Facebook groups offer huge benefits for real estate agents when they are correctly utilized.

By Peter Ricci

When the terms “real estate” and “Facebook” are combined, they are often done so in the name of attracting new clients. By creating a Facebook profile, you are expanding your brand and advertising your listings and your company to millions of new customers. But what about the existing clients and fellow agents that form your inner circle? Is there a way to use the popular social medium for them? For those individuals, you can consider creating a Facebook group.

Facebook Groups and Real Estate

At first, a Facebook group may seem unnecessary; after all, if you have a profile, by bother creating a group? It’s just more white noise amongst the dense Facebook landscape, isn’t it? Well, not exactly, for a number of reasons:

1. Convenient, Contained Communication – It’s enormously easy to communicate with clients and colleagues when they’re part of a Facebook group. Though email and the general Facebook profile pages are great ways to transmit information, keep in mind that your contacts are receiving endless amounts of information from all the other Facebook profiles and email addresses they follow. In a Facebook group, though, that’s not a problem, as anything that’s posted is contained within the group.

2. Organized Messages – Because of its more private nature, Facebook groups can be a great way to send specific messages. Though you may be posting listings and other announcements on your Facebook profile, they’ll stand out a bit more within a group, and furthermore, groups can be a great place to let clients/colleagues know about events and parties that you’re hosting.

3. Interaction – Finally, Facebook groups are a great way to interact with your clients. Facebook’s chat program has made considerable strides in recent years, and with groups, you can start group chats that allow you to communicate with numerous users. For instance, you could host a live Q&A with clients where you answer their questions about real estate; or maybe host a town hall format, and chat with group members about cool new trends and developments. With such effortless interaction, there are many approaches to take.

So, with all that in mind, visit the Facebook groups page and create a group! One final point: You can choose the privacy settings of a group when creating it, from public, meaning anyone and everyone can join, to “closed,” where non-members can see the group and who’s in it, but can’t automatically join, unless invited, and “secret” groups, which do not appear anywhere on your profile. It’s all a matter of preference, really, and how exclusive you’d like your group to be.