Top 8 Facebook Facts Every Real Estate Agent Must Know. It’s Hurting Social Media

When it comes to social media platforms there is no One Size Fits All. Each has their own systems and algorithms. 

Each platform is designed to filter content and sort content. You Tube has the capability to flag and detect billions of songs and sound clips that are copyrighted and flagging videos for infringements. Some platforms are able to spot and deny access or distribution of links and websites that appear to be spam.

Facebook has a very sophisticated  filtering system. Facebook can detect incoming posts from 3rd party Apps or posting platforms that are hyper-automated with large volumes of content be widely and heavily spread across social channels.   The algorithms are designed to spot, filter and detect content or over automated content coming in from sites like Hootsuite, Post Planner, Sprout Social, Buffer and a host of others. These automated platforms are distributing billions of pieces of content to all of the social sites. Facebook can detect this and Facebook knows where each post originates from.

These 3rd party apps usage are resulting in a 89.9 % less engagement in the Facebook news feed according to a study by BuzzSumo who did a study on 500 Million posts.  Quoted by Mari Smith. (video) https://youtu.be/Lp3mrWD61ys

Facebook now gives preference in the news feed to videos that are natively uploaded versus sharing a video with a You Tube link. Facebook and Google like original content and t

Using automation for content distribution via an outside App, 3rd party poster or platform can actually reduce the viral reach of the content.

You know that cute little Ripil App that makes animated videos? Realtors everywhere are hooked on it. It shares the created video product from its 3rd party App to Facebook. Have you ever noticed that Ripil posts never get engagement? It’s true. Every post around it can have a like or two, but not the Ripil post.

I really prefer to post all of my content natively to Facebook. It seems easier and faster to use automation, but in the long run it will not benefit you.

Here are some statistics to prove this and back up this claim. I am sharing 8 facts that I think are a must for Real Estate Agents to know.

Seven of them are from one source and the last one is from The Next Web.

Business.com posted an article written by Mari Smith: Take a look at these statistics.

Business.com  – Article By Mari Smith –  CREDIT SOURCE 

https://www.business.com/articles/how-third-party-apps-affect-facebook-reach/

1.TIME OF POST- The time of day can make a huge difference in the engagement your post receives. In this above referenced story late night posting yields nearly 90% more engagement than that posted during the day. Read the story to find the best times. PS: You’d be surprised how many people are up on Facebook at this time of the night!

2. IMAGES  Are you posting more text content or images? It has been proven that visuals such as images get nearly 200% more engagement than text posts. Check out the link above. 

3. QUESTIONS text posts with questions or ending with a questions get over 150% more engagement than a post that merely makes a statement.

4. VIDEOS Yes, video content is king. Videos are the most shared post on all social media platforms, with “89.5 average Facebook shares” according to the facts in the study provided above.

5. DAY OF WEEK Are you posting Monday – Friday from 9 AM – 5 PM because you think that’s when people are active? Wrong. Most people are busiest during those hours and are on social media nights and weekends. The study in the link above shows that posts published on Sunday get 0ver 50%  more interactions than posts on the other days of the week.

6. LONGER TEXT POSTS Do you ever feel like writing a little longer post with no image?  A text post with no visuals that have 150-200 characters performed the best, averaging nearly 250 shares.

7. LINK TO LONG CONTENT If you post a short intro and link to an outside blog or text article (2000+ words) these posts receive 40 percent more interactions than linking to a shorter piece of material. A lot of people think that writing shorter blog posts and putting out more of them are better. That has been proven wrong.

So many of my clients are absolutely stuck on using a large number of hashtags (at least 5-8) and I tell them that it does not help the organic or viral reach. Here is the data source to back up this information.

Hash tags (#) and “@” symbols are appropriate on the platforms where they are useful such as Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms, but incorporating them into your posts is not good.  Facebook again causes a reduction in reach of posts that use these symbols.  

Here is data to back up this claim of reduced reach because of using hashtags on Facebook.

8. Study: Hashtags are a turn-off on Facebook, reducing the viral reach of posts

• (The next Web Source) CREDIT SOURCE  https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2013/09/03/study-hashtags-are-a-turn-off-on-facebook-reducing-the-viral-reach-of-posts/#.tnw_wVDyuP9J

Real Estate agents use hashtags like crazy. I see posts with 6+ and they aren’t even the right hashtags. Most of them are senseless.

I am going to use BuzzSumo  again as a data proof source. A 2016 report from BuzzSumo, (http://buzzsumo.com/blog/how-to-improve-facebook-engagement-insights-from-1bn-posts/) which analyzed more than a billion Facebook posts from over 30 million brand Pages, came to exactly the same conclusion – posts without hashtags generated more reach than those with tags added.

Another authority offers this important data: As noted in research by Socialbakers, (http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2126-the-ultimate-guide-to-hashtags) the use of more hashtags leads to significantly less engagement on Facebook. You can follow both of these links and see charts.

I encourage to begin using content that you can natively post to Facebook. If you love the Ripil product then you can create the Ripil video, save it to your iphone, then email it to yourself, download it and then natively upload it to Facebook as a video. That is a lot of work.

Creating content is work. 3rd party apps are designed to help with the work load, but it comes with  a price that’s not worth it. Your social engagement is very valuable.

Shelley Costello