Douglas Newby of Architecturally Significant Homes is a long-time student of mine who is essentially a one-man shop in Dallas, TX.  Yet despite this he has accomplished something that Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow and even ABC News hasn’t even come close to doing.  He developed a FaceBook Fan page that went wildly viral after just two months of putting it up.  Here’s how he did it and why it is so incredibly important you build your own business fan base.

First, let’s look at the numbers.  Douglas launched his Modern Homes fan page in September of 2009 which means he started with, well… 0 fans.  The week before Christmas he had over 20,000 fans.  As of this writing (approximately seven weeks later) he has 51,054 fans.  Now just to put this into perspective, take a look at the fan base numbers of these famous brands (both real estate specific and general consumer).  NOTE: all the fan counts shown below are as of the time of this writing.

Not only is Douglas kicking the social media butt of every major real estate brand, he is also besting several multi-billion dollar (and otherwise highly popular) consumer brands.  And he continues to add about 1,000 new fans every day.  Now before go into the details of how he achieved such incredible results and what it has meant to his bottom line, let’s first make sure we are the same (fan) page…

Personal Profile vs. Fan Page

There are two primary ways you can represent yourself on FaceBook:

1. Personal Profile – everyone who has a FaceBook account has a profile page.  This is your “home base” for all your friends and family to connect with you in a personal way on personal (i.e. not business) matters.  FaceBook Terms of Use prohibit the use of Personal Profile pages to be used for commercial purposes.  This is why Facebook created this next category of page.
2. Fan Page – sometimes referred to as your business page. This is where you try to attract and interact with people who are part of your target market or at least connected to it in some way.

To create a Fan Page, just go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and follow the simple steps.  Once created, Facebook will give your fan page an innocuous looking URL that no one would ever remember.  However, once you have at least 25 fans, you can get your own URL that is tied to your brand.  Get your friends and family to become fans so you hit your 25 fan threshold as quickly as possible.  Then go to NameChk.com to see if your intended name (i.e. brand name) is still available as a vanity URL on Facebook.  If so, grab it immediately (and consider getting the same one for Twitter and YouTube while you are at it).

Fan Page Caveats

Don’t expect people to become your fans just because you ask them (other than Mom, Dad, Cousin Jane and Uncle Fred of course).  People become fans only because they perceive value in doing so.  If you make your fan page about you or your business, you have already lost the race.  Your fan page has to powerfully and engagingly answer the question “What’s in it for me?” from the perspective of your potential fans.

The key point implied here is that by definition, a vibrant growing fan base is highly targeted.  They all share similar needs, wants, fears and desires.  In other words, they represent a very specific niche or target market which your fan page powerfully satisfies and engages.  If you look at Modern Homes, you will see that it is both highly targeted (to people who love modern residential architecture which is Douglas Newby’s specialty) and incredibly engaging through the use of exquisite photos and refined commentary.

Assuming you have created a branded fan page that is targeted to a specific niche, let’s now see how to grow that base of raving fans as quickly as possible…

Growing Your Fan Base

In the beginning you will probably want to use FaceBook ads to grow your fan base to a thousand or so members before you expect to see viral action.  Modern Homes primed its fan base pump this way until it hit about 2,000 members.  After that it took off on its own.  Facebook ads are similar to Google Adwords in that you can pay-per-click.  Facebook ads can be highly targeted geographically, demographically and for interest based upon keywords.

Here are several ways you can grow your fan base without spending money:

• Send emails to your clients and prospects suggesting that they become a fan;
• Place a “Become a Fan!” Fan Page widget on your Websites and blogs.

Exploding Your Fan Base

While these methods may add marginally to your fan base, don’t expect rapid growth this way.  The key to explosively growing your fan base consists of two parts: 1) make sure you have something of extreme value in the eyes of your target market, and 2) well, it will have more impact if I demonstrate it for you —just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools!” tab at the top of the page and you will instantly see how this second part works.

Raving Fans = Raging Business

You are probably wondering at this point just what all those fans are doing for Douglas Newby’s bottom line.  To help answer this I went to Brad Carroll, CEO of Dakno Real Estate Marketing.  While I coached Douglas about focusing his target marketing on his Website, Brad and his team showed him how to leverage that focus using social media and actually help him to set up his fan page.  So I asked Brad (who is also one of the top SEO experts in the industry) how a 50,000+ highly targeted and engaged fan base can impact Website traffic. Here’s what he said: “We’ve seen a dramatic increase in traffic to his site. In fact, last month alone saw an increase  with over 5,000 new unique visitors to his main website. Almost all of that new traffic is directly related to his Facebook strategy. And since every new fan is basically a new link to his fan page, we’ve seen his Facebook fan page significantly grow in search engine credibility. His Facebook fan page now appears on page one in Google for many of his targeted keywords. There are very few online marketing strategies that can produce numbers like that in such a short amount of time.”

And here’s what Douglas Newby had to say when I asked him how the Modern Homes fan page affected his business and his credibility as one of the top experts in modern residential architecture: “There has been a dramatic increase in the number of buyers contacting me about modern homes for sale or potentially for sale because they appreciate me sharing their passion for modern homes.  The motivation and satisfaction of Facebook.com/ModernHomes— goes beyond the increase in business.  It creates a global conversation about modern homes which further provokes my interest and knowledge about both modern architecture and the people who love modern homes.”

It’s a Brave New World

When a lone Realtor can absolutely blow the doors off the social networking efforts of every major real estate brand and outperform many multi-billion dollar brands, you know it’s a different world.  The keys to social networking success are: a) select a target market for which you are passionate; b) create a consistent brand identity and value perception for that market; c) build the fan base aggressively; and d) have an ongoing “conversation” with your fans to keep them engaged.

Never has there been an opportunity such as this for individual Realtors to break out above the crowd and noise in the real estate sales industry.  This is low-hanging fruit and it’s yours for the taking.  All you have to do is pick it. (more…)