So what are some of these “unwritten rules” that you can guide your Facebook Page posts? Here are some good general rules that you may find you need to adjust for your audience:

• Post every day. That may seem excessive to you but as people make more friends and Like more pages, your posts may be missed. If you are only posting once or twice a week then it could be a long time between posts if your community misses one or two of them. There are studies that show posting between 3-5 times a day can be good amount for Pages (make sure you are varying your posts and also watch your statistics to see what works best for your community). You can decide that you might take the weekend off but also realize that the weekend is when many people are on Facebook.
• Focus on engagement. You are trying to connect and get response from your community. Ask questions, post helpful tips, links to articles that your audience will Like and Share. When you make the posts about your audience and what they need rather than selling, you will develop a richer and deeper relationship with your community. You will sell more as a byproduct of that deeper relationship. Set aside time to follow up on posts and respond to questions on your Wall.
• Have a call to action. Tell people to click the Like or comment on the post. Or have them watch your video or go to your website.
• Don’t oversell or undersell. No one likes a never-ending sales pitch. By the same token, make sure you do highlight your wares from time-to-time! Use the 80-20 rule for sales messages vs. content/connection posts. So if you decide to post five times a week, one of the posts should be a sales message and four posts will be other helpful or fun content for your community.
• Make it fun. Facebook is a social community. People are there to have fun. This is a place where you can let your corporate hair down a little. Stay true to your brand but think of ways to entertain your audience.

Click here to read the free HubSpot White Paper yourself!

• Calls-to-action do best “above the fold” – the space where your webpage is viewable to the user without having to scroll down. Accord to heat map analysis, anything “below the fold” will only be viewed by 50% of people who visit the page.
• Your web designer might kick and scream about this, but if your call-to-action blends in too much with your site design, it won’t stand out as much. You want as many eyeballs to land on that call-to-action as possible, so use contrasting colors to make the CTA stand out.
• Whenever you create a new blog post, choose an offer that’s most relevant to the content of the post. Then add a call-to-action to the bottom of that blog post linking to the landing page for that offer. Informational offers such as ebooks, guides, and webinars do very well in this space, because people reading your blog likely are eager to get more free information from you.
• Make it clear in your brief paragraph and/or bullet points what the benefits of the offer are. It’s more than just listing what the offer is comprised of; it takes a bit of spin. Instead of “Includes specifications of product XYZ,” say something like “Find out how XYZ can increase productivity by 50%.” In other words, convey the value of your offer clearly and effectively.
• When creating a thank you page, not only can you bring back the navigation, but you can provide other links to keep the lead engaged. You can include calls-to-action to the next step in the buying cycle, link to your blog, encourage them to follow you on Twitter, ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, and more. You can do a lot more with your thank you pages than just adding tracking code!

Click here to read the free HubSpot White Paper yourself!

Introducing RAINMAKER SOCIAL, the one-of-a-kind collection of tools to enhance your RAINMAKER MEGA SITE and bring it into the Social Age. Social Media and “social search” have arrived. And, the future is now. Here’s why:

• “Inbound links are a good measure of authority, but they are slow. In a social media world, a relevant piece of content on a subject could become outdated in minutes.” – RAINMAKER SOCIAL users love the easy-to-use share tools in the new system compared to the out-dated (and slower) inbound links. With the share tools, you can constantly share content and stay relevant without the wait!
• “Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter are battling over the future of search. It is clear to all of these internet giants that social search is the future.” – These companies basically decide what user’s search. As they enhance Social Search, we all will be taken along for the ride too. That’s why it’s important for RAINMAKER SOCIAL users to hop on the bandwagon now so you get an early start on the future ahead of your competition.
• “Google+ is the fastest growing social network ever.” Google+ is not important – not yet — in the inherent contact database sense like Facebook. However, going forward Google will be using Google+ as its main source of social search data. Because Google is the #1 search engine in the world (no surprise there!) that makes Google+ an important tool in Google’s Social Search Rankings. Bottom line: Social search is coming on fast. Ride the wave…don’t get drowned by it.
• “Facebook’s current share of the search engine market is miniscule… why does Facebook not have at least a negligible portion of the search market? Simple: Private data. … The limitations of private data make Facebook a weak search engine and subsequently resulted in very little usage.” – This however has changed recently with the inclusion of the ability to select your own privacy settings with each individual post. RAINMAKER SOCIAL users are now sharing via the PUBLIC option that is now included. Use this public option as much as possible and you will build a pool of data and results that optimize your chances of being found through Facebook search.
• “Social search is really about more personalized search engine results.” – Search in the future will be personalized. That’s why RAINMAKER SOCIAL users are building their personal search network today.

Don’t miss out on the future. Check out www.RainmakerSocial.com for more information and order today to get a jump on your competition!

For more about integrating search and social marketing read this excellent, free whitepaper: www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-whitepapers/

Jesse Hickman

Take a step back to see what type of content you have available. Your blog, your newsletter(s), information on your website, various services that you subscribe to that push content to consumers, etc. Determine what your rights are to that content and if you can share it. (Above all, respect copyrights.)

Next, once you have all your content assembled and know what content can be redistributed, determine the best methods to share the content. Think of your blog, your Twitter account, Facebook notes and status updates, targeted ads leading to a landing page/specific pages on your website, etc. What content would work well as printed pieces to generate leads? Consider all the possibilities and weave them into your marketing plan.

What are your best practices for content marketing?

The key word is “new.”

These new home sellers and buyers haven’t heard everything you’ve already said about home buying and selling.  The content they are looking for is likely something you’ve already covered in-depth many a time before.

With that in mind, don’t just cut and paste old content, but update it for today’s real estate market and add your new insights.  These new home buyers and sellers aren’t going to tire of the topics you cover as they’re new to them.  Keep these leads and prospects informed with informative content, but don’t reinvent the wheel every time you need new content.  Some of your tried and true information about buying or selling a home in your area is still relevant and useful to new home buyers and sellers — and effective in bringing in new leads and prospects.

Let us know how you recycle, reuse and repurpose content to find new buyers and sellers.

1.  Cost per click (CPC) – Cost per click-through.  Your $500 marketing cost divided by 1,000 click-throughs would be a $0.50 cost per click.

2.  Cost per action (CPA) – Cost to get a visitor to take a specific action beyond clicking on an ad, such as signing up for your e-newsletter or filling out a response form.  (If you have a $0.50 cost per click and it takes 30 click-through to get one prospect to sign up for your e-newsletter your cost per action is $15.)

3.  Cost per lead (CPL) – Cost to get enough prospect information for follow up.  Also “pay-per-lead” if buying the service.

4.  Cost per thousand (CPM) – Price for one thousand ad views or impressions.

How does your emarketing add up in your analysis?

I recently downloaded a number of real estate apps.  Some were from individual agents or their companies, others were “helpful” real estate tools.  Regardless, as I started going through them, one thing became apparently clear — someone didn’t thoroughly test the app!

A few crashed while using them — shutting me out of the app entirely and having to start from scratch when I re-entered the app.  Another one just didn’t look right on my phone even though it was downloaded from my phone for my system.  And still another would work…until I clicked on something!

The key here is test, test and test — over and over and over again.  I was merely curious what these apps had to offer.  Home buyers and sellers aren’t going to have the same level of patience and forgiveness to go back and “try it again” (or again and again and again).

No matter what you try to do online — whether it be an app, an email attachment, a link, a landing page, a fill-out form — take the time to test it on different Internet browsers including those of smart phones.  Make sure that the item looks right, the links are correct, tasks can be completed as they are laid out.  The time you invest in testing will result in happier users — who will reward you with their business!

Let us know how you test your electronic marketing to ensure it’s working as designed.

As a marketer to home buyers and sellers, the key to smart phones — wondrous communication tool — is:  how readable are your email marketing messages and does the recipient have the time/attention to devote to my email when it’s first sent?

• We’ve always been cognizant of what browsers the majority of buyers and sellers were using to ensure our web sites were able to be viewed as we designed them.
• We’ve always been on top of what email programs the majority of our buyers and sellers were using to ensure emails formatted correctly and could be read by recipients.
• We’ve always been aware that certain days of the week were the prime time to send emails that were most likely to be opened and read.
• We were also pinpointing the time of day that works best to encourage the recipient to not just read the email, but take action.

Now we’re at the point where you need to take all of these elements into consideration, especially the environment.  If you hit lunch time, it could be great for those working traditional 9 to 5 jobs who take a lunch break and have time to read emails; not so great for those with young families in the middle of meal prep; high-frequency business travelers; non-traditional work hours.  For those with a long car commute, morning and evening rush won’t work to receive email.  However, for those taking public transportation, it could be the best time of the day to catch up on personal emails!  If your email hits during dinner time for families, it’s likely to be looked at later if there’s time.  Early morning can be good for some; late in the day better for others.

The segmentation you’ve done with your prospects (different types of sellers and buyers, timelines, etc.) is going to get sliced even thinner.  You need to be conscious of your prospects’ lifestage and lifestyle in order to send the emails at an opportune time.  You not only want your recipients to get your email and have it be readable, but you want to make sure that the recipient has at least a small window of time to devote to the email.

Let us know what you’re doing to address getting emails to recipients at the best time of day.

Things aren’t rosy once again, but we’re moving forward with a new perspective.  The biggest piece of knowledge you might have gained is that one-to-one interactions work the best — just as you knew before the downturn, working directly with one person allows you to see clearly and exactly what their needs and wants are leading you to more closed business because of personal and reactive service.

You’re likely adapting this one-to-one knowledge to your marketing — separating your prospects into niche groups based on what their needs are, what their timelines are like, what their budgets allow.  Following up personally with past clients who are ready to move up (or down) or send referrals your way.  Looking for new leads by providing useful, detailed content about your local market — information these leads cannot find in the national and even regional news.

Most importantly you’ve learned that staying in touch and remaining visible allows leads, prospects and past clients to reach out to you when they are ready to make a move.  Continuing to market during the down times means continued business; cutting out marketing to save money means no business during the down times.

With personalized marketing, you’ve learned what works in any kind of economy.  Share what you’ve learned about marketing during lean times.

Were retail sales up in your area? If so, consumers may have a renewed sense of security, edging toward making purchasing decisions that they have been holding back on for several years. Besides buying electronics, household items, etc., they may now be back in the mindset to purchase something larger — like real estate. If there have been fewer layoffs by major businesses in your area, new growth in a niche business in your area, or simply stability where there was none, these consumers may be ready to make a move in real estate.

Take advantage of the momentum after the busy holiday season to ramp up your marketing. Reinvest in your business with renewed efforts at lead generation to attract the attention of new home buyers — and sellers too! Reassess your marketing — add appropriate electronic and print campaigns to find leads in niche areas you may have dropped in the recent past. This spring’s real estate market could be a different one than in the past. Are you ready?