Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts

Creating an Engaging Facebook Business Page

Source: Social Agent

Your Facebook business page is prime real estate for growing your audience, building your brand, and developing meaningful relationships with potential clients. With an increasing number of consumers visiting and ‘liking’ agents’ Facebook pages, it’s important for your page to be as engaging as possible, so that your audience keeps coming back for more.

The goal is to build positive perceptions about your brand by engaging your audience, so that they will think of YOU when they (or their friends) need an agent.

How exactly does one create an engaging Facebook business page?

Some rules of thumb to follow are to post regularly, make content interesting, provide value, and stay engaged.

Post regularly—or have an app do it for you!

Staying in front of your audience is key. You’ll want to post content often enough so that your fans (those who have ‘liked’ your page) are aware of your presence, but not so often that you clutter their news feeds. Posting 3-6 times a week during prime hours of 1-4 pm EST is ideal.

It’s easy to schedule your posts in advance with Wordpress or Blogger, or you can try a post-scheduling application such as that finds relevant content for homebuyers and sellers, and posts it for you!

Make Content Interesting

You only have a few seconds to capture your fans’ attention when they are scrolling down their news feed, so you want your posts to stand out.

Studies have shown that consumers are most compelled to ‘like’ and ‘share’ posts that include strong imagery. Posts with 90-120 characters or less also compel more interest than longer posts.

Provide Value

Think about what would be of value to your audience—for instance, home trends, tips, design, and local stories of interest. Show your audience you’re paying attention to topics relevant to them. Of course, you can also post about your listings, services and open houses but be sure to include a variety of content types rather than just your own stream of promotional posts.

Stay Engaged with your Page

Be sure to log in to Facebook to check on your page engagement. Respond to questions and comment on posts. If you want to go the extra mile, network with local businesses by commenting on their posts to increase your exposure.

DON’T use a personal Facebook profile to market your business—it violates Facebook’s terms of use.
DON’T constantly post listings or promotional content—you don’t want your audience to tune you out.

DO create a Facebook page for your real estate business
DO post a mix of interesting, relevant content that speaks to your audience.
DO choose a ‘vanity’ name for your business page to boost your visibility in search engines (Ex.facebook.com/RealEstateAgent)

Have you ever needed to send your client analytics or web counts for a listing? Have you ever wondered whether or not your property is really being viewed online? Well, there are 2 ways we can view property listing analytics. You can view them from the MLS itself through a report, or if you have a home tours property website, you can view web counts there. The purpose of this data is to make sure your property is getting meaningful views. If your web count is low, maybe you are not marketing it enough, or marketing it effectively.

Below are step-by-step explanations of how to obtain your web counts and analytics for a property.

Web count from MLS

STEP 1

Log into MLS

STEP 2

After Logging in to the MLS, click on "My Inventory" on the left hand side. This should bring up all of your properties.

STEP 3

Once your inventory of properties are loaded, navigate to the property you need data on and click/check it.

STEP 4

Once you have the property chosen, navigate towards the bottom dropdown for reports. Click the dropdown box and click "Public Activity Report".

STEP 5

Click the button just to the right of the dropdown. When you hover over the button it should say "Show the Selected Report". It may appear grayed out, but once you click it, it will generate a report.

STEP6

Once the report is generated, you can view the property stats on the right column.

Web count from Birmingham Virtual Tours Site

Once on the birmingham virtual tour property website, navigate towards the footer of the page and you will see the website views.

In 2011, LAH produced a total sales volume of $176,033,906.
Last year our sales totaled $232,071,135, an increase of 31.8%.
In 2011, our sales associates earned total commissions of $3,442,299.

In 2012, we earned $4,680,922, an increase of $1,238,623 or 35.98%.
In both years, our most active month for closings was June.

February, March and April are our most active months for listings by a fairly good margin.
28 of our agents had over $2,500,000 in production last year, 16 of us produced in excess of $4,000,000, 11 agents produced better than $5,000,000 and our top four producers all surpassed $13,000,000 in sales for 2012.

In the entire MLS, LAH ranked 4th in production overall while our average sales price was the highest of the four by far.

In our core market areas, "Over The Mountain" we ranked 3rd and again we maintained a considerable lead in average price among the three top companies.

Under Debbie Veteto's initiative, our Corporate Services Program continues to become a force to be reckoned with in Birmingham. With 45 community tours from 10 different Corporate clients, 2011-2012 has produced 10 closings and 14 renter to buyer conversion clients. In the first two months of 2013, Debbie conducted 13 community tours of Birmingham producing two buyer clients referred to agents, one in Homewood and one that recently closed in the Mountain Brook office and she is currently working with three renter prospects who will be converting to buyers within the next year.

In 2012, our relocation department headed by Pam Nickoli oversaw 225 incoming referrals, 87 of which were corporate listing opportunities. Pam's efforts resulted in 95 closings for our agents last year, a conversion rate of 42%.

And maybe best of all, 22 agents joined our ranks since 2012: Misty Wade, Frances Robinson, Holt Rast, Roxanne Lamb, Jennica McMillian, Barbara Williams, Russell Kurtts, Walter LaGroue, Sarah Sams, Peter Northcutt, Roger Conville, Krisalyn Crye, Jackie Gray, Jonathan Hogan, Natalie Innerarity, Harry Greenburg, Cynthia Zanaty, Dan Goff, Liza Roitman, Reba Myer, LeeAnn Davis, Rosalie Lowy.

I'd say we're doing pretty well and for 2013 we're off to the best start we've had in many years. It's an honor to be associated with such an outstanding group of professionals.

Maurice Humphries

Author:LearnVest

LearnVest offer sound financial tips and advice for every aspect of life. Check out these friendly warnings for prospective home buyers.

Insanely low mortgage interest rates — and the knowledge that they’ll eventually go up again — make a lot of people feel like it’s time to buy a house right now. And maybe it is … if you go about it the right way.

Buying a home is a major purchase (to put it mildly), and there are plenty of ways to trip up. But don’t worry — we’ve got your primer right here.

DON'T … buy a house if you’re planning to move again soon

If you’re a renter, it can be frustrating to write a rent check every month and have no home equity to show for it at the end of the year. But if you aren’t certain that you’re going to stay put for a few years, it’s probably not the right time to buy — equity or no equity. “Some people tend to buy a house knowing that they’re going to be relocating after a few years,” says LearnVest Planning Services certified financial planner Ellen Derrick. “Don’t buy property and automatically assume that you’ll be able to rent it out or sell it when you move.”

What to do: If you aren’t in an area with a strong rental market that would allow you to cover the mortgage on your home if you move elsewhere, then stick with a rental for now.

DON'T… bust your budget

http://www.eagleschools.net/Modules/ShowImage.aspx?imageid=2927

Shopping for houses can make you a little giddy. Look at this one! And this one! For a little bit more, you could get granite countertops, plus an office nook! You’re dealing with such large numbers when you’re browsing real estate that it might not seem like such a huge deal to stretch another $10,000 or $15,000 to get the home you really love. But that’s not a game you want to play. “People look at the top end of their affordable monthly payment, and they don’t really think about what happens if their income goes down or they have to change jobs,” says Derrick. (If you’re wondering what percentage of your budget should go toward housing, check out the 50/20/30 Rule.)

What to do: Get pre-approved for a mortgage. Not only will this prove that you’re serious to your real estate agent and home sellers; it will also give you an idea of your upper limit. “Remember that the lender is there to make you a loan, and the more money you borrow, the better it is for them,” Derrick says. “They want you to max out. I would take the pre-approval number and cut about 20 percent off.”

DON'T… forget about added costs

Buying a home isn’t just a matter of replacing a rental payment with a mortgage payment. There are also maintenance costs, utilities (which will likely cost more) and property taxes. “People tend to forget about both property taxes and insurance when they’re thinking about how much house they can afford,” Derrick says. “The actual monthly payment could end up being well out of your price range when you figure those things in.”

What to do: Ask the homeowners about their average utility costs and property taxes, get a homeowner’s insurance quote, and budget about one percent of the home’s purchase price for annual maintenance. Then run the numbers to see if you can afford the home. (And, don’t forget about closing costs.)

In 2011, we produced a total sales volume of $176,033,906.
Last year we did $232,071,135, an increase of 31.8%.

In 2011, our producers earned total commissions of $3,442,299.
In 2012, our producers earned $4,680,922, an increase of $1,238,623 - 35.98%.

In both years, our most active month for closings was June.
February, March and April are our most active months for listings by a pretty good margin.

28 of our agents had over $2,500,000 in production last year, 16 of you produced in excess of $4,000,000, 11 did better than $5,000,000 and our top four producers surpassed $13,000,000 in sales for 2012.

In the entire MLS, we ranked 4th in production overall while our average sales price was the highest of the four by far.

In our core market we ranked 3rd and again we maintained a considerable lead in average price among the three top companies.

Under Debbie Veteto's initiative, our Corporate Services Program continues to become a force to be reckoned with in Birmingham. With 45 community tours from 10 Corporate clients, 2011-2012 has produced 10 closings and 14 renter to buyer conversion clients. In 2013, Debbie has conducted 13 community tours of Birmingham producing two buyer clients referred to agents, one in Homewood and one that recently closed in the Mountain Brook office and she is currently working with three renter prospects who will be converting to buyers next year.

In 2012, Pam Nickoli's, Relocation Services, office oversaw 225 incoming referrals, 87 of which were corporate listing opportunities. Pam's efforts resulted in 95 closings for us last year, a conversion rate of 42%.

And maybe best of all, 20 agents joined our ranks since 2012: Misty Wade, Frances Robinson, Holt Rast, Roxanne Lamb, Jennica McMillian, Barbara Williams, Russell Kurtts, Walter LaGroue, Sarah Sams, Peter Northcutt, Roger Conville, Krisalyn Crye, Jackie Gray, Jonathan Hogan, Natalie Innerarity, Harry Greenburg, Dan Goff, Cynthia Zanaty, Liza Roitman and Reba Myer.

I'd say we're doing pretty well and we're off to the best start we've had in many years.

by Carla from Chocolatemoosey.com

What is Twitter? Twitter is a social media platform, or micro-blog, that allows you 140 characters or less for your messages. People can follow along and reply. Of course with every social media system, there is terminology you need to know.

General Twitter Terminology

Tweets: status updates that are 140 characters or less
Username: your account name with the @ symbol in front
Followers: The people that read your tweets
Following: The people whose tweets you are reading
Timeline: Home page where your read tweets from those you are following
Retweet (RT): Sharing someone else’s tweet
Direct Message (DM): a private message sent on Twitter. In order to send/reply to a message, that person must be following you
Hashtag: a keyword or topic marked with #

To see the entire Twitter glossary, click here. I’m sorry but I simply cannot cover everything.

Tweets, Followers, Following, and Timeline

When you type a sentence or two into a new status, that is called a tweet. If you visit someone’s profile, you’ll see two types of tweets:

General Tweets that is public and seen by every one
Direct Tweets (replies) that are messages to another user.

Direct tweets will start out with a Twitter username, then the message. For Example, if you want to message LAH on twitter you would put the @lahrealestate the follow up with your message. (@lahrealestate your company is awesome #realestate)

Your followers don’t typically see your direct tweets in their timeline unless they are following both you and the person/business you are tweeting. However, if they visit your profile, they can see these tweets in addition to your general ones.

When a tweet contains your username, it is referred to as a mention. Mentions can be a direct reply or can be a general message (such as someone sharing your link). The difference between your mention and interaction page is interaction lists all ways people have interacted with you, such as new followers, favoriting a tweet, or retweets. Mentions are simply tweets that mention your username.

Hashtags

One thing you’ll notice on Twitter is # followed by a word (#RealEstate, #Listings, #JustinBieber). These are called hashtags, which are keywords or phrases that categorizes tweets.

When you click on the hashtag word, you will see a list of tweets containing the same keyword. Hashtags are also used in tweet chats. A tweet chat is when a group of people get together on Twitter at a certain time and talk about a certain topic. For example, every Sunday night at 7 pm, a group of us gather to talk about #SundaySupper. If you go to Tweet Chat and typed in the designated hashtag (in this case #SundaySupper), you can follow along with the tweets. Usually the chat host will ask a question and everyone tweets back with an answer. It’s a great way to tweet with those who share the same interest.

When a hashtag becomes very popular, it will show up in the trending list as a trending topic. This means a whole bunch of users at that moment are using that hashtag.

Twitter Tips for Realtors

1) Provide home buying and selling tips
The key to effectively marketing on social media is to establish your credibility as an expert in your field. This encourages clients to choose you based on your vast knowledge of the industry and the recommendations you have received. Giving home buyers and sellers advice that they can use, builds your reputation and solidifies their trust in you.

2) Connect with people in your industry
Twitter is a great way to keep track of what the top producers in your industry are up to. You should definitely pay attention to the marketing strategies that they are implementing. Mention them in relevant tweets as well so that they know who you are.

3) Answer and ask questions
Twitter is also a great way to connect with potential clients by asking community related questions and responding to questions people are already asking. This shows that you are not just on Twitter to promote your business, but also to help those requiring your specific skill set. Search Twitter for questions being asked about real estate in your territory.

4) Use # hashtags and @ mentions
You can mention another Tweeter in your Tweet, and alert them of this mention by adding @ followed by their twitter handle in your tweet. Mentions (@) are a great way to get the attention of Tweeters you want to notice you. If they follow you the mention (@) will also appear on their public profile giving your Twitter account additional exposure. Make sure that you mention them in Tweets that are relevant to their account and industry. Hashtags (#) are a great way to connect with tweeters who are interested in the topic you have hashtagged. For example if you add the hashtag #newyorkcondos to your tweet, then anyone searching for New York Condos on Twitter will find your tweet.

5) Branding
Always remember that Twitter is just one element of your web marketing strategy. You need to make sure that your Twitter account connects to your website/blog/other social networks (which should act as the central hub for all your social media networks).

By Chris Garrett; Edited by LAH Marketing

One of the major objections about social media is finding the time to understand and utilize it. Diving into social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be a little daunting and time consuming. However, it will take time to get familiar with these networks as well as engage your audience.

Does the following sound familiar?

“I don't have time? ”
“You expect me to do all this on top of my normal duties?”
“I would post on facebook, but I'm too busy, and I don't know how to use it.”

… and so on.

I am not going to lie to you. Social media does take time. In fact, time is going to be one of your major hidden costs of doing business and engaging your audience on the Internet. And for some of us, that time could be wasted if we are not careful.

You need to watch where your time goes to ensure you’re spending it efficiently and with the desired impact. Here are five tips to help you.

#1: Spend Your Time Intentionally

It’s all too easy to just chit chat, browse and surf, get distracted or feel like we are making progress when really we are avoiding work and using social media “engagement and interaction” as an excuse to procrastinate. There are good conversations and wasteful conversations and you need to decide which is which.

Consider a face-to-face networking event. Do you spend all of your time speaking to one person at that event about the weather, or do you spread yourself around a bit and find new and interesting people to connect with? Are you just hanging out or do you direct your efforts toward a precise tactical aim or specific goal?

You need to know what you are doing and how you are going to measure your success.

How does this help you find time? Well, most businesses and individuals already allocate time for marketing, networking and research. If you know that your social media activities come in under one of those headings, and your efforts in social media are going to achieve equal or better results to other things you could do under those headings, then you are equipped to carve out time to try social media instead.

#2: Carve Out Time Where Social Media Is More Efficient

What if your social media efforts allowed you to no longer have to pitch, write proposals or go to sales meetings. Or never cold-call / send postcards for your business.

How much time could you save if you didn’t have to do this kind of sales lead generation or closing?

In my previous job, I would have to spend more than six hours in a car just so I could go to one 30-minute sales presentation competing with several other companies with very little differentiation between us. Not only was it soul-destroying and a colossal waste of time, it was actually very ineffective.

I am not saying you will be able to 100% replace your old way of doing things with social media right away, and I would not suggest that is wise even if you could. But you should be able to take an hour or two out of a week to test social media and see how the results look. In fact, combining approaches usually works best, as each technique and medium compounds the results of the others. Reaching prospects through a multi-channel approach is normally much better than the sum of the parts.

The great thing about social media is you can pretty much get involved anywhere and any time.

#3: Use “Dead” Time

How much time do you spend just waiting? I was recently at a conference in Las Vegas and because of the long-haul nature of the travel and the fact that I would be alone much of the time, I did a lot of hanging around and waiting, which I filled with social media.

Just think of your average business trip… What do you spend a lot of time doing?

Flights
Taxis
Queues
Departure lounges
Restaurants
Meetings
Hotels
…?

If, however, you have an Internet-connected laptop or smart phone, you can at least use some of this time to stay connected, engage with people, write some content or otherwise go from “hanging around” to being semi-productive. If nothing else, you will feel like you are not all alone in the world!

How long does it take to check your messages and send out a tweet, status update, check out a link, or answer a question? Seconds? Minutes at most?

How many times during the day do you get the odd 10 minutes where you are simply waiting?

Even at my desk I have to sit and wait, watching progress bars as something calculates, prints, renders or uploads. Those are prime “check what is happening in social media” times!
What if you find you have more than a few minutes to spare?

#4: Escape, Bulk-Produce, Store Up and Schedule

On those occasions when you have a good chunk of time, make the best possible use of that time and get a power hour of content produced.

Outline and write a set of blog posts to go out later when you are too busy
Brainstorm and create ideas, mind map your thoughts and generate headlines
Plan for the future, write up an editorial calendar, “most like to meet” list or line up meetings with people with whom you have lost contact.
Get organized and make your week more efficient with tasks, to-dos, filing and an empty inbox
Write out some interesting tweets to go out over the next week so you only have to check in and reply each day

One of my friends “escapes” to the coffee shop a couple of times a week and does all his content creation and planning for that week in those few concentrated hours.Being out of the office with zero interruptions (other than the constant stream of fresh latte) means he can bang out several quality items and his brain cooperates, rather than fights against his productivity with distractions and… Ooh, shiny!

#5: Just Relax

My last point is that this is not meant to be a chore. Nobody is testing you, tracking your use of time or holding you to any grading system. It should be useful and it should be fun!

Aim to build a reputation for being helpful and providing value, and most of all being a real human being. Then people will be much more forgiving and understanding. You do not need to be perfect.

If you do not post an article this week, so what? Your Twitter followers might be concerned if you do not appear for a few days, but they are not going to start saying bad things about you if you are too busy to tweet!

Consistently posting is a huge component to getting more eyeballs to your Facebook page, but there is another thing that not too many people talk about — the art of the status update.

Here are 5 tips to Improve the Status Updates on your Facebook Business Page:

Don’t write anything misleading. Don’t say one thing and mean another, or just post something to get a lot of likes. Honesty and authenticity are key.
Edit ruthlessly. Read and re-read again. Make your status updates bold, not passive. For example, if you want to say, “I think you should take a look at this important article about the real estate market,” instead you could say, “Look how the market is changing. Leave me a comment below for more information!”
Keep it short. It’s easy to go on and go, but keep your status updates short — two sentences maximum if possible. Think of how most people are scrolling through their Facebook Newsfeed on their phone. If they have to click the “more” button to expand your update, they most likely won’t do that.
Mix it up. How are the different ways you can say what you want to say? Can you make your same point with a photo, a quote, a link, a question? Work on having a content library that you can draw from at any time. That content library could be a folder in DropBox that you can access at any time that has images that you can use to post to your Facebook page.
Be timely. During the Super Bowl, post about the game! During the holiday, post holiday event dates. You get the point — be relevant to your local audience and also appeal to what is happening in the moment. This is the beauty of being flexible with your social media strategy. Have a strategy in place, but be nimble enough to add or delete something if needed!
Here are few great examples of real estate teams, agents and brokerages mixing it up and keeping it fun and relevant on their page!

Keep it short, keep it real, and keep being consistent — that is the name of the game!

by Katie Lance

Too often I see a “Facebook graveyard” – Facebook pages created by real estate agents with the best of intentions but unfortunately they are left to die from lack of attention. Most Facebook business pages that are run by agents have one common problem: lack of consistent content.

Most agents (and brokers) will post sporadically; one article on Monday, nothing for 3 days, a photo on Saturday, nothing for a week, a link to a video on a Monday, nothing for 3 days. And then they wonder why they don’t see the ROI from Facebook.

If you’ve listened to any of my presentations at Agent Reboot or my webinars, you know first-hand how important having a content strategy is to your social media plan.

Sidenote:Taking 5 - 10 minutes a day to distribute relevant real estate content is a great way to keep your facebook page active

So here is the challenge to ALL of you who are reading this who have a Facebook business page.

Go to your business page today. Take note of how many likes, comments and shares you have. Write it down or document it somewhere digitally.
Make a commitment to post one piece of content to your Facebook business page daily for the next 30 days. Every day, Monday through Sunday, post just one piece of content. Remember a piece of “content” could be as simple as a link to an article from Inman News or an Instagram photo of the neighborhood you work in. The key here is consistency – every day for 30 days. The other key is to post during “prime time:” 7-9am or lunch time. In fact, here is one simple way to create 30 days worth of content in just a number of hours.
Set aside $100 and create a Facebook ad to run for four days with a maximum per day spend of $25. Create Sponsored Stories – these are ads that say “so and so liked” (your page). The goal here is to build likes to your Page and thus increase engagement and conversation.
At the end of 30 days reevaluate your likes, comments and shares. Are you getting more interaction?

These are just a few simple things you can do to jump-start your social presence. The key here is to post every day for 30 days. With the Facebook “scheduling” feature for Pages, there is really no excuse for missing a day.

by Katie Lance, and loosely edited by Cedric Weatherly

All of the following information can be found on HootSuite.com

Welcome to HootSuite!

The HootSuite Quick Start Guide summarizes six important steps that will help you get started with your HootSuite dashboard. This social media management tool can be used to manage multiple social profiles, schedule messages and tweets, track brand mentions, analyze social media traffic and much more.

Signing up for HootSuite

Go to HootSuite.com.
Type the required information.
Click Sign Up Now.

Adding Social Networks

You can improve productivity by managing all of your social networks within HootSuite.

Click a social network to add.
Click Connect, and then type in your credentials.

To review a step-by-step process, read: Adding social networks to your HootSuite dashboard.

Adding Tabs and Streams

Creating tabs and streams allows you to perform and save advanced searches, filter for content and manage lists and followers.

From the Getting Started tab
Click Create a New Tab, and then label tab.
Click Add Stream, and then add content you can monitor.

To review step-by-step processes visit HootSuite Help/Streams to locate the specific process for the social network.

Composing and Sending Messages

Composing and sending messages allows you to create custom content for you to share with your selected social networks.

Click inside the compose field.
Type a message.
Click to select a social network from the profile picker.
Click Send Now.

To review a step-by-step process, read: Composing and sending messages.

Adding Apps to Your Dashboard

The App Directory is a library of third party apps developed specifically for the HootSuite dashboard. With the app directory you can add Flickr, YouTube, Tumblr, MailChimp, HubSpot and many more apps to your HootSuite dashboard.

From the Getting Started tab
Click Install Apps.
Click Install App beside the app you want to add.

To review a step-by-step process, read: Installing Apps.

Downloading the Mobile App

HootSuite is available as an app for your mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry), and can be downloaded from your device's app store.

From the Getting Started tab click Get the Mobile App.

For addition information about using the HootSuite dashboard on a mobile device, read: HootSuite Mobile Help.

What is HootSuite?

In the broaded terms, HootSuite is a social media management system. You can use it for your business or organization to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. In a nutshell, it allows your to control multiple social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and more.

It has a user-friendly interface and the basic plan, which has fairly robust features, is free. Unlike other social media management systems, HootSuite is accessed through your web browser rather than a desktop client. There is also a HootSuite app for iPhones and Android Phones.

How Can I Utilize HootSuite?

You can launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow an audience, and distribute targeted messages using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard. Streamline team workflow with scheduling and assignment tools and reach audiences with geo-targeting functionality. Invite multiple collaborators to manage social profiles securely, plus provide custom reports using the comprehensive social analytics tools for measurement.

Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ Pages, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and more.

What does HootSuite cost?

HootSuite offers a FREE account as well as a Pro ($9.99/month), and Enterprise (customized) accounts, with optional add-ons available. More information can be found by visiting HootSuite's Plan page.Unless you are a large organization, the Free option is all you will need.

Track Campaigns and Engage Daily

HootSuite's dashboard can help manage both day-to-day community building and one-off campaigns. For actively-managed accounts, you can set up streams for the types of content you want to monitor, including news feeds and mentions. These streams live in customizable tabs, which can be organized by account, network or content, which comes in handy for tracking campaign-specific hashtags.

Batch scheduling is another useful feature for keeping campaign updates organized. You can pre-schedule up to 50 unique messages, making your team's workflow more efficient and allowing you to optimize peak traffic times.

Analytics

The platform recently revamped its analytics feature to include a new interface and the ability to create custom reports — a necessary tool for marketers presenting campaign reach numbers to clients.

The Built-in Social Analytics reports allow teams to measure the success of campaign tactics — by tracking URL click-throughs for example — and make adjustments to achieve the highest level of engagement.

There are various methods to connecting different social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) to a Facebook Account. One of the easiest ways to connect different social networks to your Facebook account is through Twitterfeed. You simply sign up, add your social network feeds, and that's it.

Twitterfeed

This, in the technical sense, doesn’t actually connect your Twitter account to Facebook. But this application uses updates from your main network, and pushes them out to the other networks simultaneously. This means, whenever you post from your main network, such as a blog, the message/posts from the main network is posted to your extended networks (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter).

Steps To Using Twitterfeed

1. Sign up for a Twitterfeed account.
2. Submit your RSS feed, Twitter and Facebook account.

And you are ready to have your blog posts automatically sent to your Twitter and Facebook accounts when they go live. Then you can track your stats.

Currently Twitterfeed only supports Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as far as social networks you can connect to, however, if you are technically savvy, you can extend connections by manually connecting other networks to Facebook. For example, you can connect Pinterest to Facebook. Whenever you post an image on Pinterest it will post to Facebook, which will then post to Twitter because of the Twitterfeed connection.

How to connect a Facebook page, and not to a personal profile?

You click "Connect with Facebook" using your Facebook user account, but if you are the administrator of one or more pages, then after the Facebook connection screen you will see a dropdown list of pages that you are an administrator of. If you select one of these pages, twitterfeed then posts to that page's Wall and not to your personal Wall.

BY IJAZ

Facebook with over 600 million active users is the best place to start your social media marketing activities as a small business. Did you know over 700 thousand businesses have facebook business page?

If you do not have one , please create one and its free to create, you only need a facebook ID to create your business page. If you are worried about the privacy then good news is no one will find out who is the admin of your facebook business page.

If you can include the following things in your business page, it will be a killer combination and you can win lots of new likes and eventually generate new business out of it.

1. Welcome Tab

Think of facebook page like a website. The way your website has different pages and different addresses of each page. Similarly you can create different sub pages under your main facebook page.

Then you have the option to direct your visitors or traffic to specific page, which is called “Welcome Tab”. Once you select the welcome tab, then every new user will land first on that page. You can design the welcome tab as creatively as you like and run on facebook using iframe application.

2. Call To Action

We all are so busy and don’t have time, therefore, give your visitor(s) a clear call to action, what you want them to do when they visit your facebook page. It can be a button or a simple request very visible on your page.

Call to actions could be:

Ask your visitors to like you page (all while offering incentives for that)
Ask to opt in for newsletter (give some thing free in return of their name and e-mail)
Ask to visit your website

One call to action at one time is best. Creative and simple call to actions generally convert well.

3. Link To Your Website/Blog

You welcome tab should include a link to your main website or blog. This will increase your website traffic. Ultimately your main aim should be to direct facebook traffic to your website. There are some easy steps to connecting your website and social networks together. You can use RSS Feeds, Javascript Plugins, or even Facebook Applications made for connecting social networks.

4. Google Map

If you are a local business add a map to your physical location. Make it easy for your customers to find you and visit your shop or office. As a Realtor, being easily accessible is important. Giving your audience a variety of ways to get in touch with you shows how serious you are and that you are very inviting to business.

5. Your Products or Services Portfolio

Actions speak louder than words, show your completed work, this is one of the most important thing you can add to your facebook page. There are Facebook apps that allow for listings to be shown on your Facebook Business Page. Even without the page, posting pictures of Just Listed or Just Sold Home is a great way to market yourself visually.

6. Facebook to Twitter Application

This is a good little handy application to automate your facebook efforts to twitter. What it does, it will send all your facebook updates to twitter automatically once installed and connected with your chosen twitter account. Ask a programmer or your marketing team how to connect different social networks in facebook.

7. Photo & Video Stream

Videos and photos generally create more buzz in the social media. If you have flicker account and youtube channels, you can link to your facebook page to create more buzz about your business.

8. Contact Us

At the end of the day this is your main marketing objective that people should contact you. Give your prospective customers as many ways possible to contact you and make those contact details visible.

I hope this is enough to persuade you to have a good facebook business page and leverage the social media to get more business.

Your Page is the central place to grow your business, build your brand and develop relationships with your customers/subscribers.

Create a Facebook Page

To get started, visit: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

It's free to set up a Page and it only takes a few minutes to get started.

1. Choose a category and a Page name that represents your business.

2. Pick a logo or another image that people associate with your business to use as a profile picture.

3.Write a sentence about your business so people understand what you do.

4. Set a memorable web address for your Page that you can use on marketing material to promote your presence on Facebook.

5. Choose a cover photo that represents your brand and showcases your product or service. It's the first thing people will see when they visit your Page.

Where to find my Business Page

After creating your business page, you should see a new "Pages" section on the left hand side of your personal FB page that houses all business pages you have admin rights to. You will see the name of your business page, clicking on it will direct you to the page.

Other important details

View insights, edit your Page content, keep track of new activity and respond to personal messages from your admin panel.

Click on the Edit Page button in the admin panel and choose Update Info to add other details about your business.

+ Read cover photos dos and don'ts

You're ready to create your first post
You can create different kinds of posts on your Page including updates, photos, videos and questions. The people who like your Page will see some of your posts in their news feed.

Successful posts are:

Short: Posts between 100 and 250 characters get about 60% more likes, comments and shares
Visual: Photo albums, pictures, and videos get 180%, 120%, and 100% more engagement respectively
Optimized: Page Insights help you learn things such as what times people engage most with your content so you can post during those hours

Things to try:

Explore the options under the Build Audience button on your admin panel.
Make sure to invite your Facebook friends to like your Page.
Click on 'Invite Email Contacts' to upload your your email list and send a message asking people to like your Page.
Promote your Page web address on store signs, business cards, receipts, emails, chalkboards and other marketing material.
Download free Facebook table tents and stickers to promote your Page.

Top 10 most-visited real estate-related websites in the U.S. for January 2013*

Rank	Website	Total visits	Visits share
1	Zillow	44.19 million	9.17%
2	Trulia	33.70 million	7.00%
3	Realtor.com	29.32 million	6.09%
4	Yahoo Homes	26.48 million	5.50%
5	FrontDoor Real Estate	26.14 million	5.43%
6	Homes.com	17.98 million	3.73%
7	MSN Real Estate	7.17 million	1.49%
8	Rent.com	7.12 million	1.48%
9	AOL Real Estate	6.56 million	1.36%
10	Apartment Guide	5.89 million	1.22%

Source: Experian Marketing Services. *Excludes traffic from mobile devices.

The 10 largest real estate listing portals are capturing nearly half of all non-mobile traffic to U.S. real estate-related websites, according to aggregate Web visit metrics compiled by Experian Marketing Services (formerly Experian Hitwise).

The top 10 real estate websites captured 42 percent of total visits in the space during January, with Zillow (9.17 percent market share), Trulia (7 percent) and Realtor.com (6.09 percent) leading the pack.

Experian, which measures total visits to a site from desktop computers, not unique visitors or traffic from mobile devices, reported a total of 482 million visits to real estate sites in January, a 12-month high.

Along with Yahoo Homes, No. 4 in January with 5.5 percent market share, Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com have filled the same top four relative spots in terms of website market share since June 2012, when Trulia leapfrogged Yahoo Homes and Realtor.com to capture the No. 2 spot, which it hasn't relinquished since.

Although RealtySouth has a great web presence, that does not necessarily mean they are producing the most traffic in home searches. Most Real Estate Companies are fighting aggregated listing sites such as Trulia and Zillow.

Real Estate companies such as RealtySouth and ReMax do garner a lot of traffic, however, these are regional companies. Their traffic could stem from Alabama to Texas. What sets your website apart from these mega-sites, is your niche market. If you specialize in Luxury Homes in the Liberty Park area of Alabama, you are more inclined to see higher rankings from a Google Search than RealtySouth. However, you will still have to fight off the aggregated listing sites such as Trulia and Zillow.

Potential Buyers are using the web to search for home and they are not necessarily going to any particular website to do so. Simply inputting a properties address in Google or Bing will grant you access to it's information. Usually Trulia or Zillow, if not Google itself, will have the top search result. Most people rarely look at the second result page, let alone, the second result on the first page.

Although RealtySouth and ReMax has great web presence, and a brand that is known throughout the country, that does not necessarily mean they are producing the most traffic in home searches. Their Home Search feature is easy to use...but so is Trulia's, Zillow's, or even Realtor.com.

Most Real Estate Companies are fighting against aggregated listing sites such as Trulia and Zillow, even RealtySouth and ReMax. Potential Buyers or Sellers are utilizing the web to find homes and they are not necessarily going to any particular website to do so. Simply inputting a properties address in Google or Bing search engines will grant you access to information. However, sites such as Zillow and Trulia, are normally at the top of these searches.

Note: The Experian Hitwise data featured is based on US market share of visits as defined by the IAB, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Experian Hitwise sample of 10 million US internet users. Experian Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Experian Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context. The market share of visits percentage does not include traffic for all sub-domains of certain websites that could be reported on separately.