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!

Google explains the change best with:

“Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search.”

Read more: Official Google Blog: Search, plus Your World

While Social Network integration is still very much in it’s infancy, it is quickly becoming the future and we must all watch it unfold to stay ahead of the game. Here are some tips on what to look out for and how to build your Social Network data now:

1. Google+ will obviously align with Google’s search while Facebook results will be pushed farther down the rankings. The vice versa will occur with Microsoft’s Facebook-aligned search engine Bing. This will make it important for people to have multiple Social Network accounts so they can achieve high rankings on each search engine – and, in turn, reach the most amount of people possible.
2. Start posting relevant content now! It will take time for Social Search to mature and you’ll want to be on the frontlines when it does. Start thinking about how to make your Social Network postings and shares more relevant to the search results you’d like them associated with. Also, the greater amount of content on your Social Networks the better.
3. Social Search is going to level the playing field by allowing you to leapfrog SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Today, you must compete with highly paid and resourced SEO experts to rank high on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). In the near future, instead of writing articles that have to work their way up to the front page in traditional search, you can instead have your content displayed at the top of the SERP using your preferred Social Network. Keep writing great, focused and relevant content and sharing those articles and posts on Social Networks. The content you contribute will ultimately end up being displayed, allowing other people to find your content and connect with you.

As Social Search matures, Real Estate Rainmaker will keep you in the loop with the latest important updates. Stay tuned!

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

Social media marketing — including Twitter and Facebook — are still evolving as more businesses move into the mix and start engaging with their customers and would-be customers.

Companies that have taken a step forward and crafted their own style and method of communicating with — and getting the attention of — customers are the stand out winners.  (Think of local restaurants that do more than send out coupons but build a community of fans, national retailers that promptly address questions and concerns on their pages and grow their reputation, other businesses that encourage interaction on their page and make shopping fun.)  They’ve taken a creative stand to make the medium their own and turned it into success with interacting with customers — and often getting some free publicity along the way too.

As you get involved with Facebook, study what other companies — and colleagues — are doing with their pages.  See what gets — and keeps — home buyers and sellers interested.  Using Facebook, how do you get people to “like” you, how do you keep them liking you and how do you get them to refer business to you long after you’ve helped them sell or buy a house?

Don’t be afraid to take a chance and try something a little different on your Facebook page.   You might just stand out from the crowd!

In your experience, what companies “do” Facebook right?

Never fear, Google still ranks #1 with 970 million unique visitors that same month and Microsoft is #2 with 869 million.

Facebook is  a hugely popular site, attracting more and more visits on an on-going basis.  It’s where advertising is moving to get some of these visitors’ attention.  Are you advertising on Facebook yet?

To look at Facebook historically, their swift rise in traffic is evidenced by their overtaking the following sites:

• MySpace,  April 2008
• Amazon, August 2008
• eBay, January 2009
• AOL, February 2009
• Wikipedia, August 2009
• Yahoo, November 2010

Facebook is beyond a fad.  If you aren’t on Facebook and your business isn’t on Facebook, you’re leaving lots and lots of potential business behind.

If Facebook were to take over Microsoft or even Google’s top spot in terms of unique monthly visitors, when do you think that will happen?

If you look even casually at what you are sharing, it’s most likely content.

What the content is can vary — photos, stats, articles, blog posts, etc.  However, it’s all content.  The sharing of information quickly and efficiently with those looking for it.

If you have nothing to share, you can’t really participate in social media, or can you?  Just a simple hi or hello doesn’t cut it.  You are sharing thoughts, facts, opinions and information in the community.  You’re encouraging interaction and seeking response.

What do you share in social media?

• Friday posts get the most engagement on Facebook. (Everyone’s ready for the work week to be over and is more likely to be playing online?) Friday posts are 64% more effective than Sunday and 13% more effective than posting on Saturday.
• However, Friday posts are only 7% more effective than Monday posts and only 3% more effective than Tuesday and Thursday posts.

Weekday posts on Facebook are more likely to activate your fans or people who like your page to action. Don’t save up your posts, links and updates. Keep a regular stream going to encourage interactivity every day of the week.

What have you learned about the activity on your Facebook page?

What you post is important, but what format you post it in is even more vital.

They found:

• Image posts (photos) got over 22% more engagement than video posts.
• Photos got over 54% more engagement than text-only posts.
• However, videos got over 27% more engagement than text-only posts.

Text is interesting, but photos and videos simply grab viewers’ attention. In addition to commenting on the photos and videos, they have more share power and are likely to be passed on to another person or group.

Photos likely do better than videos at grabbing attention more effectively as they are quick to view. Videos can often require a longer time commitment and viewing them successfully or in their entirety can often be difficult.

What do you do on your Facebook page — besides text-only status updates — to engage viewers?

The key takeaway if you want more engagement on your Facebook posts is to put them out there before noon. In the survey, posts before noon got 65% more engagement that posts after noon. And, posts on Friday got the most activity whereas those on Saturday and Sunday got the least.

Let us know what your Facebook observations have been in terms of getting those who “like” you to start conversations and comment.

If you’re active on Twitter, you likely have people who follow your tweets. Everytime a new follower shows up, what do you do? If you click to look on their Twitter profile, that’s the start. Look over their profile — are they a consumer or a colleague or someone else, are they in your local area, what are their tweets about and who do they tweet with most often? (Is anyone you know mentioned or replied to in their tweet stream?)

Their profile likely also includes a website address. Go visit it. Find out more about this person (or entity). As you read and peruse, think of ways that you can work together. And, if you find the obvious connections that can begin the relationship, send them a private message on Twitter or email them from their website. Start the conversation and make the most of your social networking.

Same methodology goes for your business fan/follower page on Facebook. Click on new fan’s profile. See if you can tell anything about them from what elements of their public profile are accessible. Are they connected to any other fans or one of your friends? Google them if you have the time. See if you can find a connection with this fan as well to start the conversation.

It takes time, but the connections you collect online can turn into business if you put a little effort into it. Don’t be afraid to reach out to new fans, friends or followers. Everyone is a person behind their avatar. You can find out with a little research how you can develop a relationship to lead to more business.

How do you handle new contacts in social media?