Facebook Groups:

Facebook groups are designed as a place for a small group of Facebook users to share, chat, and email. There are three types of groups that can be created: Open, Closed, and Secret. The type of group you create determines if the group members and group content are public or private. Because you can create a closed or secret group where the conversations and content and members are not publicly visible, groups can be a great tool for real estate agents to have conversations on Facebook that are segregated from the conversations that are occurring on their profile wall. Offices and associations can also use closed and secret groups as places where their agents and members can converse without the greater Facebook community observing the discussion. One of the great features about Facebook groups is that group members don’t have to be Facebook friends to communicate with each other in the group. Another feature to note about groups is that there is no centralized voice of the group. Each group member is equal and the conversation with the most recent activity is promoted to the top of the group’s wall.

Facebook Ads:

Facebook ads are the only Facebook marketing tool that costs money to use. With Facebook advertising, you can target users based on location, age, marital status, and likes and interests. You pay for ads on a cost per click basis (how many times someone clicks on your ad), or a cost per impression basis (how many times that ad appears on the site). Ads appear on the right hand sidebar in most places on Facebook. Facebook advertising is the most targeted and powerful advertising database available. Facebook ads can be very effective and an strong part of a pages marketing strategy. They can also be a great way to advertise listings.

Official Page: Official Pages: Official pages are an important Facebook tool for the real estate professional. Setting up an official page is a little like setting up a public website for your business within Facebook. Official pages look very similar to profiles in that they have a wall, and tabs, just like profiles do. However, official pages are a very different marketing tool than profiles are, and the Facebook terms of service. Official pages are designed to be for commercial use (in other words, it is not a terms of service violation to post real estate listings on your page). You must be the authorized representative of the business in order to create a Facebook page (most real estate agents are independent contractors and therefore the authorized representative of their real estate practice so this criteria isn’t a problem).

They are totally public - people can see the content on your official page without having to be connected to it (whereas your profile requires acceptance by both parties to view the full profile). On pages, visitors can choose to “like” a page and this is not “approved” by page administrators. Once they like the page, they are connected to it. By liking your page, a visitor has become a fan of your page and given you permission to market to them in their news feed.

There are no privacy settings can be applied to pages and pages are indexed by search engines. This is a great benefit to the pages product as page administrators can benefit from the SEO, or search engine optimization, that results from their page being indexed.

Pages also allow for a centralized brand voice. Since you can have multiple administrators, this feature allows for each of the administrators to post on behalf of the brand, vs, as themselves. None of the other Facebook marketing tools has this functionality.

Places Pages: Places pages are nearly identical to official pages except for two differences:

1.    Places pages are for businesses that have a physical office address.

2.    Places pages allow business owners to offer “Facebook Deals”.

Facebook Deals: Having a Facebook places page allows you to offer Facebook Deals to people who visit your physical location. You can offer a coupon to Facebook users who check into your location on their cell phone in order to encourage check-ins and repeat business, and gain visibility in Facebook when those check-ins and deals are publicized to the users news feed.

For real estate offices, or Realtors who have a physical office location, Facebook places pages is a marketing product to investigate. Having a Facebook places page allows for Facebook users to find out where your office is located, your business hours, and other relevant items about your business. It also allows for Facebook users to “check-in” when they are at your location using the geo-location tagging functionality on many cell phones. When they check in, their check in at your place is posted on their wall which can increase the visibility of your business.

Community Pages: Community pages are pages people go to share their interest in the topic of the page. Much like an official page, Facebook users “like” community pages as well. Other ways to connect to community pages include providing “likes and interests” in your personal profile (you’ll notice a link to likes and interests that you add to the info tab of your personal profile - often that goes to a community page). A key difference between community pages and official pages is that community pages aren’t tied to an official entity. There are community pages for cooking and boating, for example. There is no administrator of a community page. The page is administered by the “community” of people who “like” it.

From a marketer’s standpoint, the lack of administrator control is the key difference between community pages and official/places pages. As a Facebook marketer, what you should know about community pages is that your goal is to not get demoted from an “Official page” to a “Community page”. This can happen if you violate the terms of service of an official page…mainly, you aren’t the authorized representative of the page you created. If you are unable to prove to Facebook that you are the authorized representative of your page (they have a form and a process), then you can be stripped of your administrator privileges and your page will be “managed by the community”.