How to get engagement on your facebook business page

Social media can be rather tricky when you’re using it to grow your real estate business. In this video we’ve got some tips on how you can get more likes, loves, comments and shares by increasing the level of engagement with your posts. AND, scroll down for the Attract a Perfect Client bonus! 

First things first…

I assume that you’re feeding Facebook the types of posts it will actually show to your audience. Right? If so, great!. If not, check this post out.

Some tough love

If you’re not getting engagement on your real estate business page, meaning you’re not getting the likes and loves and comments you want, do you think maybe it’s because you’re posting about YOU and not your AUDIENCE?

Remember this: At the end of the day, people ONLY care about themselves.

So, when you post about a new listing?

NO ONE CARES. 

When you post about how amazing at real estate you are….

NO ONE CARES. 

But, if you post something that your audience might relate to – that’s when the magic happens! 

For example – think about your perfect client… what is something your perfect client might be totally into?

• Are they dog lovers?
• Are they local sports fans?
• Do they brunch every weekend?
• Are they foodies?
• Maybe wine snobs?
• Are they totally into organic food and farmers markets?
• Maybe they just love scoring a deal on anything, but especially at Target.

So, why not post about THOSE things?

You don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, all real estate, all the time.

If you’re not quite sure how to figure this out, you’re in luck. I’ve got a worksheet that will help you nail down your PERFECT AUDIENCE. Scroll down and tell me where to send it and I’ll email it ASAP.

Knowing your audience is half the battle to getting engagement on your Facebook business page.

Ultimately, don’t post about YOU.

Post about THEM and what THEY like – and you’ll see the engagement on your posts increase. 

Once you have their attention, then you can WOW them with your real estate skills. Even then, you’ll want to consider THEIR point of view of the real estate process. 

And then when they need a real estate agent, you’re the FIRST person they’ll call!

Real Estate Update:

Fake Engagement is a Terrible Idea

In this video, (from a Facebook live), I implore you to not use this terrible strategy of an engagement pod!

What’s an Engagement Pod?

This post was inspired by a group admin I saw encouraging everyone to engage with each others pages and posts. Now, this strategy might work for local restaurants, mommy pages or DIY pages. But the group was filled with real estate agents and by participating in an engagement pod, you’re not doing your page (or posts) any favors. 

Engagement pods can be found at the PAGE level or at a POST level. Both are bad ideas.

A PAGE engagement pod would be exactly what this group admin was perpetuating. She had a post that encouraged agents to drop a link to their Facebook business page so that other people in the group could go LIKE their page. And of course if you drop a link to your own page the expectation is that you like the links that other agents drop. I’ve seen these pods for Instagram profiles too. 

A POST engagement pod would be where you share a link to a social media post (Facebook or Instagram) and other people in your engagement pod like, love or comment on your post. 

The problem is the people you’re encouraging to engage with your page or post – are NOT your target audience. 

The reason people start engagement pods is to try to game the algorithm. So if you and all of your real estate friends said, “Okay, I’m going to like your page. You like my page. I’m going to like your post. I’m going to comment on your post.” So thinking you’re going to essentially trick algorithm by making it seem like your post is super engaging and they’ll show it to more of your audience. 

The algorithm is smarter than you think.

Facebook’s algorithm is pretty smart. And, Facebook owns Instagram so you KNOW they also use the same smart algorithm. (Or a smart variation specific to Instagram anyway.)

Essentially, the algorithm is going to see that you have real estate agents from several other states liking your page and commenting on a post. Being a smart little algorithm, it’s going to deduce that you WANT to share your content with people JUST LIKE THESE OTHER AGENTS. 

But that’s the WRONG target audience. 

So in theory, you’re getting more likes and more engagement on a post. But, not really because of how the algorithm interprets that engagement. Imagine that Facebook is going to say, “Oh, well, geez, Heather is in Des Moines, Iowa, but all of a sudden these people in seven other states are liking her stuff, so that must be her audience.” 

If real estate agents are your actual audience, then this is a strategy that could work for you. Savvy Agent’s target audience is going to be real estate agents. But, when it comes to selling real estate in my local market, I only want people who live in my area or are thinking about moving to my area.

PLUS, what happens when the engagement pod peters out and everyone has gone their separate ways? Now you have a bunch of real estate agents that like your page – but NEVER engage. And, they don’t engage with you because they’re not your target audience. The things that you’re posting aren’t created for their social media enjoyment, are they? 

But what about agents that sell your listings?

Now I know you might be thinking, “But what if I post a listing on my Facebook business page, and you know Suzie Q the agent that likes my page, she sees the listing and sells it.”

I get that. And if you want real estate agents on your page for that reason because you’re spamming Facebook with your listing, that’s up to you. I don’t recommend it for an effective social media strategy, but, you can totally do that.

Or, you could create a separate page that is just for listings in your town. For example: Homes For Sale in Chicago. Or, Homes For Sale in San Diego. And then post your listings and pimp your friends out to post their listings on that page too, and then the audience truly is real estate agents.

What is your ultimate goal?

Typically, a real estate agent would use their Instagram or Facebook business page to generate leads and connect with their audience. And/or to share social proof! Fake engagement from other real estate agents isn’t going to help you reach your local target audience because you’re confusing the algorithm. And, it’s going to mess your page up. It will ultimately kill all engagement because, honestly, who wants to engage with a bunch of real estate agents?

Imagine that you have a post that seven agents from seven other states are liking and making comments on. Then, Bob from your town sees the post. And he sees the engagement. But he also notices that the people commenting appear to be real estate agents. Bob’s going to think, “Oh well, I guess this is for real estate agents. I’m not going to engage with this because I’m not an agent and I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m talking about.” 

Just say no. 

These are the main reasons why you should not be involved with engagement pods. Don’t give fake engagement! And, don’t encourage other real estate agents to like or comment on your post because it’s not doing you a favor. Don’t get tricked by someone in a group that tells you it’s a good idea. Because it’s not. It’s a bad idea.

Get real engagement

Instead, why don’t you post things that your audience might actually be interested in? Consider the people that you WANT to connect with and what THEY would respond to. What are the questions that they have that you could answer? So maybe by doing a post answering an unasked question, or something fun that’s local, you give yourself the ability to connect with them on their level.

A sign you have a good post is when your true target audience engages with you by liking, loving or commenting on it. It stands to reason that you’re going to have to test a lot of content until you find what your audience will respond to. Then, when you get that post that has good engagement from your page you can run an engagement ad. The Facebook and Instagram algorithms somehow know exactly who to serve that post to, to get additional likes, loves and comments. Then, you can invite those new people to like your page. Slowly but surely you’re going to build an engaged social media following! 

If you’re not sure who your target audience is or what you should be posting to get their engagement, then you should download our free training: Attract the Perfect Client. 

Can we talk about why you shouldn’t obsess over having Facebook likes? Seriously, the agent that wins social media is going to have an engaged audience…

This video was from a Facebook live about how you need to stop obsessing over the size of your social media following. 

When it comes to social media, you don’t have to have ALL the likes.

I often hear people say something along the lines of, “Oh I need to really work on getting more likes on my Facebook page, my follows on Instagram, more, more, more, more, more.”

Please. You don’t have to have ALL the likes. You just have to have the likes that count.

It’s quality over quantity. 

Think about it. What is having ALL those likes actually doing for you? You can buy likes if you need to. You can run an ad to get likes. But, are those really people that are going to do business with you? Is somebody liking your Facebook page or following you on Instagram really going to result in money in your pocket? Probably not.

If you’re not engaging with your audience, it’s probable you have a dead page.

I look at the real estate agents that have thousands and thousands and thousands of followers, and their pages are dead. Nobody is engaging with anything on their page, and you don’t want that.

So, instead of giving yourself a hard time about not having all the likes, think about what it is that your audience wants. What do they need? Now give it to them in a fun way! (Not in a “Hey, use me as your real estate agent.” way because nobody really wants that.)

Think about how you can be super relatable to your audience. What will they appreciate hearing from you? You can be funny. You can be brutally honest. You can be lots of things, but the people who are going to appreciate the message that you give, those are your people.

If there’s 100 people who engage with all of your posts, and they tell all of their friends that you’re amazing and they should use you for real estate, then that’s better than having a page of 100,000 fans who don’t care two bits about you.

Take it from me

You want quality not quantity when it comes to a social media following. Stop beating yourself up for not having thousands of followers and realize that having a smaller but more engaged following is really the secret to success.

Focus on the people that already like your page, and give them the content that they’ll engage with. And then once you’ve got them engaged, look for more people just like them. That’s how you win in social media.

If you’re not sure what to post you might benefit from taking our FREE course “Attract the Perfect Client”. Tell us where to email it below: