Image by Evil Erin via Flickr
Many agents are catching on and joining in on the Facebook fun. The talk of social media and using it for real estate business have been quite the buzz around all the conferences and webinars in the past year. You will find no bigger cheerleader for this that than me, since I have been encouraging this for what seems forever now. Now that I see numerous agents embracing and using Facebook, I have been making some observations. Some that make me pull my hair out. So now I feel the need to give out some guidance on some pitfalls to avoid when using Facebook. It’s time to stop the madness.
1. Don’t incessantly use your status updates to do nothing but post your listings over and over again. Sometimes I wonder if some agents think that consumers log on to Facebook just to look for real estate. Newsflash… They don’t. Posting listings on there once in awhile is fine, as long as you also post relevant and interesting information that people may want to know. Using it to constantly post listings looks fake, inauthentic (and in my generation despise that) and will easily get you ignored by the simple push of the “Hide” button. There are subtle ways to put your listings on your profile. Here is one way I suggest to do it.
2. Keep the drunken bachelor/bachelorette party photos and the like, off of Facebook… or at least make them private. Even though you are a professional, you are probably not all business all of the time and want to project that on Facebook. Even so, be mindful of current and potential clients that may be connected to you and that certain things can turn them off and not give you their business. Yes, your friends might find that picture where you were passed out on the floor or making out with some random person funny, but your prospective clients might be downright offended and cause them to look down upon you. Get to know your privacy settings. They are your friend.
3. Try not to trash people, cities or things on your status updates, links, fan pages, etc. You never know who may be looking at your profile. Things get around, and though you may think you are safe to post how much you hate a certain person, place or thing, no matter how justified you are, it may come back to bite you. This story is a great example of this. And though that story happened through Twitter, with 350 million active Facebook users it is bound to happen there too.
4. Don’t air your dirty laundry for all to see on Facebook. There is such thing a too much information. And really, people don’t really need to know all of your personal drama, marital problems, etc. As the above points mentioned, be mindful of who is looking at your profile. It looks unprofessional. And really, does the public really need to know your very private personal drama? Your clients may look at you differently, or stop returning your calls.
5. Stop constantly posting your Farmville, Mafia Wars, CafeWorld, Fishville, etc, in your status updates. Now in fairness, I do play and participate in some of above mentioned games. They’re fun but must played in moderation Really, do you want your colleagues, prospects and clients to think you do nothing but play with a virtual farm all day? It starts to make your clients wonder if you are really spending the time marketing their home or plowing imaginary land. There are ways to play and not share every single detail of what you have done in your games. So if you’re tempted to share it, don’t. It’s annoying. And people will tend to ignore or unfriend you.
So real estate pros, please heed my above advice. Facebook is a great opportunity to engage with your clients, market yourself, your properties (subtly), and show a bit of your personality, please be mindful of everything you do on there. You never know who is looking and how it may help or hurt your business.
And while you’re at it, come on over and be a fan – www.facebook.com/barbervasolutions
Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, LLC, and runs blogs, The BVAS Connection and The Virtual Perception. Megan has been in a Virtual Assistant for 5+ years and has spent over 10 years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.
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