Grow This Way: Organic Facebook Strategies for Real Estate Pros

Are you using all of Facebook's content options to grow your page organically?

(This article is part of a series. Read the first article here.)

You’ve set up your Facebook Business page. You’re posting consistently and sharing a nice variety of content. So...now what? What comes after the basics? 

When we surveyed our brokers in January 2019, paid social media was a popular topic. We’ll be looking at Facebook’s many advertising options in upcoming posts. But before you bust out the company credit card, it’s worth exploring the other organic - or free - options at your disposal.

Engagement: what is it and why do I care?

When we talk about organic social media efforts, the key factor to look at first is your page’s engagement. Engagement on social media refers to people interacting with your content, including likes, comments, shares, etc. This is different from reach, which refers to how many people have seen your content. 

Why should you care about engagement versus reach? Well for starters, engagement impacts reach. When people interact with your content, their friends all see it as well. More likes and shares means more friends of your followers paying attention to what you posted.

Engagement is also extremely important to Facebook’s algorithm of how and where to push your content. If no one engages with your content, Facebook thinks, “Well, I guess no one cares about this stuff” and decreases your organic reach.

So by posting things that people engage with, your followers are telling Facebook that they do, in fact, care and want to see more from you!

Beware of Engagement Baiting

One other note when talking about engagement is to avoid “engagement baiting.” Engagement baiting refers to posting something with the express intention of getting a lot of interactions. For example, a post with two photos that tells users to “Like to vote for photo A, love to vote for photo B.” 

By intentionally trying to get a lot of useless engagement, you're cheating the algorithm programmed to promote genuine interactions. And Facebook won’t stand for it. They’re been cracking down on this type of content. Not only will your post get demoted, but your page overall will as well. You can read more about their policies on engagement baiting here.

(Yes, we know this is frustrating. But it’s Facebook’s world and we’re just living in it.)

Posting and Stories and Live, oh my!

So how can you grow organic engagement? You should master your organic strategy and take advantage of a variety of content types before building a paid one. Facebook has A LOT of different posting options to get your message out there.

Posts

Posts are the core of Facebook engagement. Posts refer to the content you share on your page’s timeline. Most content shared falls into this category. Within timeline posting, there are lots of different types and options to choose from.

Images

Images are a staple of Facebook posting. Text-only posts should be few and far-between (they don’t catch the eye). At minimum, you want to add an image of some sort to everything you share. Why? Because social media is designed for skimming. Users scroll quickly through their feed - if you want them to read the text part of your post, you have to catch their eye.  

You can add photos to post in several ways:

• Single Image

• Linked Image (we’ll get back to this further down)

• Galleries

• Slideshow

Key Takeaway:

“A picture’s worth a thousand words” is still pretty accurate. If you’re sharing listings, let the photos tell the story. If you’re posting about a holiday office closure, use a festive graphic. There are dozens of free stock sites to source images from. You can also use free platforms like Canva and Snappa to create quick and easy social media graphics like a pro.

Video

Images may be the go-to, but video is actually more important. In a sweeping review of over 700 million Facebook posts, a joint report by Buffer and Buzzsumo found that video performs better than all other post types...by a wide margin. Of the top 500 posts they reviewed, 81.8% were video, trailed by images at 18% and links with a mere 0.2%. Think about that for a minute. How often are you posting video content right now? If the answer is “rarely” or “never,” you need to revisit your social media plan. 

Of course, the report looked at 2018 Facebook posts in all categories. Real estate specifically may shake out a little differently. But the fact remains that video is here to stay and needs to be an important part of your Facebook strategy. 

Key Takeaway:

You need to share video content. At this point, video isn’t optional; it’s the preferred content for Facebook consumers. You can find some great tips for creating compelling social media video content here. Worried about needing to hire a design wiz to edit and polish your video content? Fear not! These are great, free editing tools for beginners that will help you take your video game to the next level. 

Bonus Tip: want to amp up your business page even more? Try making a cover video.

Links

You may be asking why we’re even bothering with links after looking at the stats above. But links are an important form of content, especially for real estate pros. One of the best uses of your IDX site is sharing property detail page links on Facebook. By using a link rather than sharing photos, your followers can get more information from your site and even view other similar properties. That means you get better leads.

Listings aren't the only useful link option either. You can share content from your blog or articles from reputable sources that would be helpful to buyers and sellers.

Key Takeaway:

Despite video’s surging popularity, linked content remains an important part of your Facebook presence. But posting links isn’t enough. You need to share links the right way. Make sure that your link preview includes a photo - one that is properly sized and accurately represents what’s on the page. You also want to avoid sensationalizing your caption to get people to click, aka “clickbaiting.” You can find out more about the best practices for linked posts on Facebook in 2019 here.

Other Options

Remember our talk about engagement baiting? Fun fact: you don’t need to resort to those tactics to get people involved. Facebook has built-in options for creating polls for your followers to vote that won’t hurt your page’s performance. Polls are easy to set up and can be text-only or include photos.

Facebook also has the option to create a “note” post, which allows you to write blog-style entries on Facebook. This can be useful for bigger announcements, though sharing a link to the blog on your site it probably still the best option for these kinds of updates.

Key Takeaway:

There’s no reason to get into engagement baiting when you can use Facebook’s polling feature. Polls can be a fun way to build engagement or get feedback from your followers. Try running a poll with photos of a brand new kitchen, outdoor paradise, and spa bathroom and ask people which feature they’d want in their dream home. Looking for input on what topics would be the most helpful to cover in your next blog post? Poll your followers. The options are limitless if you’re creative.

Stories and Live Streaming

In the last few years, Facebook branched out from the main feed posting options. Stories and live streaming offer new ways to engage followers with a more real-time, authentic feel.

Stories is Facebook’s answer to the popularity of rival social network Snapchat. Not sure what Snapchat is? Don’t worry, we’ll cover that in a future post. Basically, Snapchat allows users to send photos and videos to others that disappear after being viewed. Stories functions in the same way. Both allow you to add filters, text, sticker, drawings, music, and more to the photos and videos being sent. Stories just allows users to enjoy these features within the Facebook app, rather than switching to a separate platform. You can learn all about Stories and how to get started using them here.

Facebook Live is another newer feature that allows users to stream video content in real time to their followers and/or the entire Facebook platform. Facebook has a ton of resources to help you learn about Live and how to get started using it. This is a great starting point. 

Going Live is an underused strategy, in our opinion. So jump in before the space gets crowded.

Key Takeaway:

Stories and Facebook Live are a great option to boost your engagement and reach. Both offer a more direct connection to your followers. You can use stories to take followers through a typical day and give them a “behind the scenes” look at what goes into buying or selling a house. You can use Live to host a virtual Q&A and share your expertise on how to prepare to sell your home or answer questions first-time buyers may have. 

Bottom Line

In the last decade, Facebook has grown into an extremely diverse and robust platform. With a rich variety of content options available to all users, you can do a lot to grow your page’s presence for free.

Think you’ve mastered enough of these organic strategies? Then stay tuned for our intro to paid options on Facebook.