Welcome to another episode of Fireside with Facebook!
In this episode Scott Shapiro from Facebook’s Real Estate Group presents the Real Estate Top Provider Initiative which is a narrative on how agents can use top ad tech providers to optimize their marketing efforts and business outcomes across the Facebook suite. Last, Scott discusses the predictions/trends that agents and brokers should be aware of with digital marketing.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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right welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. Today is our regular series called Fireside Chat with Facebook, we’ve teamed up with a real estate team at Facebook to produce episodes designed to help agents better utilize Facebook and their suite of tools. And we have Scott Shapiro from Facebook corporate with us as our guest. As always, let me tell you a little bit about Scott. If you’re new to our show, Scott Shapiro is a senior client partner on the real estate team at Facebook, where he focuses on engaging with key clients and their ecosystem partners to develop marketing solutions and strategies to drive businesses forward. In addition to the client partner role, Scott also serves as industry relations liaison between the Facebook real estate sales team and the real estate industry helping to educate agents, brokers and leaders on Facebook’s platforms and best practices. Prior to joining Facebook, Scott was a sales executive at ABC where he also participated in sales advisory roles acting as a consultant for the digital and sports teams. Scott, welcome once again to keeping it real.
Scott Shapiro 1:53
DJ, it’s great to see you again. It’s great to catch up with you. It’s great to catch up with the keeping it real podcast community. So Happy New Year to everybody. I think we’re gonna probably talk about this. This is the primary focus I’ve been missing a little bit in action because we’ve been in the laboratory cooking up a really awesome new initiative and it’s kind of hijacked and took most of January, February, but it’s great to be back with you and great to be back with the community. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 2:21
this is really interesting and exciting. I know Facebook has taken on a much more specific role in helping not only specifically realtors, but also broker brokerages, brokers brokerages, and also some of the advertising partners that can help realtors in some of these efforts. It really is the the number one question we get here at our office, just specifically, we have 700 brokers here at our own firm. And you know, the number one question is how do I better use Facebook? Specifically, how do I better use the ad platforms? And of course, that’s a big question we get on the podcast as well. So we’re super excited to hear about some of these new initiatives.
Scott Shapiro 2:57
Yeah, it’s also the number one question we get. So the funny thing is, it’s a common theme through what people are experiencing on the end user side or the end community side, the agent, the broker. And I think that’s one of the things that we’ve really tried to do over the last year is really put more of a foot forward. And what we’ll discuss, which is called the top provider initiative, is really the next iteration of that journey. DJ, it’s, if we zoom back, our team has worked with some of the largest enterprise brokerage clients over the last two or three years on their local advertising solutions, their local ad tech, so Keller Williams command, ReMax megaphone religious social identity and compass Marketing Center, to name a few. Yeah, we did realize is that, you know, agents want choice. There are a lot of firms out in the space. So if we, if we can imagine ourselves out of the pandemic, right, and we were at any number of large industry trade shows if we walked the expo hall, oh, one after another. Yeah, wait and count how many times you see the Facebook or the Instagram logo? A little exercise I always do. You know, not to be beat. It’s just you walk up, you see your company’s logo, you’re like, tell me what you guys are doing a good, you know, oftentimes, I think what we found was, Oh, my God, that’s probably not the best advice, the best products we would want agents and brokers using and again, you know, we’ve always said that, you know, every dime, every, every piece of you know, collateral you put up every ad copy, you put up every ad really needs to make sure that it drives business results. And so what we found was, unfortunately, without putting some sort of stamp on this, it was really confusing for the agents and the broker. So this is our step into that. I’ll walk everybody through this. We’ve got some materials we can share actually on the Zoom. Sure, alive. I think the other thing just to kind of state our POV GJ, so that everyone is really clear as this is our team, our real estate teams say, using a provider. Any number of the providers that we have on the list either third party providers, or the brokerage solutions that we’ve already worked with, is far better than boosting post, or doing this in self serve ads manager. So I want to make it clear for the listeners, for people tuning in on Facebook Live. I had somebody actually yesterday asked is this is the real estate team at Facebook saying this is the preferred way to do advertising on the platform? And the answer is yes, trust a provider, or trust your broker tool, any one of the 17 boxes you see on the website, and the PDF, I’ll show you guys. That’s our recommendation.
D.J. Paris 5:39
And that’s a really important recommendation because it’s it’s so much easier as you’re scrolling through Facebook, or you’ve created a post and maybe it’s it’s, it’s doing well with engagement too easily to hit that boost button and pay it pay a few dollars to get that done, which may or may not give you the result that you’re looking for. But really, it’s such a complicated system. And it’s it’s very user friendly. But it’s comprehensive. It’s there’s a lot of variables here. And so, you know, we would also from our podcast perspective would always say if you want to do some really serious advertising on Facebook, you really need a third party, somebody a solution that that somebody who has been vetted by Facebook, who knows the platform in and out and can get you that best ROI.
Scott Shapiro 6:24
Yeah, and there are a couple of additional reasons. One, it doesn’t cost any more to do, you know, advanced advertising than it does by boosting a post or doing ads manager, if anything, what I would say is that the ROI you get will save you money. So you think, Well, I’m going to boost a post for 10 or 15 bucks. And we can’t do lead generation, we can’t do some of the deep advertising and analytical tools that we have available. And when you get into ads manager, it’s the same thing. It’s often it’s really hard to navigate. And so when we think about scale and mass, there are millions of real estate agents and brokers, and there’s significantly fewer of us at Facebook, you know, who can offer that kind of expertise and help. And so this is another way of really scaling our expertise across the industry. The other thing by talking about third party companies that we also understood is to solve for the industry, it means if you’re at a independent brokerage, I mean, obviously you run so what would we advocate? Right? What would we advocate if you’re not an agent, it Realogy or Keller Williams or REMAX. So this was also that way of trying to put a little bit of our spin on this and our thoughts on it. And the other thing too, I think that’s really important for agents and brokers to realize is, again, we want your dollars optimize. So you know, the way that we can do that is to really call out people who have built the right solutions, who collaborate with us, I think the key word over and over is how much we collaborate, we took 16 months to stand this up. So this has been long in the background of what we’ve been working on. So this isn’t that we woke up one day and said, Well, let’s go do this. This is a lot of immersive work. So I think just the the net messaging here is for everybody to be comfortable with the firms listed in the website, which we’re going to show you and the go to market PDF, DJ, you have that PDF, so feel free to share that to the audience, both in the show notes or across, you know, your Facebook page. And, you know, again, look at the options that you have. Because they’re they’re enough, the beauty of it, is there enough options to actually give you choice without so without too many. I think it’s a perfect mix of there’s several firms here that you can have a sales call with these folks talk to these folks understand their solution. And then you know, make the choice that’s right for you. Either way, by choosing one you’re you’re working with somebody that we work with, and that we stand behind.
D.J. Paris 8:51
Yeah, that’s perfect. And so as we start to go through some of these, these data points here, if you’re listening to the episode, which the vast majority of our audience is doing versus watching, please realize, as Scott mentioned in the show notes, there is a link to this PDF, and any other information we can put in there we will so try to follow along if you’re just listening and we’ll be able to, you’ll be able to pull up the visual here just by looking at the show
Scott Shapiro 9:16
notes. Cool and I’m going to share I’m going to share my screen hopefully with my limited tech knowledge this is working are you seeing are you seeing this I am seeing this beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge by the way, if you have an opportunity if you ever go to Australia I highly recommend it’s
D.J. Paris 9:34
it’s one of those countries that every single person says the same thing about which is you have to go and I haven’t yet got a chance to go I’ve been I’ve been to Bali which is about as close to Indonesia I guess. But But yeah, Bali is the closest I’ve got which is which was still a wonderful trip but I haven’t yet made it to Australia so
Scott Shapiro 9:53
awesome. All right. So we are at the official Facebook for real estate websites. I think zooming back phase Look, our team, in collaboration with our marketing team have built a website. It’s facebook.com, backslash business, backslash industries, i n d u s t r i, e s, backslash real hyphen state est.
D.J. Paris 10:18
And we will put that link as well in the show notes. Because this is an important website to check out. It’s Facebook’s first specific, you know, site for real estate agents and brokerages.
Scott Shapiro 10:29
Absolutely. So this is literally outside of the things that we do together as an example, DJ, I mean, this is our voice, this is our voice to you in the industry. So I’m going to do my best because I know that we’ve got a large audience on the podcast, I want to paint a portrait for you if you’re listing versus watching us in real time. So when you come and you land on this page, the first thing you’re going to see at the very top of the page is the top providers initiative. So this is the initiative that launched last Monday, we’ve announced it updated, all the information is here on our website. And basically this distills what the provider initiative is, which is top rated brokerage and or third party ad tech providers who built solutions with best in class options for Facebook and Instagram advertising. So again, if we’re thinking about likes, and shares and comments, and some of the more organic stuff, that’s not what this is really focused on. This is focused on advanced advertising solutions, tools and providers who do so and do so in a way that’s collaborative with our team. And also built with best practices in mind. So just to get if we think about this, is if I walk that tech Hall, I see the logo, do I know that this company is working with the team at Facebook? The answer here is yes. So this is our expo hall just through a website. So the first thing you’ll see is that there are several videos. So at the very top, there’s a video introducing the top providers initiative. So since you’ve watched this web webinar, and listen to the podcast, you don’t need to watch the video because I’m the host of video. So you don’t need to do that. The PDF that we’re going to talk about is also right there to be downloaded. So the beauty of the PDF, which I’ll show folks in a couple of minutes is it’s five pages, it distills the criteria, it explains exactly how we looked at criteria for these providers. It shows you the logos of the providers. So it’s right there. Really super simple. So if you’re again, like what’s going on, who should I talk to, both on the website, and in the PDF? It’s crystal clear right there for you. Then what you’ll see if you if you’re on the podcast, is there about seven videos. And so what we did was we explained the initiative, but then we had spotlights so we were able to interview the CEOs of top tech providers. So John Mazur, from homesnap. Greer Allen from Boomtown Howard tager from y Lobo, Matt marks, who’s the president of vocalize a really interesting forward thinking tech company. So they are on video with us, each video is about 15 or 20 minutes, super interesting if you kind of want to understand how they build product and collaborate with us and what they’re thinking about in the industry. And then we have some agent spotlights so we have an agent. From compass, we have an agent who uses Intel’s tool, and we have an agent who uses by Lobos tool, and they also have these videos, it’s a back and forth one to one interview, talk about how the providers, the tools really make it easy to do Facebook advertising, and also effective. So that’s kind of the top piece of the website, you’ll see it’s the above fold. And then the second piece to it is this, you know, it’s kind of a box of tiles, every one of the firms that we work with both third party and brokerage tools, they’re right here, they’re a click away, you can literally click, take a click. So like on a live webinar right now, I’m hovering over the white Lopo box, click on this, it takes you right into y lobe of site, you can see their features, you can request a demo. So we’ve worked with these firms to also make sure that should you be at our website, if you want to already kind of look at their tools, each one of these, you have that opportunity to click right from the Facebook for real estate website, right into their environment. So each one of these companies has provided us with that towel. So to actually allow for that kind of quick and easy connectivity for agents. And we
D.J. Paris 14:27
we should mention for everyone listening that there are some huge names in here ad works is is I mean and I don’t want to exclude anyone but but just some names that jumped out at me that third party names that a lot of agents are probably already using, for example ad works homesnap Why Lobo Boomtown I mean there’s a number of this and then you might if you work at exit, Keller, Williams, ReMax century 21 or any of the Realogy companies as well as Berkshire and compass. I mean, you already have this sort of integration. So there’s a lot Lots of cool stuff here, um, definitely check out the website and look to see if you recognize some of these third party solutions or in house solutions. And then if you have, if you aren’t, you know, time, now’s the time to start exploring them.
Scott Shapiro 15:11
Yeah. And really, I think you bring up a great point, again, DJ, you know, the idea here is to serve the industry, the agents and the brokers and to bring the most optimal solution to the table. So we wanted to make sure that, you know, it was a little bit of a Goldilocks mentality, too few is not enough choice. Too many means that the criteria and the standards that we think are best in practice for your business won’t be covered. And so we feel that this is a really good solid list, there’s plenty of different, you know, everything from CRM providers, like a boomtown to, you know, a company like an AdWords, AdWords is growing, actually, they’re, they’re offering because we worked with them, and they were great, and you collaborate with us. And so they’re even more finger offer, we wanted to make it and we’ll talk about this in the PDF full funnel. Sure, not only do we want to make it so that agents have choice, but we also want to make it so that you can do anything in everything, Facebook, Instagram messenger, top to middle to bottom funnel to any type of ad unit you want. And take away some of that apprehension, get the industry moving forward away from booth staying away from, you know, fumbling or worrying about ads manager, and really putting your faith in a provider. So the website has some more information, some industry statistics. Here, as I’m scrolling down, you’ll see a couple of case studies, one from home snap one from y Lobo, we do some common myth busting here, talking about different myths that we’ve heard from all the years that we’ve gone to conferences. And then you know, more resources down below so that if you do have questions about a particular product, this is also covered here. Facebook Live is even covered. So there’s now materials on how to do the virtual home. So again, my encouragement to agents, knowing a lot of the audience is actually on podcast really go in, take a look at the website, we’re proud of it. We’re excited, we hope that it serves as a real hub for everyone in the industry. And then again, you know, taking away some of the concern of like, where do I go with becomes a destination. Great. All right. So the second thing I’m gonna share screen and show is zoom out a little bit here. This is the PDF attachment that actually lives at the very top of the website. So for folks who are tuning in on Facebook right now, what you’ll see here is a really nice looking PDF. A good friend, we were talking about this before we came on the air and DJ and I we know the gentleman over at labcoat agents are very Baldwin, his ad is actually front and center on the day I saw that. As I, as I tell him checks in the mail right now. But actually, it was used in a local case study in so if for anyone asking it was actually the ad creative that we used, that was used in the wireless case study, boy local case study that actually lives on the website that I just referenced. So the very first page just speaks to what the top provider initiative is, there three bullet points of what we’ve been talking about, for the first couple of minutes of the webinar in the podcast that TJ and I have been doing, talking about trying to understand who is the right third party, we want to give people confidence, we want people to feel good that when they use a partner, or provider in this case that you know, they’ve been vetted by Facebook. And that there’s trust, I think the biggest thing was trust, making sure that you feel trust in what we’re saying and who we’re working with. The second page is really a rinse and repeat of what we just saw on the website. It’s the logos of the firms that we’re working with. One thing, I think that’s really that we want to make sure that folks know DJ also is that this is an evergreen effort. If there are firms that are not on this list, because they didn’t meet certain criteria, but we they reach out and starting to work with us and they collaborate, they build, you know, for lack of a better word, you know, a better sandbox to we will continue to add providers. The other thing I think that’s very important for agents and brokers to know is that as our platform has morphed and evolved, if these providers don’t keep up with the solutions that we want as optimal solutions, there will be a discussion about them, no longer being a top provider. So it’s an evergreen effort. I want to make sure folks know that.
And then lastly, just the last three pages of the criteria. So how and what did we look at what makes a top provider. The first is full funnel marketing. We absolutely want to make sure that you as an agent or a broker have the opportunity to do full funnel marketing. We know the preponderance of most folks are doing lead generation. However, driving traffic to your website, doing branding, especially coming out of COVID I think there’s a lot of opportunity for agents to really redefine how they brand themselves and tie themselves to a local community? How do you digitize your brand? How do you maybe get away from some non optimal things you’ve been doing for your brand in the marketing world? Do you stop doing as much outdoor tchotchkes print other things that you might have found? Not as efficient. So we wanted to make sure top of the funnel all the way to the bottom that each provider offers a solution within their toolset. The second thing, and this is one of the more exciting things that I love is will be called placements. So you’re gonna see on this page that, you know, basically, all of our top providers have to offer all of our ad formats in their tools. So in do so in a way that basically you don’t have to choose your pig, it’s done for you so that Facebook and Instagram feed all of our stories, placement, Instagram Stories, Facebook stories, messenger stories, Facebook marketplace, where a ton of consumers are spending time looking at that experience. And then in stream video ads, a slideshow, so opening up video. So the great thing here is, every one of these providers has the ability to push your advertising message across all of our, all of our platforms, but all of the places consumers spend their time. So we’re not just going to say, we’re only going to do newsfeed ads. Likewise, we’re not going to say we’re just going to do stories, we’re going to find the most optimal place for your ad based on the objective. And so that was another core criteria DJ, that we asked from each of these providers and that they offer.
D.J. Paris 21:37
It makes sense. And also to it’s important that that those providers, one of the really one of the best parts about it is that they organize all of the the digital assets, the photography, into those specific formats, we know Instagrams got more of a one to one aspect ratio, Facebook, depending on on different placements might might be one to one it might be, you know, I forget what the other ones are. But it could be vertical or horizontal. And, and it’s nice at the start. I mean, it takes a tremendous amount of time to set all of that up yourself.
Scott Shapiro 22:08
Yeah, and I think that’s another important point is that, you know, this is very complex stuff again, you know, if you’re boosting from Facebook, that you’re gonna get just a boosted post, you know, this is the stuff that, you know, every top advertiser, think of all the E commerce brands, you’re seeing messages from, think about all the, you know, the traditional folks that you see these kinds of ads from Adidas, Nike, cruise ship wind, I mean, back when we were traveling, but you know, they’ll come back, you know, travel companies, you know, even just your traditional retail locations, right, they use all of these things, you know, our financial service partners, our insurance partner. So this puts what’s great about this as if it takes it off your plate as the agent. So again, you know, efficiency of time is also important here, you don’t want to spend 45 minutes an hour launching Facebook ads, and probably to do so in a in a non optimal way. This takes that off the table, let them do it, they work with us, they’re digital marketing experts, they know how to drive the ultimate objectives you need. And this widens your scope. It just means as an agent or broker, you’re just hitting the consumer in more places, and then the places they’re spending their time. And then lastly, we want to move the industry away from just the MLS, front of the house curbside static image ad, we’re working on things we’ve asked them to do such offer carousel ads, offer slot videos slideshow eligible make sure you have stories, because so many consumers are spending time there. So again, those were the criteria points that we asked for from the providers to have. Again, it doesn’t mean that you have to use all of them, it’s ultimately your marketing dollar, your choice, my my, my recommendation would be to actually use all of them go top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, use all the placements, you know, if you have the opportunity to get video assets, or you worked with, you know, professional videographer, all the things you and I talked about on our creative fireside chat a couple months ago, DJ, these are things that no you can use and give to those providers. And then the providers know how to optimize it. Best thing there is they know how to drive the best ROI. So I’m gonna stop sharing my screen here for a moment. Hey, are you can see it. Great. Yeah. But you know, I want to really reiterate a couple of key points for folks. Both on the webinar and the podcast is, you know, this is our list. These are the firms we collaborate with. These are the firms we talk to, when complexity comes up with platform changes, Facebook’s changing all the time. These are the folks that we talked to and it’s the way that we believe you can get the best, most optimized ROI for your investment and that’s our goal. That’s our mission is Facebook’s mission is to drive that kind of business growth for you. So we’re really excited. We’re proud of it. We’re excited. We’d love feedback so that, you know, again, knowing the veracity of these things, again, you know, with DJs community, if you’re using have feedback, like, let us know, you know, we’re here in service of the industry, and we think this is a really great way to kick off 2021 And hopefully, drive some success for some folks. Yeah, I
D.J. Paris 25:19
totally agree. So the action step for all of our listeners and viewers is to visit this website, which is facebook.com, forward slash business forward slash industries, which is plural forward slash real hyphen, estate, don’t worry, we’re gonna have it in the show notes. And if you’re watching this live on Facebook, we’ll put it there in the comments, or in the actual post itself here shortly. But yeah, visit that explore. Some of these companies realize, too that whether it’s Facebook, or you know, a third party provider, or even your brokerage who might be integrated with Facebook, if you’re one of those, one of the one of the larger franchise firms that’s already on the list is that everyone’s on the same side of the table here, because really, the whether it’s a third party provider, or whether it’s Facebook directly as they want you to utilize their platform for advertising real estate, because hopefully it will help you grow your business to which then you would, of course, invest even probably more into, you know, Facebook’s systems and platforms. So definitely realize that this isn’t a traditional sales pitch where someone’s trying to sell you a method, this actually is only going to work for all parties if it actually works. And Facebook’s partnered up with with these trusted providers who already know how to do this and help get you the best ROI. So you know, when it works, and it does, everyone wins. So just just take a look at it, as opposed to just clicking that Boost Post and giving Facebook, you know, five or $10, which is perfectly okay to do as well. But maybe it’s time for a more comprehensive solution.
Scott Shapiro 26:48
Yeah, and I think again, coming out of, you know, a tough year for folks, you know, this is one way that we want it, we always wanted to make sure that your money is the best spent on our platform, to DJs coin. You know, if we grow your business, we do it mutually all ships in a rising tide. With inter interesting and what’s fun about this, though, is we really feel that we’ve solved two issues, advertising quality and business growth. And then the efficiency of time, I think the other thing is the efficiency of time of, you know, you’re out there, you’ve got a million different things to do as an agent, a million different projects to do if you’re running a team a million different things you have to cover as a broker, right? Spending hours figuring out digital advertising is not why you got into real estate. And so I think, in addition to optimal results in business growth, we can also give you back time and efficiency in your day. And that’s another key point here, which is, you know, you shouldn’t have to struggle to do something that can grow your business. So we’re excited, we’re proud of it, and certainly would love feedback is, you know, we are open ears, we’re it we’re always in service of the industry. So we’d love feedback. You know, certainly DJ knows how to get a hold of me. So you know, if you guys have feedback, and put that through in show comments or other places on his Facebook page, you know, again, like, let us know what your thoughts are and what you’re experiencing.
D.J. Paris 28:14
And before we wrap up, Scott, just a quick question for you with about sort of being that you have this intricate knowledge of of what Facebook is currently doing, to better meet the needs of its users, as well as just the general public over over the next few years. Curious if you had any, whether their predictions or just trends that you’re seeing that maybe agents should be aware of about digital marketing coming up now or into the near future?
Scott Shapiro 28:42
It’s a great question. I love the question. I think there are a couple of things. I believe that what we saw last spring with the watch product, for lack of a better word, the experience of the virtual open home is going to become even bigger. Yeah, the company if you were not there right now is like, as an industry integrating into into the tools we have. But if you think about Oculus, VR RIF, like those things that I think are going to become over the next five years, really large. It’s funny, you mentioned this, TJ because I’ve been at a company now eight and a half years. And I think back to my first day, what did we have and what didn’t we What didn’t we have in the roster? There were no Instagram ads, there was no stories, there was no video, right? There was that sort of stuff. So I think the VR AR experience is going to become the next big frontier. And I think the use of live is a commerce tool is going to become big. And then the other thing I would say is that on platform shopping so we’ve talked about Facebook shops, marketplace destinations, where people can actually have both the consumer can have an easy shopping experience, and the merchant can offer their goods in an easy, mobile friendly environment are going to continue to grow. So I think that’s why I mentioned earlier that, you know, while we have a list of providers today, we’re, you know, the platforms are going to continue to grow, and change and morph. And so part of this is to make sure that we’re ahead of those curves, that when we see VR and AR start to really explode that we’re working to collaboratively so agents can have that experience and market their listings or market their brand or their expertise that way. Similarly, with Facebook Live and Instagram Live, right, it’s the same thing. So I think those are the big tools that are going to branch us out. And then I think, again, the on on platform shopping destinations, stuff is really interesting. E commerce is always sort of the lead. If you think about it, if you take a step back and look at any digital trend, e commerce companies are at the forefront of this and usually more traditional industries followed suit. So we’re keeping our eyes very closely on what e commerce companies are doing, because that’s going to be where we need to take our agents and our brokers next.
D.J. Paris 30:55
It’s very interesting like to think what will Amazon’s website look like in two or three years, and I suspect it will be a different shopping experience with a lot more interactivity. Right now, it’s still pretty much a static kind of experience. They have video within the the individual products, but it isn’t a real immersive experience yet. And I suspect, you know, companies like Amazon and Facebook are really looking towards how do we make this even more effective and efficient? And how do we get people specifically the things they want, based on what they what we already know that they they like and what they what they’re looking for. So that’s why we have Scott on the show to help us keep us keep abreast of those trends. But Scott, but I’m sorry,
Scott Shapiro 31:39
I’ll give you one more detail. Before we go. I think one thing to always look for, because agents ask it’s a loaded question, what’s biggest look at your own behavior. If you’ve actually started using stories a lot as an example, or you’re using Rails a lot like consumers, our community tends to move faster than our businesses. And so just think about what are you doing? Because usually, if you’re doing it, we’re gonna probably find that Congress will follow suit at the community slash consumer experience. So I think that’s the other thing is you’re talking to folks like, Oh, what are you doing on your mobile phone? What are you doing on these platforms? They’re gonna give you kind of the tip of where we’re gonna go. Because commerce follows consumers. Yeah,
D.J. Paris 32:22
100% Agree. You’re absolutely right. I was thinking, as you were saying that I was thinking, with stories, particularly, I never used to pay attention to them, I didn’t really understand what they were. And I just wasn’t part of my social media routine as when I’m sort of consuming, you know, social media. And I started integrating it into my routine, because I was curious, I was like, Okay, I’ll start paying attention. And now, I look at it every day. In fact, I might even look at it more than scrolling traditionally. So if I were a producing agent, I suspect I’m not alone there. And, in fact, we know, of course, how successful and, and popular those those products are. It’s like, yeah, you need to start showing up there. And there’s, you know, in Facebook, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, and any of the other suite of tools, they have so many just tools that are built into the system that’ll help you create this content. But you need to be there. Because if even somebody like me, who is not an avid social media user, I’m really not. I mean, I just I’m just haven’t been, but but I’m at least doing that. And I suspect that even you know, more casual users like me are participating there. So, you know, stay tuned to these episodes, we could start, you know, telling talking more about how to participate with these trends. But Scott’s exactly right. Look at your own behavior. You know, if you’re on HGTV, and watching all of those, you know, the programming that we see that’s really popular, well, you’re probably also consuming a smaller version of that on Instagram and Facebook, and you can participate. And you don’t have to have a TV show to do that. You can actually just turn your phone around and and produce really great content for your your audience.
Scott Shapiro 34:01
Absolutely. I think the biggest thing I’ll leave folks with, and we talked about it when we talked about creative a couple of months ago, is we are very fortunate in this industry to have something that consumers really want to see and consume. We’re so very fortunate, I look at my partners on the automotive team, we work really closely with them. It’s the same thing, right? It’s like, people love cars, people love homes. And so that creates a lot less friction for us to figure out. Yes, we want to say when we’re on these platforms, right. I think the other thing that I would I would suggest just lastly, as one trend, I think coming out of COVID is, you know, for agents and folks who are really leaders in their community, show that show light show your community so when we’re talking about how can we do upper funnel marketing, how can we brand ourselves? I think part of it is like how do you interact with your community? What are you saying about the community you serve? Those are things that I think can really Start buyers at the top of the funnel and then lead to that lower funnel generate lead generation piece. So more and more, I’m seeing agents get more as things are opening back up more and more out there community and highlighting the local coffee shop, the local record store those types of things. I think it’s a really great content play. And it’s a great way to get again, take that upper funnel type of marketing messaging, take it to a provider and use that. And that’s how you become sort of that person who’s known for, you know, this neighborhood, this city that whatever expanded upon it, but a really great way, I think, to connect with your community,
D.J. Paris 35:35
perfectly said, and that will wrap it up for this episode, we will see everyone or we won’t necessarily see everyone, but we’ll certainly you’ll be able to see us and listen to us on future episodes, Scott comes on regularly, on behalf of Facebook to help our audience which of course is the realtor community better navigate and utilize their suite of tools. And of course, you’re all using their tools anyway. So what a great opportunity to learn how to do them better, more efficiently and more effectively. So Scott, on behalf of our audience, we thank you, we really appreciate your participation in our podcast and, and just in the industry in general, it’s really, I know, it’s a relatively new endeavor for Facebook, in the last several years to really create that bridge between the real estate community and the technology. And we’re just so grateful that you’re here to share that with us. And on behalf of Scott and myself. For everyone watching or listening, we want to thank you for continuing to support our show. And please just we ask you to do one quick thing is just tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from listening or watching our show and send them a link. The easiest way to do that just haven’t visit our website, which is keeping it real pod.com. Again, keeping it real pod.com We have every episode we’ve ever done. And for example, if you wanted to go back and watch or listen to all the Scott Shapiro episodes from Facebook, we can scroll down to the bottom of the page, we have them all categorized and make it really easy to do, you can stream them right from within the browser. You don’t even have to have a podcast app. So definitely check that out. And we will see everybody on the next episode. And Thanks, Scott.
Scott Shapiro 37:07
Thanks, TJ. Thanks, everyone for the listen and Hope everyone’s safe and well as we come out of COVID. And just for everybody has a great spring and some really great business results coming out of all these efforts.
D.J. Paris 37:17
And we’re so close so everyone stay safe. We did we’re so close to the end end here. Or at least we hope so. So everyone stay safe and, and let’s, let’s hopefully all get back to normal as soon as possible. All right. Thanks, Scott.
Scott Shapiro 37:30
Thanks, TJ. Take care
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