Tag Archives: ad spend

The Massive Facebook Changes and How They Impact Real Estate Agents

January 13, 2018 by Digital Marketing

The changes from Facebook continue to come thick and fast – but if you’ve been paying attention, they shouldn’t really be surprising.

Facebook’s goal from the outset has been to connect individuals and communities and while businesses have been able to hijack the Facebook algorithm to enhance their own marketing in an organic fashion, those days are fast coming to an end.

The latest changes to the Facebook algorithm are going to mean that businesses will need to pay to play to really see any sort of profitable results.

These changes come in response to “….feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.” As stated by Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post on January 12th 2018

As a result Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm is going to prioritize content that comes from your friends, family and communities and will limit the public (aka business, brand and media) content filling up your feed.

So what does this mean for real estate agents who’ve begun to use Facebook to reach their market with greater frequency and engagement than ever before?

It means we’re all going to have to pay to play to get decent results and reach – but that should come as no surprise, it’s been on the cards for a very long time and we all knew (or at least should have known) the honeymoon wouldn’t last.

But there will be princes and paupers when it comes to paying to play as well.

Those who are still producing ads and content that are all about them, that are focused on self serving goals rather than connecting with the community and creating authentic connections with their market are going to lose out. Facebook’s relevance algorithm will limit your reach even when you’re paying for it.

So what does this all come back to? Authenticity – being a real human being, even on your business page and in your ads, in your content.

Remember, it’s the number 1 rule of advertising on Facebook……

 

 

Make sure you’re creating content that encourages community and connection.

Facebook Lives are a wonderful way to do this as when you’re doing live video, you’re authentic, warts and all and you’ll also get a helping hand from Facebook as Live receives a bit of a boost to help reach more of your audience and engage them.

It’s now more important than ever to be a real human being on Facebook – not only will it increase your reach, by being human, you’ll create connection and engagement, create community and in so doing you’ll increase your results and your return on investment.

It’s time to be real.

How Facebook is redefining the traditional “Farm Area”

August 18, 2017 by Digital Marketing

Facebook is redefining the traditional farm area with data

It’s been a monster week for announcements from tech giants when it comes to real estate.

Facebook has entered into Australian real estate (and real estate the world over) in the most agent friendly manner we’ve seen in a while – handing the power back to agents when it comes to marketing properties digitally.

Meanwhile Amazon (in the USA at least), are doing their bit to help agents generate business and leads with a new referral system based (seemingly) on merit.

But the impact of these announcements actually runs a lot deeper than just another headline about an industry shake up.

In fact what Facebook’s offering brings to the table is a pairing of automation with laser-like targeting, something that LJ Hooker have picked up on and are now looking to capitalize on in a major way with their latest technology offering for their agents.

While I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of their offering, what I will say is this – they’re saying all the right things and for all appearances demonstrating that they understand the value of data.

One core part of a recent article on the Real Estate Business website says it all:

Mr McTavish said that the built-in intelligence of the system allows it to ring-fence and retain its intellectual capital.

“With most digital outreach campaigns, you’re handing over data which is ultimately used by that digital service supplier or portal in other campaigns.

“Data is the lifeblood of any agent and introducing third parties dilutes the current and future potential of the data, and even worse, leakage of data…..”

“Data is the lifeblood of any agent…” That’s it right there, your future, your profit, your career is in your data. It would seem that LJ Hooker understand that intimately and are doubling down on it- and rightly so.

As we move forward in this new technological age, data is king and most importantly it will be data, not geography that is the primary factor in defining your “Farm area.”

That’s not to say geography won’t play a part, lets face it, few agents want to drive 3-4 hours to list and sell a property, but the once strict geographic boundaries will become very very blurred.

Already agents have the ability to capture and consistently re-market to anyone who comes into contact with their content, website, videos, Facebook page and or apps. Once they’ve been captured they become part of your “digital patch.”

The digital patch concept is one that employs a number of the tools within the Facebook marketing platform to turn your ads, content, website and videos into a beacon for interested buyers and sellers. Once they’ve engaged with your ads/content/website/videos, they’re part of your marketing patch for at bare minimum, the next 6 months. This will give the agent power to advertise not just via Facebook but essentially have their ads follow their potential client all over the internet and social space.

Set up correctly, it allows an agent to turn every listing, every piece of content, essentially everything they do in the digital space, into a lead magnet.

Damien Misso’s digital patch allows his brand and offer to appear whereever his audience are. In this case, an article on the McGregor Vs Mayweather fight scheduled for August 26th.

In this new digital world action equals interest.

Think about your own usage, the ads you click on, the posts and articles you engage with – you simply don’t click, don’t take action unless you have some level of interest in that content and learning more about it.

As a result, every single person being added to your digital patch, regardless of the content they’ve engaged with, has some level of interest in real estate. From there, you are able to re-market to them and further filter them through to buyer and seller calls to action.

It’s this digital patch that will become the dominant focus of successful agents moving forward for three core reasons:

 

  1. Once it’s set up, it will run almost automatically with minimal interference from anybody except when it’s time to update content.
  2. It will generate both buyer and seller leads consistently
  3. The massive reaching impact it will have on your personal and company brand

 

In this example, Damien’s brand and offer has found it’s way into a popular app based game. Where ever his audience goes, his brand and offer can be there.

 

 

But none of this is speculation – this concept is already being implemented by FBM Academy students with stunning results being produced regularly, in the form of consistent leads and massive lifts in personal and corporate brand recognition.

With 16 million Australians on Facebook each month and more capability to automate, target and market to these people, being put in the hands of agents every single day – Facebook is redefining the “Farm Area” at a rapid rate.

 

Facebook just stepped into Aussie Real Estate in a BIG WAY

August 11, 2017 by Digital Marketing

It seems this is the week for big announcements with Amazon declaring it’s intentions to enter into the US Real Estate market and a number of the Aussie real estate groups have been a titter with the news.

But it wasn’t just Amazon stepping into the game, Facebook had a rather massive announcement of it’s own, however it hasn’t had the same hype around it as the Amazon one. Many agents have commented that the Facebook tech is in the USA only (ah….so is Amazon), so they won’t worry about it just now.

Time to set the cat among the pigeons….

The Facebook tech is here in Australia right now. My team and I are currently working with it and developing solutions to get it rolled out to our real estate clients ASAP.

Unlike the Amazon offering of referrals though, this tech from Facebook will deal with helping you sell houses and in so doing, list more as well. In fact it has the power to change how you go about marketing property – wait, yes I know, every freaking “disruptor” says that and you’re sick of hearing it, so am I. So instead of blathering on with marketing hype and jargon, allow me to explain how this tech works.

Firstly, lets take your personal branded real estate site that displays your listings.

The Facebook tech will require a developer and Facebook expert to set up (we happy to know a couple of good ones *wink*), but once it’s set up correctly this is how it will work:

  1. a buyer visits a listing on your site, but does not enquire or book an appointment
  2. Facebook analyses it’s data on that buyer
  3. Facebook then finds every other property on your site that is relevant to the buyer, (i.e what they’re looking for)
  4. Facebook then advertises all of your listings that may be relevant to that buyer automatically

 

In short, Facebook will turn your potential buyer’s Facebook feed into their own listing portal where the listings being offered……are yours!

Now of course there will be other ads among yours, the usual run of the mill stuff from a clothing company and Telstra or Vodafone’s latest attempt at convincing us they’ve gotten better. But for the early adapters and honestly, even those who might normally be late to the party, this Facebook tech will give you such a massive edge over your competition.

But wait there’s more and it’s not steak knives.

After this tech has been in play for a little while on your site, Facebook will then go and start marketing these listings to people who are statistically most similar to your current buyers. In lay-mans terms, Facebook will start marketing your property to people it thinks are most likely to want to buy it! (Initially, this feature won’t be available automatically but will need be set up manually – but it’s only a matter of time)

Now of course in the setup phase, you need to “teach” phase book what makes the properties similar, whether it’s price, suburb, bedrooms and that’s why this tech isn’t point and shoot.

After setting the tech up, this all happens automatically and all you need to do is set aside a budget for how much you want to spend on the ads each month.

So about those $2,000 premier properties on those portals you use, they suddenly look like a REALLY expensive way to blow a marketing budget don’t they?  Especially considering right now you can get in front of up to 5,000 buyers for $100 with a standard boost on Facebook (depending on what area you’re in) and these ads aren’t going to have any special pricing attached to them (based on current reports).

Add this tech into the equation and let Facebook do it’s thing and your ad spend is getting your listings in front of people that the data says is most likely to be interested in buying them.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Welcome to the game Facebook!

 

-JH

 

Likes! Oh Vanity be thy name!

May 16, 2017 by Digital Marketing

Okay okay, so waxing lyrical is probably not going to endear me to too many people. Most of us hated Shakespeare in high school and those of us that didn’t are probably rolling their eyes!

The only defense I have is that I’m a father and as such, bad puns, dad-jokes and misappropriated 500 year old references are my birthright! (See what I did there?)

But lets get into the nitty gritty, LIKES! Everybody likes them (sorry, that wasn’t intentional), but the biggest problem is that they actually don’t do anything in a business sense – at least not in the way most people are using them.

They’re what most marketers call a vanity metric – it looks good, but it really doesn’t mean much in terms of sales and profit. Lets face it, if we’re spending money, or time on Facebook in business, then we MUST see a return on that investment.

Adding insult to injury is that in order to get your content seen by as many people as possible, you’ve actually got to spend money to do it these days. (Have you ever noticed how your content only gets seen organically by 15-20% of the people who’ve liked your page?)

To get it seen by everyone, you’ve got to boost the post and shell out some coin and in return you get likes, shares and comments on your post……but no sales, no profit.

Its frustrating isn’t it?

The reason behind this is that a boosted post is designed to reach an “Engagement Audience” – this is an audience that has been optimized by Facebook to be full of people who are most likely to Like, Comment and Share your content……..not necessarily take action that leads to sales or profit.

This is one of the most common frustrations I see day to day working with clients, they are boosting posts but aren’t getting sales and its because they don’t understand this key audience optimization by Facebook.

There is a solution however, but first it requires a shift in your strategic thinking. The likes, comments, shares aren’t the end goal, sales are – getting the engagement is just the first step along the road to getting the sales and building an audience that loves your product or service.

Facebook has provided us with one of the greatest marketing tools in history (fair warning, I say that A LOT and I mean it every single time).

We’ve all heard the cliche` “Actions speak louder than words” – on Facebook, actions are everything. By liking, commenting or sharing your post a person has taken an action that identifies them as an interested party – a potential customer for you.

This is a wonderful thing – it definitely beats mass marketing efforts to everybody and spending a ridiculous amount of money. Using that boost you’ve just had a whole bunch of people identify themselves as a potential client because of the way they interacted with your content!

That’s huge!

What is even bigger, is that through your ads manager, Facebook allows you to create a custom audience based off these actions so that you can then specifically target these potential clients with your ads.

So the boosted post that got likes, comments and shares but was ultimately frustrating because it didn’t generate sales – just became a vital asset in your marketing matrix. Its the first step in any good Facebook marketing funnel – it allows your potential clients, the people most interested in what you do or sell, to put their hand up and say “Hey! I’m interested!”

Now all you have to do, is put together an amazing offer and get it in front of them!

 

If you’d like to learn how to get more likes and turn your likes into profit, join John Hellaby on Friday night at 7.30pm AEST for a FREE webinar! Register at: http://webinar.fbmcharity.com.au/