5 Tips for Turning Friends Into Fans

As a real estate agent, you should not be using your personal page for work-you should have a business page. Do not mix apples with oranges. (There are many reasons for this, which we will get into in another post.)

But now you have a problem. Your personal page has many friends, and your new business page has none.

Would you like some easy techniques for converting your Facebook profile "friends" over to "fans" of your business page?

I have to be honest: there is no foolproof way to move your friends over to your page. There are a few things you can try, and I list them below. However, I would rather you spend more time developing your page-the content, the engagement, your list-growing strategy, etc-than concentrating too hard on your personal friends. I understand that if you are growing a Facebook page you want to build your fan base quickly, and it makes sense to start with the friends on your profile since they seem to have an interest in what you are doing. It sounds logical, although it doesn't happen in the way we think it should.

One thing you might want to ask yourself is if the friends you have on your profile care about your real estate business. Some of them, maybe. All of them? I highly doubt it. You may be thinking "But everybody is a potential referral!" That is true, and you can let people know about your real estate business on your personal page. But doing type-targeting posting and marketing could be very excessive to somebody who just wants to be your friend.

To be more direct, some of your profile friends will get very annoyed hearing about your business with the type of regularity that would be appropriate for people following your real estate page.

This is why don't want you to spend too much time worrying about moving friends to fans. With that being said, here are those tips.

1. Make sure that you link your profile and your page.
This one may seem obvious, but the least you can do is have a link to your professional page easily visible on your personal page.

2. Promote the page for a short time via the personal page.
Start a campaign where you are actively promoting your page on your profile. This means telling people that you are now posting regularly on your Facebook page about your real estate career. Say that you would love for them to come over and become a fan. Make sure you tell them to click "like" on your page to become a fan. Give them an action, so you can actually stay in touch with them in the newsfeed. Do this for a week or two-that should be enough to create the awareness without annoying everyone.

4. Accept that good things are not free.
If you have a Facebook page with fewer than 500 fans, I'm sure that you want to grow that Facebook fan base quickly. One strategy that may be much more powerful than moving your friends to your page is to use with Facebook "Like" ads. I would spend two weeks running a "Like" ad campaign. With approximately $100-$200, you could grow your fan base by a few hundred fans quickly.
Once you get to 500 fans, that's considered a good following. That's when I would redirect my focus. I would stop focusing on expanding your fan base and worrying about your friends coming over to your page, and instead concentrate on turning fans into leads so you can get buyers and listings.

5. They are your friends; be honest.
If they are truly your friends, they will understand what you are trying to do. If you treat them like a random person, they will be annoyed. Trust that they want to support you, and be straightforward. You can post or even make a sign in your image saying "I am starting a page to help my career; I would love it if you guys followed me and helped me reach my goals."

I hope that helps! Til next time, remember your clients are right in front of you on the computer.