We Discuss Facebook Groups & How To Use Facebook Live Video in 2020

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We have a deep dive in the first half of the show into how you the real estate agent should be using your local Facebook groups as a totally free and powerful tool to market yourself in your local community. Then in the second half show, we talk about how you should be doing Facebook live videos to promote yourself in your local community, and it’s almost totally free and with Facebook groups an amazing guerrilla marketing tool that will work for you in 2020!

Jonathon: So this is episode 249. It’s going to be an internal discussion between me and one great cohost Robert Newman. We’re going to be discussing the importance of Facebook groups. And how you can use your own Facebook page and get loads of local activity on your page for free. And also going to be talking about how to use Facebook Live as a marketing tool, to build up your personal brand in your local area. So Robert, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?

Robert: I would love to. So my name is Robert Newman. I am a blogger, a real estate marketing tech founder. I blog about other real estate technologies and pull back the curtain on how effective they are, who they’re effective for. You can find all that out at inboundrem.com. And I’ve been doing it for 13 years.

Jonathon: And I’m the founder of Mail Right. We’ve been around for the bars five years. We basically use the power of Facebook to get you quality leads and much, much more. If that sounds interesting, go to the Mail Right website book a free demo, go to the about us page book, a free demo with me. And I can show you how Mail Right can help you become a more profitable real estate agent. And that sounds great. Doesn’t it? So let’s go into it. Facebook groups, what knowledge have you got to give to our beloved listeners and viewers Robert?

Robert: You disabled screen-sharing. For this show, I’d like you to activate it.

Jonathon: I didn’t disabled. It’s a new feature with zoom to it more secure, I’ve got click to give you access.

Robert: Okay. All right.

Jonathon: I would not do that. I do not plan to do that at all.

Robert: Okay. Can you see my screen?

Jonathon: I can.

Robert: Okay. So for those of you who are listening, I’m going to walk you through what we’re talking about. So John and I had a guest this morning and unfortunately, that guest had an emergency. And John had two minutes to tell me, hey, we’re going to do a show, just the two of us. And he’s like, what do you want to talk about? And the funny thing was, I really wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have anything to talk about. And I was looking at my screen, realized that what I was looking at was the Facebook group that I belong to.

I belong to the Y Loco success community. And upon my screen, I had some numbers that the founder of the company had shared with his group. And when I thought about it, I was like, you know what? I spend an awful lot of time in Facebook groups. And one of my most successful clients talks consistently about sharing his personal videos, his family and lifestyle videos inside Facebook groups. And while nobody’s going to be really engaged in every single platform that you decide to work on, some of you use Facebook, some of the people listening to this show use Facebook. And for those people, if you’re realtors and you probably are because you’re listening to this show, then you really want to think about where are you spending your time and maybe leveraging a little bit differently.

The way that the client that I have leveraged is Facebook without really taking any of his extra time is when he does family videos that are kind of mundane. Like he had a video of a bonfire out in the backyard during COVID. Any shared it to all of his Facebook groups, which included by the way about five that he considers being relevant for real estate. And you might be wondering, how do you find Facebook groups that are relevant to real estate? And here’s what he did for those.

Jonathon: Are these kinds of local groups around?

Robert: You’re stealing my thunder here. I’m about to show. So what he did, what you do is so he’s in Middletown Delaware. And when you look at what, so I just searched on Facebook, that simple term, Middletown, Delaware. And John’s looking at it right now. And now you get some groups, you get the city, which is up here. And you get the village community, which is right here. 506 members, five posts a day. And of course this is my client in Middletown. So he’s also belongs to another Middletown group. And let’s just look at Middletown Delaware news.

Jonathon: You’ll be able to watch this. If you want to go and watch and listen, you can go to the Mail Right YouTube channel. And it will be up. I normally posts that first actually, but you’ll be able to see this and all of the other stuff if you want to.

Robert: Correct. So here’s another interesting thing. The Middletown transcript is what would be considered a hyper-local paper. Super small, little paper that very few people would pay attention to. However, on Facebook, this is a wildly powerful place to start looking. Now, this isn’t a group, it’s a page. So we’re talking about groups, but guess what? When we like this page, when we go to this page, oftentimes little papers like this do allow you to post on their page for free. It has 14,000 people that like it. Middletown is only a town of about 45,000. So when you start looking at how many people in Middletown, pretty much every adult that lives in Middletown has liked this page. This means that when you post to this page, you have a very good shot at getting in front of the 70% of the people in Middletown that have a Facebook page. And you can do all that without spending any money. My favorite part of the strategy. Now that’s a page strategy, but what the other one is.

Jonathon: I think what you’ve got to clarify here, though, is what you would post on that page. I personally wouldn’t post the latest house that I’ve got to sell on the market. It would be like that bonfire video that your client posted. That’s the type of stuff you post or do you disagree?

Robert: Excellent question. But I’m going to stick with the thread that I started here.

Jonathon: He’s not going to allow me to do what I did to him last week.

Robert: So forgive me guys, because you can’t see this, but when you’re doing a search on Facebook, for those of you that have tuned in, in YouTube, you’re going to see a whole bunch of categories. Or as people meet in me and technology and John as well, they’re really filters. They’re just filtering out your searches for you. And so one of the filters is groups. And I wasn’t even using the groups filter yet. So I’ve now started to use the group filter. And if I do Middletown and take out the news, cause I just did the same search in the group. If I just do Middletown Delaware and I do groups. Now you get to see the power of groups in Middletown. Because there’s many of them and you can see how many posts a day are taking place. Like when you see 1,100 posts, even though it’s a flea market, that’s an interesting thing.

That’s people buying and selling stuff in Middletown. Obviously John is correct about content. You’re not going to put your homes there. However, when you see mot residents, Middletown village, Middletown, Delaware connection, Middletown township, the Middletown business, every single one of these groups would be relevant for a realtor. Every single one. There’s no one in here that it wouldn’t be like a perspective place for you to join your community on Facebook. So that’s groups, that’s how to find them and you should be able to use them. So this is Middletown, this is my client. Delaware is not what most of us would consider being a major Metro area. So what if you’re like me and you live in Los Angeles County? Well, I live in Van Nuys, which is a very, very small section of Los Angeles.

But you can see here that there are still groups, not as many, by the way. Middletown is a better place to actually for Facebook than Van Nuys. Because LA doesn’t have the same sense of community that smaller cities and towns do. So you’re going to have to get a little bit more creative. All of these groups that I have our buy sell and trade groups. And these probably aren’t great for real estate. So, and I know you guys can’t see this, some of you that are listening to the show. So I’m looking at a list of groups that is not necessarily the very best thing for real estate. Cause it’s a lot of like flea markets and trade kind, that kind of thing. And then there’s a group called cruising Van Nuys Boulevard. That doesn’t sound very appealing to me.
Jonathon: What’s your advice about what kind of groups that a local agent should be looking at joining?

Robert: So I think that in bigger cities. So definitely all groups related to the community and Middletown is a very active community. An interesting thing, John, is that if you’re lucky enough to live in the South, like Texas, I know for a fact that there are lots of communities that are surrounding football in Texas. That’s just an example. I’m hoping that you, as a local in whatever area that you’re in, like if you’re in Reno, I would imagine that some of the community activities that are going to be related to water sports. So you get involved in what the community is involved in.

Jonathon: Well, there’s when it comes to Reno. And I think this would apply is that obviously there’s a lot of hiking. So there are a lot of groups about hiking. There are a lot of groups about ski. But also in August there’s a lot of events like there are the balloon races, there are the hot August nights. And there’s also in August, something called art town. That’s been running for a number of years, which is an organization, a nonprofit organization that sets up various art events. But actually the Facebook community runs for the whole year. And there are a lot of those of monthly events. And that’s the type of thing I think you should be trying to look at to join as a real estate agent.

I think that’s a good idea. And I think that I found an answer you kind of have to do for those of you who are watching, have to do what I just did, which is you go down the list and you see what you think would apply. So in Van Nuys, there’s a channel about small businesses and there’s a channel about events. And all of those I think are relevant for real estate. Just basically you want to be part of your community. And at the heart of it guys, every single one of you that is listening, no exceptions, you’re an independent business owner. Even those of you that is lucky to have salaries. You’re all independent business owners, every single one of you. So don’t think that you can’t join small business groups because you can and you should. Now John wanted to talk a little bit about Facebook live. I could spend a lot more time talking about groups. I think they’re an amazing way to connect with your community online.

Jonathon: I would say you find a lot of groups. You find groups about art, you know architecture, that’s a definite to join depending on the area that you live in. You find groups that talked about restaurants and eating out. Now there’s some definitely you want to join there. They’re normally in most areas. When you do a search, like there’s normally a half a dozen that you can, that are non brainer that you should join. Isn’t there Robert.

Robert: Yeah. And there are of course real estate groups too. So I wasn’t sticking with the super traditional ideas, but I just did the search for those of you who are watching and listening. I did a search called Van Nuys real estate, and I’m getting a group run by landcentury.com that has 4,800 posts today. So it’s probably people posting listings for buyers to look at, but that’s a lot of activity in that group. So there are lots of groups related specifically to real estate. And I don’t know if there’s going to be any buyers in that group. Not really, but I still don’t think it’s a bad idea to connect with local real estate agents, trade referrals, things like that.

I know a lot of agents that get referrals off of active rain, which is just a blogging platform for realtors. And you would think, Oh, I’m not going to get any business. But a lot of agents that I talked to get two or three transactions a year, because they’re getting referrals from other bloggers that they know on active reign or other real estate agents. So actually it does generate business for like most of the agents that are active on it.

Jonathon: And just to finish off before we go for our break. Is how I would personally is resisted posting straight away. You know you find a group and I think to actually post straightway. I actually would advise you not to do that. I would spend a little bit of time and find the groups that have got the mindset. And then just spend a few days actually leading content in those groups. Every group’s got its own kind of fuel. It’s really quite easy just to go into the group and just be slamming some kind of scene. And you would have been better off to spend a few days reading other people’s material. And then making a judgment call about what you’re going to post on that particular group.
Robert: I would definitely agree with that.

Jonathon: We’re going to go for a break. We’re coming back and we will be talking about Facebook live. We will be back in a few moments’ folks.

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Jonathon: We’re coming back. We’ve had a great discussion about Facebook groups. I think that was fantastic what we covered there really. Because it really is a powerful resource and it’s totally free. And a lot of our agents aren’t doing that, what we discussed in the first off. Aren’t they Robert?

Robert: Yes, it’s totally free. They’re not doing it. And I really liked that recommendation, John. My favorite part of that recommendation, the bigger the city, and the harder you have to work. And the harder it is to connect with people that are in the group. I feel because I have a hard time connecting with people online because it’s a huge city and people have their defenses up. It’s just a different feel. Whereas no joke I’ve watched him do this. Ray is getting hundreds of comments from other Middletown residents on pictures of his kids that he’s putting in.

And he’s not trying to market it at all. He’s just saying, Hey, we’re dancing around the fire. And he’s got part of his profile is, Hey, I’m a realtor. So he gets all this activity around him and being a realtor when he’s doing social posts, like personal posts on these groups. That only works in communities that really viewed themselves as a community. And if they do, which tends to be in the smaller places, the South Midwest, certain places here on the West coast, but not like I’m talking like the rural West Coast cities like Salem.

And other places like that, where it’s not as big as Delaney, stuff like that. Like if you’re in any of these smaller communities that definitely viewed themselves as a community, and then you should look on Facebook and see people are talking to each other about what’s happening. Because I think they are. And I think that would be a great way for you to connect with many, many people inside your community for free instantaneously.

Jonathon: Yeah. Well, we’re going to start talking about that was great. Robert, we can now talk about live video. Obviously because of the virus and everything that we’re facing. Being able to do live video conference calls as become a lot more important to people. And also we are probably going to do either episode when we don’t have a guest about what are the best programs to do live conference calls with clients and potential clients. Cause I think that’s probably going to be helpful. But in this part of the second half of the show, I’ll be talking about actually using live video on Facebook to promote your properties that you might be viewing and want to promote. So how do you actually do a live video on Facebook? Well, obviously if you’re using the iPhone and the Facebook app on it, it’s really very easy.

You can do it with the native program. And you can also do the same with the desktop program. Not totally very feature-rich. So you might want to use a third party service. Especially if you might be considering pushing that video to multiple platforms or you just want more control and be able to have more tools and bells and whistles. Now the depending if you’re on Mac or PC one of the most popular free programs that work on Mac and PC is a program called OBS, which is open broadcaster software. Don’t worry. We’ll have the link in the show notes folks. And that’s how you consult tool it’s been around for years. And you probably can use this if you’re going to use your camera on your iPhone or Android. Say you are over wanting to use a webcam or a mirrorless camera, one of the cheaper cameras on the market or a cam recorder.

If you’re looking to go a little bit more professional. Now, obviously, if you’re looking around the house there are still alternatives to actually using your phone. But the modern iPhone now, the 11s has about free cameras on it. And literally the quality is pretty suburb. You’re probably going to need to get a grip. So you can pain around the house that you’re trying to promote without getting too much shake. And you’re probably being better off. One of the things with the iPhone is that it’s backless so it requires Bluetooth. So on the more modern phone, you’re going to get a better picture, but you’re probably going to have to look at a Bluetooth microphone set up. So you get better sound, the sound and recording that you’re going to get from the line of the phone are going to be OK.

Cause you’re inside. Obviously, if you’re outside, it becomes a lot more problematic because you’re going to get a lot of wind and general sound interference. But internally it’s not going to be bad. It’s probably going to be one of the first things that you should be looking at to improve your presentations. Funnily enough, this is sound. So like with the modern iPhone, like I say it’s Bluetooth, phony. Also a lot of people get old iPhone six. And there are a number of sound recording programs that you can put on both. And again, I find the iPhone six takes a Jack. And I use that to record with. Another way you can do it an external camera that allows you to record sound with a Jack. And there are a couple of cheap ones I probably will put in the show notes.

So it’s the most strange. So that’s the strange also discrepancy, but there are a number of reasonable ones, they used to be very expensive Bluetooth external microphones, but they have gone down in price quite a bit, actually Robert. So I’ll put some links in the show notes. So we start off with the sound of your phone. Now if you want to do kind of a presentation like what we’re doing you’re probably you could still use your iPhone and use a stand and you’d probably be fine. And you would use OBS to broadcast. Or depending on what platform you are on there’s a number of tools you could use. But if you’re looking at the Mac I’ve forgotten his name. But the next one up there’s a tool, a software tool that costs about $29 a month.

And I forgot what it’s called, unfortunately. Another one, but I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes and basically it’s around 19. I think they have two levels and I think it’s called D Cam. And it’s really very flexible and they have two versions. And it’s a monthly recurring payment. The basic one, if you’re on a Mac, it will work great. Another one you could look at, that’s very popular on the PC side in the mix. That’s very popular on the PC side. And then there’s some paid hiring, paid ones. There’s one, particularly that comes to mind for the Mac. It’s the same people that do screen flow, which is editing software for the Mac. It’s the same people that do that and it’s around $499.

The price has jumped up quite a bit. But I think if you’re looking not to use the internal phone when you’re mobile, or you can put it on a stand and use it. As long as you, which are totally fine launches? So at the sale, the sand, but if you want to go a little bit higher in picture quality and flexibility, you could either look at OBS Ecam, if you’re on a Mac or the mix if you’re on a PC. That will be my recommendation. And the last recommendation is you can actually use zoom and we use the Zoom. We use a zoom webinar, but if you just use zoom for your video conferencing on the basic program, which is designed for video conferencing rather than webinars. And I and Robert use it for our podcasting because the actual sound quality compared to Skype is a lot better in my opinion. And it’s versatile as a tool when it comes to podcasting. You can use the basic paid program and it will allow you to push to Facebook live. And you’re probably buying it, having to do a lot more virtual conferencing calls anyways. So you can actually use that as your main desktop tool to push to Facebook. How am I doing Robert?

Robert: Good. So for those of you that may be in the middle of this. Cause that was a pretty long explanation. John and I are talking about doing Facebook live and you know, honestly, John is running. That is part of the show because I only use live for this particular case that we’re on. I have every intention of trying to leverage life. At some point, I’m building up a Facebook group of prospects and clients and just real estate professionals. And at some point, I’m going to start doing independent lives.

So I’m learning from you right now, John I’m learning right along with everybody else about what to do and how to do it. Because I don’t know about the equipment. I only have my desktop set up. I’ve never done live via a Mobile. I tried it once on Instagram, just kicks or a couple of times, and I never got very good at it. But I strongly believe that it’s a good tool to look at and to use. That’s why we’re talking about it. Not to mention, regardless of what I think. There’s almost a certainty that some of the people listening to this show are going to be affected by a second lockdown. And that at that point it becomes a question of communicating with people effectively.

And more and more people like the number of people that are requesting for me to do Zoom meetings and Google hangout meetings that never requested it is almost a hundred percent. Like I’ve never had people doing that with me before when they set their appointments, now everybody’s doing it. The world has changed right in front of our eyes in terms of what expectations are. And part of those expectations, without question, is how are we going to communicate? And what a viable option?

Jonathon: Yeah. Also, I’ve just gone through some of the software and cause most people with their phone technology. Now the picture and video quality that you are going to get out. You can just buy a stand that puts it in front of you when you do it on your desktop set up. And then you can buy a grip and I’ll put in the show notes, some clips that are recommended. And also some YouTube resources that I believe in that give great advice around camera purchase and some of the other technology. As I said, I think sound funny enough sound is when it comes to something like the iPhone or really modern Android phone from Samsung. It’s actually the sound quality that you should be looking at. And then if you want to go to the next stage, there’s a ton of options. But I’ve also got a lot of our agents to say, what should I be talking about?

And you should be obviously talking about properties that you’re representing. You should be also talking about other people’s properties that interest you. It’s a great way of showing that you really know your local market, you know, what’s going on. And really doing reviews of other hot properties that are on the market. It’s a great way of proving your knowledge and you really understand the local market. Actually doing just general descriptions or face to face about how the local market is going. And the full thing. And it’s not up for everybody, but you could consider people are really funny enough. People always interested in the property, and they’re always interested in having insight about other professionals. And having just done a more and more periodic snap, Snapchat of your daily life of a professional real estate agent really works actually, Robert.

Robert: I’m going to add one thing in there, John. So I agree with everything you said, but I’d like to add on the phone. First of all, I’ve mentioned his name a thousand times in the show. It’s going to be 1001. Christoph is doing something interesting where he is.

Jonathon: When are you going to get him on the show Robert?

Robert: I actually have to ask him at some point. That’s what I’m going to do.

Jonathon: I feel like I already know Robert, so you’ve got to get him on the show.

Robert: I will send an email like right now while we’re doing this show. So that way I remember. He’s talking a lot about doing the things he’s doing for COVID like, he’s talking about it a lot and he’s showing it to on video. He’s doing live videos and he’s in a mask and he’s touring properties in a mask. And I think that sends a real clear message to all of his customers that he’s taking COVID seriously, but he’s still showing real estate. And so I feel like that’s a good way to go in terms of how you’re going to communicate. Like part of your messaging should be talking about the pivots that you’re having to make as a business person during the days of COVID.

Jonathon: Yeah, I think that’s a great insight. But I think it’s not for everybody but other people, but increasingly this is especially when you’re a new agent in your first second year. This is just a great way of promoting yourself, getting yourself in the mind of your local community, and building up your credibility. So you’re a bit different than all the other agents that you really understand the local market and you understand modern marketing technology. It’s just a great way and you should keep at it. The investment you’re going to have to have to find a decent phone anyway. Like I say the modern iPhone, it’s just the Bluetooth microphone set up outside. That’s gone down in time and you can just use your phone for a long time before you have to look a GoPro. GoPro is really good for when you’re out roaming.

And you can use it on the stand. You’d be looking at probably a better quality of video a little bit. And you can also look at it. I would keep off that for the time being, because of very resource hungry. But just doing these live videos, you got no editing, it’s just going out there and it’s just a great way of people seeing what you’re doing. So I think we’ve discussed two great ways that you can use Facebook almost totally free to really promote yourself in this episode.

Robert: No, I think we’ve covered two things and I love the idea of us talking a little bit later on another show about various tools we should. And I’m going to bone up on life and I’m going to come back more like, well, more research and test it out myself and start to leverage live in a different way so that we can have better conversations with our audience about it. Because I think it’s incredibly important. I think that groups are incredibly important. And even if we were wrong previously, they’re going to become important as certain parts of the country get shut down again.

Jonathon: Well, I know if I was an actual real estate agent, I would be doing as many Facebook live videos as I could. I would also be using the power of Facebook groups when it comes to my local community. And the two things really going hand in hand. Doing a lot of videos, doing a lot of video lives, and pushing that to your group groups that you’re a member on is a powerful way of marketing yourself. And I don’t think you will find any other podcasts in the real estate area that you will be finding the kind of content that I and Robert talking about. I listened to other people’s podcasts and don’t hear many conversations that are pointing out some of the free morphologies that we’re discussing that can really make a difference to the real estate agent’s business.

Robert: I agree.

Jonathon: We’re going to cut you off down folks. Hopefully, we will be back with a guest or another internal discussion. And please give us some feedback about what you think. Just go to the Mail Right Facebook page, and just leave us some feedback about what you like me and Roberts to be discussing. Are we doing a good job? Are we discussing stuff that you are really interested in? Just tell us on the Mail Right Facebook page, what you think of the show and give us some feedback. And we will try and cover subjects that you really want to know about. We will be back next week with another great show. We’ll see you soon folks. Bye.