An: In terms of google, they can definitely crawl the Facebook Pages (while doing nothing special, google has found 9 of my pages in the past 2 months)… Nonetheless, if you’re reaching out to your FB community in order to get SEO benefits, you’re probably going to miss out on using facebook where it’s most valuable… i.e. reaching a very targeted audience (i.e. friends of fans).

That said, thanks for pointing out there’s still value there.

Obviously this is still a very new way to put links, small tidbits, etc in front of people that will appreciate them, but I’m taking an “if it keeps working, I’m going to keep doing it’ attitude.

For the record, I invited a few folks when I first set up the page to get the ball rolling, but the vast, vast majority of them found their way there on their own, and clicked “become a fan” without me asking them to do so.

Just my two cents.
~H.

I know that as friends. (emphasis on the period) our relationship grows over time, thru communication (even disagreements), and you certainly don’t want me to ‘market’ to you. I wouldn’t blame you for ‘hiding’ my updates if what I shared was not relative, interesting or valuable. But if you were going to ‘hide’ my updates as a friend, then you certainly wouldn’t want to sign up for market updates as a ‘Fan’ on my new FB Page.

What I really mean to say is that social networks should be for ‘network’ing and not marketing, whether it’s a profile or a page. People don’t join associations, clubs, or real world groups and then go to the weekly or monthly meeting meetings with market updates. They go as themselves to develop relationships. Of course, part of who they are is their career and part of ’some’ of their conversations will be about their job/business, but to have a marketing in a social network just seems counter-productive to the real value of building relationships.

Therefore, in my opinion, real estate agents should not use Facebook (or Twitter, LinkedIn, etc…) as marketing channels, but as networking opportunities. A chance to learn from others, make new contacts, grow their sphere of influence, and add value to others in the network. Promote what others are doing, share what is happening in their communities, stand up for causes, raise awareness to issues of concern, be personable and develop true relationships with past clients, old friends, future referral sources, etc…

As for using ‘pages’ on FB, definitely go for it at the company level and perhaps start neighborhood pages for your local markets (because it’s hard to be ‘friends’ with a company or community). I still say keep your personal business as part of your profile, it is a part of who you are and a great chance to put personality into your personal service brand. Trying to separate business and personal in a social network would be like joining a softball team and never telling your teammates what happened at work that day or how the local market is doing. Furthermore, showing up at game time each week with planned market updates would just be silly.

As a true friend, you know I am not trying be a pain. I think a healthy discourse of pros and cons on using FB Pages for Realtors is worth debating in public. (and I always reserve the right to be completely wrong)

I don’t see any compelling reason to have a separate page for my business because so many of my FB friends are already former clients with whom I’ve developed a friendship and so many of my friends know just what I do and that it is a part of my life. Hopefully I make the content interesting enough that they enjoy it as much as a client does, and hopefully I make it personal enough (but not too much!) that my clients grow more comfortable with me as they get to know me better.

What I enjoyed most about Thursday’s show was the discussion about Static FBML and adding RSS feed and IDX to my FB page. I think putting these in tabs will be a great way to give my clients and friends resources to use (they are ALL going to be interested in the market or buying/selling a house sometime), brand me as a local market expert, and encourage folks to follow thru with ME as opposed to another realtor. The IDX on my website gets plenty of users, but I like the conversion chances better for someone who uses it on my FB page. My next 2 projects are get my Mueller map posted and get IDX on my FB page. BTW, can’t I put my Mueller map on my FB page in a tab somewhere?

Thanks for some practical, helpful discussions. I really enjoy your (all of you) work.