Facebook turned six years old this week.  As it happens, Facebook also crossed over the 400 million user mark this past week.  What is even more impressive is that 100 million of those users joined in the last six months.  Just for comparison, less than 100 million were expected to watch the Super Bowl this past weekend.  The numbers of users alone on Facebook make a worthy of your marketing attention.

I joined Facebook  about 2 years ago and have really enjoyed catching up with old friends and keeping tabs on the family photos and the local events.  But if you are only using Facebook to maintain your personal relationships, you are missing a huge part of the fun.  Yes, that’s right, your business marketing can be fun.

I recently launched this consulting business.  Like any new business I began by getting a logo, ordering cards and starting a website.  Almost as an aside, I started a Facebook fan page just to get the word out to friends, family and colleagues about my new business venture.  Here is what I have gleaned so far:

1. Facebook is far and away the #1 referrer to my website – contributing on average about 75% of the traffic to the site.
2. People are more likely to comment on the link to a post on the Facebook page than on the site.
3. Like Twitter, you can do a bit of microblogging. I love being able to contribute links that I find interesting on a  daily basis without having to write a full blog post.
4. The new custom pages make it look pretty.  Yes, like it or not many of us are visual and the typical Facebook page is a little bit of a plain jane.  The fact that you can customize your Facebook page to make the landing page look like YOU want it to look is a huge plus.  And right now, it is an awesome way to show you are an early adapter.
5. The pages are spidered by google.  Within a few hours I had a google alert for my page.  My FB page comes up number 2 when you google Big Mouth Consulting.

Here are some great examples of Facebook Pages for Realtors

Riley Smith pulls his three local blogs together in his Miami’s Top Neighborhood Page

Kevin Tomlinson adds the Search MLS tab to add functionality to his  Miami Beach page

One Sotheby’s showcases their website and links about Luxury Properties and Miami Happenings

Realtor Ann Allen shows off her website and highlights the property search.

Here are some tips on maintaining your page

1. Don’t just post your listings.  If you are not a blogger, add some local events, links or things of interest
2. Do spend the money to make a custom landing page.  For more information – check out Real Estate Fan Pages
3. Spend some time to suggest the page to the friends you already have.  This is a good place to spend some ad budget dollars to build a local following.  Get your page up and running with some good content and then set a daily budget and watch your fan base grow.
4. Please don’t post status updates about your wonderfulness.  If you want to talk about getting a new listing – talk about the listing.  Close a sale?  Post the sale info and make it about the property, the new owners or anything except how YOU sold it in 3 days.
5. Take the time to replace the name of the page.  Go to www. facebook.com/username and click on Set a username for your pages.
6. Have fun with it. In these times that so much of what is happening is hard – lighten it up a little.  Every real estate agent I have ever met has a big personality.  Let it come through on your page.

Some great reference links

Facebook bigger than Yahoo?

Facebook Turns Six

How to Set Up a Facebook Page

And this one should be in your Listing Presentation

Check Facebook

Please send me a request to be a fan!