Facebook for Real Estate Lead Generation: The Ultimate Toolkit Guide

Using Facebook for real estate lead generation can yield great results, when used correctly. 

Although LinkedIn, Instagram, and, maybe, even Snap and Twitter are necessary for real estate agents to join, none of those social media sites are as effective at generating leads as the once and future king, Facebook.

Derided as the site your “grandma wants to use”, Facebook continues to generate more leads for real estate agents on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis as any social media site on the Internet. 

One of the reasons might be because grandma, and grandpa, and parents, and anyone over 30, really, are more likely to look to sell their homes or buy their homes than younger people. This won’t change for a long time.

Facebook is effective for real estate agents at generating leads specifically because it’s grandma’s and grandpa’s social media site of choice. Real estate agents that harness Facebook’s immense power can turn their real estate agent businesses into massive successes. Unfortunately, utilizing Facebook effectively isn’t as easy as posting about the rock concert you went to last night. 

Effective Facebook marketing requires an understanding of the specific Facebook tools that lead to success. When used correctly, Facebook can be the best way for agents to generate leads. If misused, or used incorrectly, Facebook could actually be detrimental to a real estate agents’ chance of success.

Below, we discuss effective Facebook practices. We also provide a deep dive into specific Facebook tools that real estate agents should use to build their businesses.       

Facebook Basics: 5 Effective Best Practices

Like every new tool you try out, you need to start learning the basics about Facebook. 

In this case, we are going to talk about the basic things any professional should keep in mind when using Facebook as one of their sales channels.

Since real estate agents are professionals, basic best practices for real estate agents on Facebook are mostly the same as it is for any other professional group. 

We have created the top 5 basic best practices for all business owners hoping to market their products or services on Facebook. Then in the next section we connect the dots between these practices and real estate agents. 

5 Best Practices for Facebook Lead Generation

How to sell your products or services on Facebook:

1. Branch out marketing targeting options

Don’t stick to one specific type of targeting. Consider targeting in bunches. For example, instead of targeting a specific demographic age, also consider targeting in terms of gender. 

2. Match your brand to user’s interests

This makes total sense. If you sell bicycles, you want to find cycling enthusiasts. Users who aren’t interested in bicycles won’t be interested in your bicycle posts. 

3. Know your audience 

Who is your audience? Knowing your audience might sound easy. If you’re selling bicycles, your audience are individuals who like bicycling or are into bicycles. However, is that really all there is to it? By knowing your audience, you understand them. You don’t just know the surface, that they like bicycling. 

4. Retarget to visitors

Anyone who visits your Facebook Page requires a follow-up, targeted, ad. This only makes sense.

5. Create your Facebook ads based on Life Events

Life Events give Facebook marketers a major insight into the personal lives of potential customers. Target your ads around Life Events.     

Facebook Marketing Tips Real Estate Agents Must Live By

Now that we’ve got an idea of the 5 most relevant and basic Facebook best practices any professional needs to consider when using Facebook, let’s apply those practices to real estate agents. 

How can real estate agents use those practices to successfully market their businesses? Keep reading to find out!

1. Real estate agents branch out marketing targeting options

We tend to think in terms of neighborhood. That works with door knocking because with door knocking we’re on the street, well, knocking on doors. On Facebook, we want to add age, wealth, and possibly gender to our zip code targeting marketing. Start with zip code for user, but consider other demographic factors that can help you along the way. 

2. Real estate agents should target real estate interested parties

Home owners and potential home sellers are most definitely under the real estate umbrella. But, so might construction company owners and employees, mortgage lenders, and home improvement aficionados. Get creative with it. 

3. Know who you’re buyers or sellers are 

You can’t be shy on Facebook. You must use posts and other FB tools to really get to know potential buyers and sellers. Real estate agents are a dime a dozen. So, you must not only know who the potential buyers and sellers are, you must figure out who they really are. You can do this with relevant and persuasive messaging. We get to that later on in this blog. 

4. Contact anyone who visited your real estate agent page 

You’re trying to generate leads on Facebook, not sell a specific product. You do intend to sell your services, but with the first contact, you want to get the ball rolling. 

The best way to do that is to follow-up. Consider every person who visits your Facebook page as a potential client. Why? You’re in a competition-heavy industry. Every visitor could be a golden nugget. So, treat every visitor as such. 

5. Real estate agents can use Life Events to pitch home buyers or sellers

Life Events give the same insight to real estate agents as it does to every other Facebook marketer. If someone gets married, they might be looking for a home. That’s a potential client right there. If someone gets a divorce, they might be looking to sell their home. You can help the stressed individuals sell their home so that they can start their new lives.  

Facebook Tools to Generate Real Estate Leads

It’s now time to dig deep into actual Facebook tools. What are the tools that real estate agents should use to make their marketing effective? Check it out!  

1. Facebook Business Page

It starts with your Facebook business page. You must have a Facebook business page to showcase that you are a real estate agent and that you provide real estate services to anyone and everyone who might come across you.

It’s easy to create a Facebook business page. The real key is to find the perfect photo that illustrates who you are. 

The  profile and cover photos, which exist in the background and to the side, need to be great photos that imply what type of real estate agent you are. 

These photos are one of the most important aspects of your business page because they represent you as a professional real estate business, not just a real estate agent. It’s the cover of your book. Get people excited about your brand by having an awesome book cover. 

The other key aspects that your Facebook business page must have are both a call-to-action button and visible contact information. 

Your call-to-action should be to get potential customers to leave their private information, phone number and email, so that you can contact them.  

All of your contact information should be both visible and easily accessible. You need to provide potential clients all of the ways they can contact you, if needed. 

2. Facebook Organic Posts

Facebook breaks posts down into two categories: organic and paid. It’s important to understand the connection between posts and post reach. We can do this by simply calling it organic reach and paid reach.

Paid reach are those posts that Facebook marketers pay for. An example would be buying a Facebook ad and delivering it to a set group of people. Real estate agents can do this through Home Value Leads Facebook Advertising.

Facebook organic reach is through unpaid posts. Any time someone receives a non-paid post from you, that’s an organic post reaching someone. Per Facebook, organic reach can be broken down into two categories, viral and nonviral:

• Viral

The number of people who had any content from your Page or about your Page enter their screen because their friend likes or follows your Page, engages with a post, shares a photo of your Page and checks into your Page.

• Nonviral

The number of people who had any content from your Page enter their screen. This doesn’t include when someone’s friend likes or follows your Page, engages with a post, shares a photo of your Page and checks into your Page.

Obviously and ideally you’ll want every post you share on Facebook to become viral. However, the truth is that creating and generating viral campaigns is not always that simple of a task. 

We do recommend however that you maintain your Facebook page active, buzzing, with organic posts, even if they don’t seem to have as much as “virality” or engagement as you’d wish it’s important to keep your Facebook page’s activity constant, and with time you’ll see results. 

3. Facebook Messenger 

Facebook messenger allows real estate agents to interact with their potential and current clients. The Facebook messenger app can also be used to help you manage your business and grow your brand. 

Check out these 3 Facebook Messenger real estate agent tips:

• Facebook Messenger Away Status

Facebook Messenger allows you to save on response time. Response time is important. If you have a Very Responsive badge, you’re more likely to get potential clients to notice you. By changing your Facebook messenger to away, you can ensure you aren’t dinged because you had to wait to respond to a message. 

• Facebook Messenger Instant Replies

Set up instant replies to let people know when you will get back to them. As a real estate agent, you are constantly on the go, which means you must use tools like instant replies to let potential clients know why you can’t reply right away. 

• Facebook Saved Responses

You can use Messenger to save responses to the most common questions. Just save your responses, click a button, and the response flies to the person who asked the question.  

4. Facebook Live

Facebook Live gives real estate agents the power to record and post live video. This can be extremely beneficial for agents. You can actually post an entire pre-listing presentation while it’s happening!

You can also post live events such as educational seminars for the community, open houses, and simple real estate actions like showing a home to a current client. Get creative with Facebook Live. 

5. Facebook Stories

Facebook Stories are photo and video collections that exist for a short period of time. They disappear after 24 hours. Although Facebook Stories might not be as relevant to real estate agents as Facebook Messenger or Facebook Live, they most definitely can be used in an overall marketing plan.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you wish to live stream a half an hour during peak time of an open house. You can do that with Facebook Live. Then, after the open house, you can put together other video and photos and release it as a Facebook Story for the next 24-hours. By doing this, you get the benefits of using both Facebook Lives and Facebook Stories. 

6. Facebook Groups 

Facebook Groups might end up the most utilized and important Facebook tool for real estate agents outside of Facebook Messenger. Facebook Groups allows real estate agents to create their own communities. Think of Facebook Groups as a sphere of influence on the Internet. 

According to Facebook, Facebook Groups allows businesses to “set up fan clubs and groups centered around your superfans.” Every time you sell a home or help someone buy a home, you should put them in your Facebook Group. 

Again, getting them into your digital sphere of influence will only help you build your brand on Facebook and spread the word about your incredible real estate agent skills.

Once you get your “community” going, you can use Facebook Live and Facebook Stories to encourage your Facebook Group to spread the word. 

7. Facebook Ads 

Digital advertising can be a double-edged sword. If not done correctly, advertising on platforms like Facebook can hurt brands more than help them. 

Facebook Ads might be probably the ultimate paid Facebook tool for Real Estate agents, if used correctly. With Facebook Ads you can achieve different goals, from brand awareness (getting in front of people’s screens and introducing yourself) through page likes or a simple post, to lead generation with either Facebook’s built-in lead generation forms or sending them to a real estate landing page, such as the ones we can create for you. 

There are a ton of different Facebook Ad types you can create with the platform it all depends on your Marketing Plan, but the platform is incredibly robust and you can be sure you’ll find the ad type you’re looking for your real estate marketing strategies. 

Having said that, as with all good things, there is a catch, and the catch is that you can’t expect to generate a massive number of leads just by doing one campaign on Facebook Ads. 

However, the combination of a great marketing strategy, with all the Facebook tools plus giving great customer service (with a CRM such as ours for example), can absolutely lead to increased and effective lead generation. 

Have Fun with Your Real Estate Agent Facebook Toolkit

The key to all of this is to have fun. If real estate agents are excited about using all the Facebook tools available to them, it will come out to their friends and viewers. Real estate agents can utilize the most important social media site for their businesses to generate leads.

The key is to never forget the basic best practices. Then, don’t use each individual tool in a vacuum. Instead, sign up for Home Value Leads Facebook Advertising, create organic posts that can go viral, and tie together Facebook Groups with Facebook Live and Facebook Stories. All of Facebook’s tools work together. By using them together along with impeccable follow up and customer service strategy, you will generate more real estate leads than you ever dreamed possible.