How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business Without Losing All Your Friends

Just when I start to think that everyone has figured out this whole social media thing and that the purpose of being “friends” is to be social and friendly, it happens. A salesperson, not always real estate, spams my newsfeed with everything they want to sell me and any other friend who may glance their way.

There’s nothing wrong with promoting yourself on social media. People sell products and services to their friends and family all the time. But there’s a way to do it that doesn’t make people unfriend you or hide your posts from their feed and may even help you earn more business.

Don’t Use Your Personal Profile to Promote All Your Listings

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve logged on to Facebook and been inundated with dozens of listings from a Realtor friend. After scrolling through for what feels like hours, I get to something that interests me and I want to see. Or I log out completely. You know what I don’t do? I don’t buy a house, like the post, or share it.

Do this instead: Create a Facebook business page for your real estate business and post your listings there. Only share the really interesting listings to your personal profile. Pick the ones that were remodeled and have great before and after photos or an interesting story about the land or when it was first built. The purpose of having friends on Facebook is to chat, socialize, and network. If you’re going to share a listing, make it interesting.

Talk About More than Real Estate

There’s nothing wrong with loving your profession and enjoying your work in real estate, but there’s more to life than that. People who connect with you on Facebook want to know the real person. Okay, maybe not the real you that wears a tattered bathroom robe and a green clay mask while drinking your morning coffee, but more than the real estate you.

Do this instead: To the extent you’re comfortable, share pictures of your family, your hobbies, and the area you live in. If you want to talk about real estate, it’s never a bad thing to talk about how great your clients are, but do more. Share funny stories or images and memes about the real estate industry. The Lighter Side of Real Estate is a good place to go for real estate humor.

Use Your Facebook Business Page as a Marketing Tool

Facebook can be a valuable tool for marketing your real estate business. You have to make sure you’re complying with all legal requirements for your state, and for Realtors, the Code of Ethics requirements, even when you’re on Facebook. The marketing opportunities on Facebook are much broader than they used to be. Instead of throwing up a post and hoping someone sees it, you can do much more.

Do this instead: Create a Facebook post on your page that leads back to your website or a great listing and high quality images with a link for people to click on. Pay a few dollars (yes, you can pay more, but you don’t have to) to “Boost” the post. With the tools available for Facebook business pages, you can spend just a few dollars and know a few hundred or thousand people have seen your listing.

Be loud and proud about your real estate career on Facebook. You want your friends and family to know what you do – how else will they know to send you referrals? But don’t spam people, and don’t use your personal profile as a way to advertise every listing you have. You’ll lose friends and any potential business they might have thrown your way.