Let’s face it… it seems as if every Real Estate Agent in town has jumped on the Facebook bandwagon. “Social Networking is the wave of the future,” “Real Estate transactions will be made on Facebook,” “If you don’t use Facebook, you’ll lose a lot of business.” Messages like these are deceiving and are leading agents to waste a lot of time that would be much better spent on other avenues to grow their business, like PROSPECTING. I wanted to share with you what I think are the top 3 mistakes Real Estate Agents are making using Facebook.

Mistake #1: Adding Too Many Friends

facebook-friends-32It’s no surprise that people generally have the idea that “more” is better. When you were younger, the coolest person in school was the person who had the most friends, right? Also, kids who had few friends were categorized as losers or “un-cool”. Naturally this concept has transferred to the virtual word. Unfortunately, it’s a myth that will take up time, rather than save you some.

Have you ever heard of the expression, “you need to dig through the dirt to find the gold”? By adding everyone and anyone in your Facebook network, you are basically adding more dirt that you will need to dig through. Think about it like this… If you add a lot of people to your network and other people add a lot of people to their network, and then those people add a bunch of people to their networking… where does it end? What that means is that your audience is filled with unqualified people. The bottom line is that expanding your “friend” base this way really isn’t effective. It’s probably as effective as sending out 10,000 mailers. Quality is much better than quantity.

Mistake #2: Separating Business from Pleasure

A challenge with a Facebook profile is that everything you post ends up becoming public. Your appearance online has an extremely powerful impact on how people perceive you. Ultimately, your profile can decide whether or not someone does business with you.

Expressing how much fun you had this weekend is great, but talking about how drunk you were is obviously not professional. Pictures of you and your friends are perfectly fine, but a picture of you being rowdy and obnoxious, simply doesn’t cut it.

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Imagine if you were selling your home and you found a picture of a real estate agent you were interviewing partying or heavily drinking, would you feel comfortable with choosing them? Your Facebook profile has evolved into a visual resume.

You have two options to separate business from pleasure. You can either create 2 profiles, one for business and another for pleasure or you can simply stop posting things online which jeopardize your professionalism. Since maintaining two profiles can be a bit challenging and more than likely a waste of time, I suggest you choose the second option.

Mistake #3: All business

Do some of the friends you have on Facebook constantly market themselves and their listings? For example, someone posts, “I have a listing on 123 Primrose Lane, the price is just right and the property is great shape, anyone interested?” Imagine if every Real Estate Agent did that. No one wants to add someone to their network who solely promotes their own listings and sales. Most of your clients don’t want to see a bunch of self-advertisement on their Facebook home page either. The second they get annoyed, all they need to do is simply click the “Hide” button and they won’t see any of your updates again. If you become “that Real Estate Agent,” your profile will become meaningless and when you actually have useful or relevant information to post, no one’s going to see it.

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To those of you who have a large list of friends, have you ever considered how many of your so-called “Friends” pressed the “hide” button?

The purpose of your Facebook isn’t to add a lot of friends, exploit your personal life, or market yourself, your Facebook should be used to make connections with prospects who may do business with you, people who can help you develop and grow and agents in other areas whom you may be able to refer business to.

Have you made any of the mistakes I listed above? What are you doing with your Facebook profile that you have found effective and powerful? How might you change what you’re doing on Facebook to make it a more effective tool for you?