Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 18th May 2011
*Agents get to grips with Facebook
With more than 500 million active users, in many countries,
Facebook has more users than Google.
However, despite its large user base the vast majority of Facebook’s audience have no desire to buy anything. Google monetises buyers with purchase intent – someone typing in “property in Istanbul” is thousands of times more valuable to an agent in that city than an unqualified Facebook user.
This is the reason the majority of agents and developers in our industry focus online marketing spend on Google and property portal advertising, rather than social media. The leads generated may vary in quality but at least they have shown some intention to buy.
Social media marketing is much less targeted. In the main, you are relying on influencers to tell their friends and associates about your product, many of whom will have no interest in your offer.
However, with such a large audience it would be foolish to ignore social media all together and as you'll see from the examples below, some agents are making it work.
You’re not very interesting
The main problem is, for the majority of us, our projects and properties are not interesting enough to be passed on online (via the “like” button on Facebook or through a retweet on Twitter).
A lot of time can be wasted by not having clear objectives and posting information that has little chance of grabbing attention.
Successful Facebook marketing
Agents and developers who are making Facebook pay often start out with the objective of building an audience within their niche. For example, professional property investors or readers from a particular town or village where you sell property.
Beach & Bay Realty in Australia have 599 followers for their hyper local Facebook page called
I Love Cronulla
Much of the content is aggregated from local news and photo sites and one person in the office is in charge of selecting and editing the content which is augmented from time to time with original blog posts and interviews.
Another good example is
Lalzit Bay, an upmarket resort in Albania. The company has only recently begun promoting on Facebook but has quickly developed a small following of non-resident Albanians keen for updates on mentions of Albania in the world press.
The strategies of both companies are not resource intensive or costly. Their primary objective is to build awareness and brand though the number of the “likes” or “followers” in their niche.
Leads are not instant but once they have people’s attention, they can promote subtle commerical ventures such as open days, inspection trips and events.
The pay off from social media takes longer and is more difficult to measure than other online marketing activitities but if you want to build a long term reputation and can find a system that minimises cost, there should be a strong return on investment.
Source: Global edge
User Comments
The really useful thing Facebook, Twitter Linked In and othersites do is get the attention of the search engines.
We dont use Facebook etc to attract clients directly but we do use it to publicise our blog posts some of which are keyword targeted (and interesting) and we Google likes it.
It also gives you an opportunity to show your personality and underpin your expertise.
So that is how to use it - as part of a campaign to rank highly for certain keywords.
John Wolfendale,
Eco Vida - Construction in Spain
Facebook’s audience DOES have a desire to purchase things, but these are usually FMCGs (or Groupons!) and not property, just simply because of the average age of the users.
In general, PPC finds people at the point of need, whilst social media, like Facebook, facilitates conversations with the like minded. For Facebook, the like minded are, on the whole, younger than most. But this doesn’t mean property can’t be marketed successfully through Facebook, as long as it appeals to the target audience.
For example, a property development in Utrecht geared for young professionals wanting city-living at realistic entry prices sold half of its stock (28 units in week I believe). So, selling property through Facebook can be done, but it will be a while before any gets poked by Country Life’s Facebook property page.
Here’s the Facebook page for the project in Amersfoort, Utrect.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amaze-wonen-in-Amersfoort/129925117066568
Lloyd
Head of PR & Marketing
Lloyd Hughes,
PURE International
Interesting points as always.
We don't yet the advantages of a platform marketing property sales on Facebook either yet. There is little or no chance of having a user circulate product priced at the price of an average property via their social network.
Rentals and holiday lets in a whole other matter and we already have an app that provides holiday lets with a searchable database and availability calender on Facebook. Even booking is possible without leaving the FB interface.
http://apps.facebook.com/costablancaproperty
Early days yet, is for next season really, I'll keep you posted.
Andy Stevenson,
Almeria-Granada