All Forum Posts by: Rachel Rendall

@Amber Barger, posting once a day or every other day is a great start. If you can get 6-8 weeks of posts lined up, you can run them through a cycle a couple times. Different people will see it, or people that have seen it may click on the article after seeing it a second time. And if you're posting blog articles, make sure they're from your website and your website is linked to your Facebook page...posting your own stuff automatically gets shown to more people versus sharing from someone else's page/site. Same goes for pics and videos. There's a great book called "Contagious" by Jonah Berger which goes through a lot of organic social media stuff and how to create a consistent online presence. Good luck!!

Absolutely, Ivan, happy to help. And yeah, being booted at the beginning is better than thinking an ad goes through and two days later you find crazy ad costs and then it gets canned 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️  If you’ve got an ad that won’t go through and need help troubleshooting, I’d be happy to take a look and see if I have any pointers to get you on the right track. 

Oh man. I understand WHY you’d want to, but don’t do it! There could be ramifications for your actions down the road, and it’s bringing you down to their level. At some point—They’ll have to explain to their last tenancy to their next landlord, hopefully, and you’ll be able to warn them when they call you. If you need to vent, maybe type everything up, or write whatever you would to “publicly shame them”, save the doc, read it the next day, and then trash it. Sometimes just getting it all out there on paper is helpful, even if no one else ever sees it. Then make your peace and move on—you’re above revenge! Sorry again for the crappy situation you’re in. Sounds like a nightmare.

Does the author or the book itself have an existing FB/insta page? Newsfeed/feed ads can work really well, and you can definitely run sales through a call to action button, but it takes some work to build up trust with an audience before getting to a sale. Totally doable.

Definitely a good idea! And your idea of offering value FIRST before going after potential leads is right on target. You can even do small promoted posts with valuable articles to get your stuff seen by a wider audience. Even $3-5/day with an engagement post can make a huge difference over time in building an audience/following, and possibly even build an e-mail list that way. Provide value enough times and later people will remember :-D 

In general, you stick language that won't get you in trouble with fair housing laws, you should be fine. Can't say things like "great for families". That chapter of Brandon Turner's book on Property Management/Landlording talks about how to advertise your rental is a good starting point (I'm sure there are other awesome resources, that's just sort of my go-to at the moment). 

However, FB (and instagram, by extension, since ads are on the same platform) sometimes isn't as quick to pick up on real estate issues, I've noticed, as it is for things like fitness related. Say the phrase "fat loss" and your ad will get canned for offensiveness several steps before the submit button LOL. But it's always good to play by the rules, nonetheless :-D 

@Matt C. absolutely happy to help! Especially a fellow Texan :-D 

I understand the market craziness. We had a house in Fate (east of Rockwall) that I have kicked myself for not keeping...almost double valued since 2010. 

Matt--what campaign objectives are you using on Facebook, if you don't mind me asking? I see you mentioned boosting posts, but perhaps you're using a different objective but just using that terminology? On the off chance you are using that, I'd stay as far away from boost post as possible, it's like tossing money down the drain. It sounds like you may be doing something different since you have a CTA. 

Videos can be successful on insta/facebook, but keep it short, and make sure you add captioning. Something like 85% of videos are watched without sound, so it will really improve who actually watches it. If you have a longer message, maybe doing something like a 3 part video series? 

Images--what types of images are you using for your ads? FB favors people in images, so if you're doing a house heavy picture, consider how you can incorporate more faces. 

Just a few random things that may help! Good luck!

PS--how's the RE market in Wylie these days? I used to private tutor out that ways some times circa 2007-2012, and I've heard it's just exploded. 

Is your broker also giving you seller listings? Or is this exclusively to advertise for buyer leads? I agree that FB ads may be a good idea and Jake nailed it with the wait and see approach. It does take a while to optimize your target audience. If you do go that route—Do you already have a business FB page? FB runs better with ads if you’ve got a good amount of organic posting and likes on your page. So you may want to work on that first. Secondly, seller listings are cheaper to run to get good results. Buyer leads take more money (maybe 4 times as much sometimes more) and in general, require more social trust. If your broker will give you a listings/houses for sale to post that’s the best way to start. If you have to go buyer leads—expect it to cost more and you’ll want to create a couple “lead magnets” like free “how to sell in 5 easy steps your house guide” or “Inexpensive upgrades for a huge ROI on house sale price” or something like that to incentive people to fork over they’re information or like your page. Best of luck to you and congrats on the free advertising money!

Originally posted by @Mark Sewell:

Please understand I am just starting to make my own way through this journey myself, so I do not wish to come off as some of subject matter expert -- just gleaning what I can get from those that are doing it successfully.  Definitely open to suggestions, as I am trying to create and refine a process as I go.

Not unlike direct mail ads, you get to pick who gets the ad.  Why advertise to people who don't have equity and/or live in areas where you don't want to buy?  Of course, there is no guarantee here that they will 'open' your ad and read it.  So you might still want to call and tough them again later, using other forms of marketing.   They say folks need to see you 7-10 times, something like that, so this is another way to touch them.  Tom C runs mail campaigns, Max does not mail anything ever. 

As I grow I'll build out better, more robust processes, to hit these same folks with RVM and email campaigns, and not just FB ads and direct mail.  I actually don't want to do much direct mail, just letters for probate and maybe some postcards to tired landlords.

Video clips, short ones, are 'probably' a little more effective, at least to start.  Then you create another audience consisting only of those that viewed your short video clips.  Gradually move them from being 'problem aware' to 'solution aware' to making them understand why they ought to work with you.  Show them what you have done, that you aren't just some guy out mailing ads, that you actually do buy houses -- or whatever your message is.

I am running a targeted ad right now.  10 clicks have cost me about $37, that's on 272 video views (as of this writing).  Only been running 3 days or so.  Next will be time to hit them again (based on engagement or video views) to build some credibility, let them know something about me personally, to make them feel comfortable in reaching out.  Working on those ads now.

In the meantime, I am ditching my existing site, as all these leads are just being poured out into nothing currently.  Totally not converting, so I need something better. I might just go with FB lead forms, in fact, as least for the interim while I'm making the transition.

 Mark--what do you mean by ditching your existing site? Website or FB page? And for your ad, do you mean to say that people are filling out their information for you (leads), but you're having trouble with the conversion (sale/close), or is it that people are seeing the ad and clicking, but not filling out their information? I'd be happy to look at the ad and stats you have and give you some feedback. We might be able to pinpoint where people are dropping off and see if a small change could improve the results down the funnel. 

FB lead forms are great and TBH, some audiences like staying in FB rather than to be taken through click-funnels (or whatever the squeeze site is) from a conversion campaign, so it definitely worth a try.