that make for popular posts.

You can also tell a story about a particular neighborhood that you service by sharing photos, articles, and videos that profile those Places. Whether it’s things to do, places to visit, or local events, all of these potential posts tell the story about the lifestyle of living in that Place.

News:

To get ideas and content to publish related to News, check out Buzzfeed Travel and Houzz.

Additional real estate information can be found (and then shared on your Facebook business page) via Inman News, Mortgage Rates and Real Estate News (CNN), National Association of Realtors news blog,

To infuse your page with a little personality, find relevant news on The Lighter Side of Real Estate and Terrible Real Estate Photography (this one is hilarious).

Step 5: Run a Simple Ad to Promote your Brand

One way to increase exposure for your new business page is by running a simple, inexpensive Facebook ad (this will only cost $1-$2 per day). This ad may promote a particular post or even simply to encourage more likes on the Facebook business page.

THE ONE BIG TAKEAWAY:

Every piece of content that you post on Facebook leads the potential customer on a journey that ends in some kind of assumption about who you are. Now imagine the powerful effect on your business when you take the time to put intention behind those posts!