This Facebook marketing tip relates to the personal profile marketing tool in Facebook. For clarification on where this tip fits into the greater Facebook marketing picture, please view our post Facebook Foundations: Facebook’s Marketing Tools Explained.
According to Facebook, Facebook lists are utilized by only 5% of Facebook users. This surprisingly low adoption rate is likely a factor of many items, including many users not knowing that the tool exists. Pixel Coaching also suspects that many users find lists cumbersome to manage, which, when there is not a clear focus for your usage of lists, or you try to create too many lists, can certainly be an outcome. But, in a focused effort like today’s tip, Facebook lists can be a great feature for actively and efficiently using Facebook as part of a business development plan.
Why Facebook lists can be an effective part of your Facebook business development plan:
Dale Carnegie’s classic book from 1936 “How to Win Friends and Influence People” outlined six ways to make people like you. Four include:
- Become genuinely interested in other people
- Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
- Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
- Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
In general, Facebook provides a brilliant opportunity for Realtors, or any sales professional, to do the items outlined by Dale Carnegie, which is one of the reasons Facebook is such an outstanding business development tool for today’s Realtors. You have 500 million+ people proactively talking about their interests and a platform that is designed to let you connect, listen, and converse. And people buy from people they like. When you combine a consistency of interaction with a communication effort designed to win friends, Facebook offers great promise for business development for the modern Realtor.
The issue becomes that once connected to a large number of people, the process of listening and interacting with friends can become a lot to manage. Facebook can turn into a major time suck that runs the risk of not showing much return. Lists can help to solve this problem.
What are Facebook lists?
According to Facebook:
Friend lists are a way to organize your list of friend on Facebook and to target privacy settings. You can also filter your view of each list’s stream of activity separately on the home page.
It is the view filtering feature that this Facebook marketing tip focuses on. By creating a list for prospects and clients, Realtors can have an efficient way to filter down the activity that appears on Facebook and listen and react to those people who hold the most business opportunity for them.
Also important to know is that lists are arbitrary and private. Nobody knows that they are on one of your lists. You can create any number of lists. You can call them whatever you like. You can also put people on more than one list if you choose to.
Real Estate List Strategy:
Create and actively monitor a “Sphere” list. Spend 10 minutes daily monitoring that list and responding to what people on that list post to Facebook.
Who should be included on your sphere list?
- Hot prospects – people you are currently working with or are likely to have a need to buy or sell in the near future.
- Past clients – it’s cheaper to keep an existing client than gain a new one. This group is likely to use you again and be a big source of referrals for your business.
- You biggest champions and influencers – who sends you the most referrals?
Create your Sphere list:
1. Go to your Friends page by going to http://www.facebook.com/friends or via the “Edit Friends” link from the Account drop-down menu at the top of any page:
2. Click the “Create a List” button:
3. Give your list a name and add who you want to the list. Then select “Create List”:
4. You will now see a new page that shows you who is in your list:
Now that you have created your list, you have a way to filter the news feed to reflect only those who hold the most business promise for you.
Monitor Your Sphere List Daily:
Now when you log into Facebook, you can go right to your sphere list. Simply select the sphere list name under your Friends icon that appears on the left hand sidebar of your home page:
Pixel Coaching recommends logging into Facebook first thing every day for 10 minutes. Go to your wall and click on your “Sphere” list. See what those people are saying and respond.
This way, you can see what activity your sphere has been posting, and react to it. Give their items a thumbs up, or leave a comment that is pertinent to what they have shared. Or answer their question if they ask one. The point is to be genuinely interested in what they are saying and let them know you are paying attention to them. This will go a long way in winning friends and influencing people.
If you aren’t already using lists, start by creating this one sphere list and looking daily at what your sphere is saying. Try it for one month and see if the level of engagement and conversation with those who are on your list increases. We bet you’ll see some positive relationship building results.
How else are you using lists as part of your Facebook marketing strategy? Share what you are doing with us by leaving us a comment below. We’re interested!
This article is part of a month long series of tips, tricks, and strategies for real estate marketing with Facebook. View additional posts from our “Tip a Day” series on Pixel Coaching.
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