I have been to football games where real estate agencies are major sponsors and assume they are paying thousands for the privelage. In return get a branded signboard displayed on the sideline.

So I ask myself why would an agent advertise at a football ground?

It’s an easy answer, football fans will one day be looking for a real estate agent so it’s not a bad place to show off the brand logo.

The facebook opportunity is to bring those fans into the agencies facebook page and engage them in some football app that is installed.

I can think of several apps that would do that.

Install the app and then invite football fans from the local community to come and participate.

My opinion is it would be more effective than the signboard at the football ground and a fraction of the cost.

I’m involved in a local sporting franchise which participates in a national competition. The major sponsor of the team paid $80k this season. I think I would be right in saying at the start of next season the majority of fans will not be able to name this seasons major sponsor.

If that sponsor had paid a tenth of that on a well planned facebook strategy they would still be reaping the rewards in ten years time. (Hmm, providing facebooks still with us)

.

Excellent content and food for thought.

I saw one company who have over 50 employees within their network of offices, they were paying for a Social Media service which automatically posted their listings onto Twitter and Facebook…they ceased the service back in August after 309 updates and 305 of them (all but 4 updates) were listings, when they ended up with only 12 followers on Twitter and 15 fans on Facebook. (An EPIC FAIL!)

Altitude Real Estate is a stand out example… http://www.facebook.com/Altitudere with over 8500 fans. Paul Tonich should be commended for paving the way. He was recently asked to present for Google! He’s one switched on agent and a great guy too.

Chris Hasson at http://www.facebook.com/RealEstateFriend is an individual agent who has over 4500 fans

Hugh Bateman has built over 1700 fans on his community based fan page… http://www.facebook.com/LoveLivingInMudgee and in the same area
Adam & Chandelle Woods have over 3000 fans on their http://www.facebook.com/ilovemudgee page

There are lots of agents getting it wrong when using Facebook and are wasting their time completely without any real consideration for strategy and then wonder why it’s not working.

Social Media sites are like the Mega Phone (Spruiker) for your business, put it in the wrong hands by outsourcing it incorrectly or thinking that the Gen Y new-comer/weekend temp can represent the right message for your company and it can be harmful.

On the other hand, it is the most powerful marketing medium I have ever experienced (EVER!).

Also, many agents are setting up Facebook accounts and Facebook Pages that breach Facebook’s T&C’s which means that Facebook can remove their profile and they’ll lose all the work they’ve done. VERY IMPORTANT to get this right!!!!

I hope that helps Bill.

PS: Facebook drives a lot of traffic out to external sites. I read some stats a while back that having 1 fan on your fan page equated to an average of 20 visits to your website a year (as an average).

I Resigned – and freelanced to Developers amalgamating

Now its time we make it RIght – Watch out Ray White!

PS

There were no breaches of the spam act as there was no comercial nature to the communication.

Under the Spam Act 2003 it is illegal to send, or cause to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages. The Act covers email, instant messaging, SMS and MMS (text and image-based mobile phone messaging) of a commercial nature. It does not cover faxes, internet pop-ups or voice telemarketing.

I find it strange that agents still dont understand basic rules surrounding SPAM……

Purely factual messages with no commercial content whatsoever are also exempt.

What is a commercial electronic message?
The Spam Act defines a commercial electronic message as any electronic message that:

offers, advertises or promotes the supply of goods, services, land or business or investment opportunities
advertises or promotes a supplier of goods, services, land or a provider of business or investment opportunities
assists a person to dishonestly obtain property, commercial advantage or other gain from another person.
The Act classifies an electronic message as ‘commercial’ by considering:

the content of the message
the way in which the message is presented
any links, phone numbers or contact information in the message that lead to content that has a commercial purpose – as these may also lead the message to be defined as ‘commercial’ in nature.

The new feature will have it’s benefits for those (agencies) which are effectively using Facebook to promote their brand. However I doubt that there are many out there who are effectively using Facebook.

I’ve looked at hundreds of real estate facebook profiles and pages and have yet to find one that appears to me to be producing tangible results. I personally gauge results by the amount of engagement taking place that I judge advancing the brand.

As far as I can see real estate agencies have setup either a profile or a business page.

The profile accounts in the main seem to have become a challenge to see how many friends can be gained, which are worthless and can be classed as “friend spamming” or they have been left abandoned.

The business pages I found appear to be beyond the owners ability to attract fans, or the ones that do have a reasonable number of fans, show an inability to create engagement.

The signs I saw were that agencies setup a page, started posting new listings or sales, discovered it wasn’t getting them anyhere and abandoned the page.

I think Facebook is still in the great frontier stage for any business wanting to peg out territory for their brand, especially at local community level. Unfortunately pegging out the territory and making the claim work needs a clear plan and strategy in place. I haven’t seen what I would tag as a success yet in the real estate – Facebook arena.

Greg, you’re around this scene, do you have any real estate facebook business pages that could be highlighted as a good case study.

I would love to see a good example.

If these guys continue to target the Asian market and don’t try to take on realcommercial.com.au or commercialrealestate.com.au they have a good chance of success.