Comments on: Facebook Fan Pages – I Love Me, Will You Love Me Too?

By: Eric Hempler

Eric Hempler — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:36:11 +0000

A fan page should really be a watered down version of your website. Something basic enough that you can utilize the FBML on a facebook page tab that will show something of a preview of your website. I’ve found a few I really like and would like to do that at some point. For now I’ll try to provide content that may get traffic to my site and perhaps clients.

By: Tobias Kaiser

Tobias Kaiser — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:07:20 +0000

Matthew, just found your comment through speakingofrealestate – you expressed my queasy feelings about fan pages short and sweet. Practically all fan page requests I receive make me cringe to begin with, so why do I want to jump in then and create one myself?

My personal FB page, which started out for friends only, now has over 50% business contacts. Arrrrgh. I am (or was) considering moving them to a fan page, a second profile or over to LinkedIn. But then your expression of a “narcissism page” hit the nail on the head, so it sank a misguided idea like a torpedo. Thank you for saying what I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

By: Brad Nix

Brad Nix — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:52:38 +0000

I still love me some me (and some Lani too).

Matt – the fact that you have this conversation adds so much value to the real estate community. The pros and cons are all displayed and it lets individual agents decide on which side of the track their brand should play.

Thanks!

By: Matthew Rathbun

Matthew Rathbun — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:43:03 +0000

Karen,

All of what you say would be fine, if it wasn’t for the natural and overwhelming inclination of agents to abuse any tools they are given.

There are lots of good and healthy ways to build SEO that don’t involve the need for me to spam my “friends”.

With the large number of Facebook Fan pages, it’s only a matter of time before Google starts moving them out of the algorithms. IMHO.

By: Karen Rice

Karen Rice — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:41:33 +0000

Judy – re: vanity urls – the ones that were available recently to everyone were the ones for our profiles, not for your pages.

By: tomferry

tomferry — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:36:37 +0000

Karen- I hear what you are saying!

By: Karen Rice

Karen Rice — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:32:51 +0000

Here’s my take on it, if anyone is interested. I know that most of you who are “dead set against” this won’t agree, but oh well.

Facebook pages are SEO friendly, or so I have been told. Unlike people’s profi les that are protected/hidden, the pages are crawled by Search Engines, which makes them a good thing to have for your business.

Being a “fan” on facebook is merely a more casual relationship than being a “friend.” Being a fan of a page is just a way for users to give a page a virtual thumbs up. Nobody is going to hold you to it, I highly doubt that many people look to see who the other fans are on a page.

This is facebook’s fault for upping the ante on the required number of fans for a page to have a vanity URL. Previously it was 1,000. Then they dropped it to 25. Then for some crazy reason at the 11th hour, they jumped it to 100, making it nearly impossible for pages with humble fans like mine (I had about 30 fans, I believe) to qualify.

It’s just a matter of helping one another out, when you get down to it. Unfortunately, a lot of real estate agents are of the lone ranger frame of mind – “why should I help you? what benefit does it have to me?”

Well, shucks. It has the benefit that you helped someone else meet a benchmark to obtain something they wanted, that would only have taken a couple of minutes to comply with. Interestingly, I responded to about 15 “fan” requests yesterday, and only gained about 3 or 4 fans myself.

Nice. I still don’t have my vanity URL. Sure, I could pay $10 a year for GoDaddy and re-direct it. Never mind that search engines don’t like redirected URLs as much as standard ones.

I’ve always believed in the adage “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

It’s no different than connecting with people you don’t know in real life on LinkedIn.

Go ahead, be a lone ranger. That’s what social networking is ALL about, isn’t it?