How to make a Facebook business page work for you

If you don’t yet have a Facebook business page, it’s never too late to start.

The world’s biggest social media network is a huge part of Kiwi culture with over 2 million New Zealanders using the platform every day.

So how can your property management business become part of the conversation?

Well we’re not going to bull**** you. It’s not easy.

When we made a concerted effort to grow tenancy.co.nz’s Facebook page last year we were sitting on just 170 likes.

Fast-forward 12 months and we now have 5,529 likes. That’s an increase of nearly 3000%.

But we’re not here to blow our own trumpet.

The reason we have raised our own Facebook journey is to highlight what sort of resource you need to put into growing your business page.

As it stands, the average Facebook user could see between 15,000 to 150,000 different pieces of content in their newsfeed every time they log on to the platform.

Using a complicated algorithm, the Facebook news feed uses more than 100,000 weights to determine what content you will see, according to EdgeRank.

For instance, how many mutual friends like the post, page or content and how often you interact with the page.

 

 

 

 

 

A senior engineer explained last year in a Facebook blog how they’re ever-evolving their algorithm so users get exposed to more content they not only engage with, but also genuinely read.

“We will now predict how long you spend looking at an article in the Facebook mobile browser or an Instant Article after you have clicked through from News Feed,” he said.

“This update to ranking will take into account how likely you are to click on an article and then spend time reading it.”

Ultimately this means that you need to post engaging content that is relevant to your audience.

While posting your rental listings might seem like the obvious place to start, a good mix of content is what the best pages do.

News content relevant to the rental industry, entertaining memes, rental tips or even a competition giveaway can boost engagement and increase your audience overnight.

Some posts will be more successful than others.

Sometimes it will feel like you’re talking to an empty room and there is a reason for that.

“The average organic reach for posts from Facebook pages in March 2015 was 2.6 per cent of a brand’s audience.  This percentage dropped to 2.3 per cent for pages with more than one million likes,” according to marketing content specialists Localytic.

Subsequently one of the harsh truths about having a business page on Facebook is that you’ll have to pay for it.

Consider ‘boosting posts’ a form of advertising. Set yourself a budget and only boost posts that you think will grow your business page.

Investing $10 into a post can boost your reach to approximately 4,000 people and through Facebook’s Ad Manager targeting tool, which is getting better and better, you can capture property investors, students or almost any other demographic you can think of.

So what are you waiting for?

Post regularly, asks questions, be relevant and occasionally entertain. Links from your own website are even better and if your struggling for content, feel free to share ours.

Your business Facebook page may not get your direct leads but it will lift your profile and there is nothing wrong with that.