There's a simple, easy technique for posting your home listings to Facebook that takes very little time - but pays off in big ways as a great boost to MLS, Zillow, and Realtor.com.

I call it "strategic posting" and it really works.

If you learn to post strategically, you'll get more eyes on your client listings and get more, higher-quality leads in less time. That means a faster sale for you and a happier client to review your great service online for all to see.

Sadly, most real estate pros post blindly, sending out generic scattershot listing posts that are hard to differentiate from all the others flooding into social media each day.

Posting that way isn't even worth the time to do it, so read on to find out how you can make the most ($$$!!!) from your weekly social media posts.

Why real estate is so noisy on social media

Most of the millions of posts each day made by Realtors® and their brokerages sound something like this:

"Gorgeous new listing on Lake Carter with amazing views! See to believe! Offered at only $1.5M #newlisting #homeforsale #dreamhome"

What's the problem with that, you might ask? Well, quite a lot actually:

It's totally generic and un-targeted - You might as well be standing outside your office with a megaphone yelling about the house to anyone who passes by (whether they're in the market for a new home or not).

You sound just like everyone else - Millions of posts per day just like it go out and create social media "static" that readers just don't pay attention to (and even actively avoid!).

It's just a blip, then it's gone - Because most real estate pros think the single act of posting itself is "doing social media" and will get you seen, they don't think about how quickly a post like this is up, then disappears in the noise (and the tsunami of millions more posts just like it and right behind it washing it away forever like a drop in the sea!).

Fear not, though, I'm going to show you a simple, powerful way to post to Facebook and make sure your post hits the mark.

Here's how, step by step:

Step 1: Post in the right places on Facebook

Getting your listing in front of the right audience - i.e., those most likely to be looking for the kind of home you have for sale - is the single-most important thing you can do.

Decades of real estate data also show that you have the greatest chance of selling any home to someone who's already in pretty close proximity to the one you are listing than from anywhere else.

In other words, most people tend to move residences within the general geographic area they're already in.

Social media, and Facebook in particular, is all about online "communities of interest" by virtue of your profile, location, interests, who you follow, and who follows you.

That means posting into the right "community circles" will get your listing in front of people who will likely have some common general or specific connection to the seller or seller's area.

Most importantly, since people who follow one another on social media also follow other people many of whom will have some of the same zip codes, interests, hobbies, employers, and local memberships (e.g., churches, schools, work, and the like), a post in the right place means you have a greater chance of having your listing go out exponentially to others in the audiences most likely to buy the home you have listed.

On Facebook, that means:

Join and post your listing on Facebook Groups dedicated to homes for sale in your target area(s) (there are usually several for any city!).
Find out if your seller's neighborhood, community, or HOA has a members-only or public Facebook page (most do nowadays) and post it there too (or have your seller send out a post to the group that you write for them complete with home pics/videos).
Post it to local pages that themselves represent community-focused groups such as churches, schools, charities, and local interest groups.

Step 2: Make sure your post tells an interesting story

It's a fact that most people perusing social media will quickly "skim" posts or glance at images, videos thumbnails, and post text (called "copy") to decide if they want to click.

For most people, this happens in fractions of a second, almost at the speed of thought. Clicking happens so fast, it's nearly involuntary.

That means what you say and show in your Facebook post has to be - you guessed it - attention-grabbing.

Again, most real estate activity on social media tends to look the same. If you want the post you're gonna send to all those great, strategic pages and groups to get seen and, most importantly, liked and shared, you gotta "sell the sizzle."

The easiest way I've found to do this is to come up with a short, central story about the home, why it's interesting and to whom. Then, create a post likely to grab the attention of someone in that group who's "social surfing" by setting the right mood.

For example, my marketing firm recently built this landing page for Realtor® with a home listing in Vancouver, WA:

https://summerhills.homes/

In Vancouver, all the recent real estate data on transactions say that most of the homes selling at prices over $1M are homes with very nice views of the local landscape from elevated locations.

In other words, homes selling the best are those with "amazing," "gorgeous," "unbeatable," or "wide-open views."

But all that sounds just like every other real estate listing for a home that may or may not actually have an "otherworldly view."

It seems to reason story those buyers would be most interested in reading is one that hits their desire for great scenery, tranquility, and wildlife.

As such, the Facebook posts we wrote for the home's landing page all started a little something like this:

"Guess what you can see from this home's back deck?!..."
"When I listed this home, I spotted a bear, two hawks, an eagle and four racoons!..."
"The favorite activity for the sellers of this home over the last 3 years has been getting home from work, firing up the grill and watching the sunset to the tune of coyotes in the nature preserve below and red-tail hawks overhead..."
"We've (so sadly!) just listed our home in the Summer Hills neighborhood because we're moving nearer our new grandkids.!If any of you know of someone who wants peace, quiet, and views all the way to Portland like we did when we bought, send them to https://summerhills.homes/ So sad to leave the warm, afternoon sunsets on the deck!..."

We paired this kind of interesting, "empathetic" copy with real phone photos, videos, and also professional shots of the home used in the listing to accentuate whatever the post was specifically about.

For example, the post "Guess what you can see from this home's back deck?!..." was paired with an actual phone video of a bear roaming peacefully nearby - and seen from the home's deck.

NOTE: It's also a good idea to compose half a dozen or more of these kinds of posts with different copy to "test" and see which ones get the most attention (we call this "A/B Testing" in the marketing world).

Within just 24 hours of these kinds of posts going out in the right places on Facebook, the agent had garnered over 200 shares and 100s of likes from dozens of profiles from central Oregon to Seattle (and lots of places in between).

Most notably, the posts led to three showings getting set up within 24 hours. That's a pretty good social media result, even beating out the MLS, Zillow, and Realtor.com

Step 3: Tell your story more than once

A great narrative posted to the right Facebook groups and on the right pages is a highly-effective, "strategic" way to use social media to get more of the right eyes on your home listing.

So why not do it more than once?

The answer to that is..of course you should - as long as you do it the right way.

Called post "recycling," the idea here is that you take the copy of one or more highly-shared/liked posts and you:

Re-word it then share it again every few days late to the same groups with different pics or videos.
Regularly share another similarly-worded posts with updated circumstances or environments (e.g. different things happening at different times of day, videos of deer as opposed to bear in the case of the example home mentioned above, or different activities such as sunbathing as opposed to grilling, for example).
Expand on the central theme or story of specific popular posts to include other features or visuals that are related to the key point that was highly-shared or liked (for example, a post highlighting beautiful walking trails beside the listed home with phone pics of wildlife seen on "our usual morning walk with the dogs.")

It's important to not "wear out" posts, but recycling at the right times and in the right ways while your listing is on the market is something you should do to ensure your most valuable content is visible as much as it can be.

After all, the nature of social media is that it's dynamic and people who may be on and engaged one day (or one moment) may not be on the next.

So why did this work so well?

The answer is actually a pretty simple one:

We posted interesting and unique content on Facebook in local, residential groups and on local pages where it was most likely to be appreciated, liked, and shared with others who are also likely appreciate it.

In other words, people tend to share things with other people in their closest circles that are relevant to what they know friends, family, and co-workers will like - because they know them, know what they like and want.

When the sharing starts, those people with whom they share your posts will also like do the same in some percentage giving you even more high-quality distribution.

Because of this - and because your posts are different than all the other real estate social noise - you tend to get higher-quality leads from local people most likely to buy.

Strategic posting can make a real, immediate difference for you. Try it out!

If you need help or want more info, just hit me up at jason@vs.marketing.

Use this amazing Facebook trick to get more online eyes on your home listings

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