The Most Effective Method To Gain Facebook Real Estate Leads

Are you hearing of all the successful real estate agents are having generating hundreds or even thousands of Facebook real estate leads?  How would you like to be able to increase your leads through Facebook for FREE?  Without having to pay for ads?

Well, today that is what we are talking about! It is called the $1.80 strategy and it’s the best strategy out there to generate Facebook real estate leads.

Why Facebook For Real Estate Leads

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world.  It has over two billion active users every month. As of 2018, if you ask five random people in the US over the age of 18 if they have a Facebook account, four of them will say yes. Also, we know that 1 out of 10 adults is going to buy or sell a home in any given year. This means there is a boatload of opportunities just sitting out there waiting for you on Facebook. Now the question becomes how do you capitalize on it?

The benefit of generating Facebook real estate leads is that you have the opportunity to reach potential clients before they ever hit the portal sites like Zillow, Google, Redfin, etc. We stopped paying for Zillow and Realtor.com leads in early 2017. We did this because more and more of these portal site leads were coming to us already having an agent. This is when I decided I was ONLY going to go after people BEFORE they were at this stage.

Lastly, the BEST benefit of utilizing the $1.80 strategy for Facebook is that you are building a digital library of assets. When done properly, this strategy will generate more leads as time goes on and make converting new ones SO much easier.

The $1.80 Strategy

So let’s talk about the $1.80 strategy. I first heard this strategy from a social media guru and someone I admire when it comes to providing insane amounts of value for his target audience, Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary has made a living creating a content library that business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers utilize every day. One of his best-selling books is title Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and its message aligns with the strategy I’m about to show you.  If you aren’t following Gary, I highly recommend you do. Just a heads up, he’s a bit explicit at times.

My $1.80 strategy is a little different than Gary’s as I’ve applied it to the real estate professional but it’s the same principle.  It goes a little like this. EVERY day (and that’s important) you will provide a hypothetical $1.80 in value to your target audience, local real estate buyers and sellers. You earn $1 for creating or curating useful content that your audience will find helpful. You earn the other $.80 by providing your “two cents” (pun intended) on 40x posts. This nets you $1.80 in value that you’ve provided that day. If you do this seven days a week, within one month you will be surrounded by ready, willing, and able buyers or those wanting to refer you to their friends that are.

Create Your $1 Posts

Here’s the problem that most agents make when using social media. And yes, we are all guilty of it, myself included. We get in the habit of jumping on social media, scrolling the feed, throwing out a couple of likes, and maybe posting that photo of the amazing steak omelet we ate that morning. (Yes, it’s breakfast as I’m writing this and I’m hungry). This is a Facebook consumer mentality. We need to treat Facebook as the amazing lead generation company that it is and do much more to be able to generate Facebook real estate leads using quality, well-thought-out content.

When I say create content that is valuable to your audience, I do not mean, sign up for a service that automates your Facebook posts. Even though these services provide content for homebuyers and sellers, they are not localized nor original. I did this in the beginning and the engagement rates are terrible. Also, these types of services provide no LONG term value since the content you receive is not ORIGINAL.

You get $1 for a post that is well thought out, useful to your local market, and establishes YOU as the expert.

Examples of a $1 Post

• Creating a post that answers a question you get asked often as a realtor.
• Doing a CMA for popular neighborhoods or zip codes in your area
• Reviewing a restaurant or service provider people need often.  Painters, landscapers, cleaners, flooring, etc…
• You don’t always need to create the content.  From time to time, you should find articles that talk about the news your audience would find helpful and write 300 words on it.  300 words are key.  This is because that is the minimum a blog post should have to get some SEO (search-engine-optimization) value.  I’ll talk about why this is important later.

Engage With Facebook Groups

One of the most overlooked tools of Facebook is Facebook Groups. Facebook groups are an amazing way to generate Facebook real estate leads.

Once you create a $1 post, you are going to want to share it with EVERY Facebook group your target audience is a part of and the article is applicable for (If you aren’t a part of Facebook groups yet, I’ll show you how to join them).  To share a post with a group you need to first publish the post to your wall then click “Share” on the bottom right.  A drop-down menu comes up and you’ll click “Share…”. A pop-up will appear with your post.  At the top click “Share on Your Timeline” and change it to “Share in a group”.  You’ll need to repeat these steps for each group you wish to share with. (*Pro-tip: Create a word doc or note that has the groups you share content to regularly so you can reference it quickly and share with all the groups quickly).

I recommend joining one to three Facebook groups that you are passionate about. This doesn’t have to be anything related to real estate. My hobbies are cars, photography, and social events (eating out, going to local events, etc..). So I’ve joined groups that relate to these things.  Because my posts are coming from a place of value, they are not seen as spam.  They are very well received within the communities I’m a part of. I recommend joining groups that have over 5000 members so there are consistent discussions and activities going on. Also, be sure they are local to you (Ex. “San Antonio Drones”, “Community Events in San Antonio”).

Create a Real Estate Blog

Once you are consistently creating these $1 posts, you need to start blogging for real estate. A blog is a place where you can store all of these types of posts. Generating Facebook real estate leads is great but it will always require your effort. A blog provides you value even when you need a break from actively posting.

Over time, as you create more content, you’ll be creating a library of resources for your target audience. This will put you in touch with more of those people organically through Google search. These people will see you as the expert in your market and reach out to you when it’s time to buy or sell.

You are basically double-dipping on the time spent creating the post in the first place and making the post “evergreen” with value.  Facebook posts will eventually get pushed so far down the feed that people will no longer see it, even when searching.  An easy way to think of it is Facebook is excellent short-term results, whereas Google provides lasting benefits over time.

Provide Your “Two Cents” (40x Times)

Next, we get to the part where you are going to provide your “two cents” on other people’s posts.  This means you are going to search for posts on your feed and within the groups, you are a part of.  You are looking for people who are asking questions, sharing their ideas, and requesting recommendations.  You are then going to drop a line or two with something helpful.  Maybe they are asking a question you don’t know the answer to, do a google search, find what you think is the best answer, and just drop them the link with something like “hope this helps”.

Additionally, you can actually provide your two cents by asking a question or sharing your thoughts on someone’s post.  For example, if someone posts a great photo in my photography group I’ll comment asking what gear they used.  Once they respond, I’ll follow it up with a “Thanks!  I really like your style” or something similar.  Just the simple act of being social with people you do not know will open the doors for a longer conversation in Facebook messenger which is the final piece.

Communicate on Facebook Messenger

Here is where everything you’ve done up until this point, is going to generate your massive Facebook real estate leads. When you create a $1 post each day, 40x “two cents” posts, you are going to have opportunities to communicate with people on messenger. This is where the real magic happens!  It happens in one of two ways.

First, a person comments on my post, and I direct message them through Facebook Messenger. Or second, I provide my two cents on their post and I follow it up with a message on Facebook Messenger. Most of the time my messages are complementary in nature followed up with a question. “Hey! Thank you for commenting on my post. I really appreciate the engagement. How long have you lived in San Antonio?”. Most of the time you’ll get a response and you’ll want to eventually get that conversation to a discussion about buying or selling a home and getting the person’s contact info.

It is extremely important that you ask for their contact information at some point in the conversation. With some people, you may ask sooner than others but you need to ask so you can add that person to your database. Only you will know when the moment is right to ask. That said, the majority of the people I talk to have no issue giving me an email address. A high percentage also gives me their phone number (sometimes you need to ask multiple times and tell them why you need it). Be honest, tell them that you would like to stay in touch and check in on them from time to time and see if and when you can be of help to them further.

Next Steps

The $1.80 strategy may seem like a lot of work, and it is. It should take most real estate agents a solid three hours a day to do the $1.80 strategy properly. One hour to find and create the $1 post, and two hours of providing your two cents.

However, if you consistently do this every day, you will be swimming in Facebook real estate leads. And best yet, they were all FREE. Not only that, but these leads will be solid leads. Leads that you have already built a connection with. They aren’t just randomly generated web leads that don’t know you whatsoever.

Let me know what you think about the $1.80 strategy for Facebook real estate leads in the comments below.