Not long ago I introduced my idea to locate thousands of potential business leads without spending thousands of dollars. I’ve found that opportunity in what I’m calling Facebook Check-In Marketing (CM). The potential leads I’m gathering via this type marketing are not limited to my business. I’m creating personal relationships and along the way an making new friends, which isn’t a bad combo for a long term marketing strategy.
A Quick Recap
As I travel about my local market and perform home inspections I find myself repeatedly visiting the same neighborhoods each month. I recognized that each neighborhood has two
identifying characteristics, a name and an address. Also, I noticed that the Facebook Mobile Device App has a feature that allows the user to record both types of data, the subdivision name and its GEO location. For the purpose of my CM, I use the neighborhood’s entrance location as the address. As I’m entering the neighborhood, I stop and take a photo of the entrance, name the Check-In point the same name as the neighborhood and I photo the entrance sign. In the event that the name of the subdivision is not already a Check-In point, I have the option to create the name. I make a short comment, take a photo, and record the facts of my activities.
Take it to Another Level
Once the App records the Check-In point, in my case the front of the neighborhood, a Place Page is created and my photo and information is saved to that page. The Check-In also is recorded, by default, to my Facebook personal wall. That gives me two potential areas of branding/advertising, one on my own wall and the other on the place page, where the neighborhood resides. My personal friends and my “Facebook Network” now can view my Check-In [and the photos] from my personal wall and whoever is within the Facebook App’s Geo “circle” will find the neighborhood place page I created, again, exposing my brand to a much broader audience.
A few months ago I shared the idea of Check-In Marketing with Hollis Brown, a business associate and fellow home inspector. Hollis and I recognized that we could expand the Facebook Marketing approach by reaching an even wider audience.
City-County-State-US
I mentioned that the Check-In had two IDs, a location and a name. With respect to the location, the subdivision is located in a community/town/city and the city is located within a county, the county is located within state and the states are located in the United States.
I started with my home town, Ridgeland, MS and created a Facebook Fan page called Ridgeland Mississippi Real Estate. I cover 18 cities in my local market. I’ve created one Facebook Fan Page for each of the 18 cities. Those 18 cities are located in 3 MS counties, Madison County, Hinds County and Rankin County. I also created a Mississippi Real Estate Page. Hollis Brown has created a United States Real Estate page and has organized other state pages under the US page.
This layered effect of pages doubles or triples the opportunity to brand my local market and to expose my business beyond my 18 cites. And…because search engine crawlers like Google, Bing and Yahoo find Facebook Fan pages, the data [my pictures, news and my name] is being shared beyond my city limits and my name and website page ranking is improving.
Join Check-In Marketing
Now, when I visit a neighborhood I Check-In at the neighborhood level and either find the name or I create the name of the subdivision. After I’ve checked in I “share” the check-in photo on the city page where the neighborhood is located and I also share the story on the county page. I then share the county page Check-In on the state page.
I encourage my fellow real estate professionals to use the free pages and share their activity. The more Check-Ins the page registers the higher the search engine ranking and the higher the place page ranks on Facebook’s domain the more often the page is seen when someone searches via the GEO Mobile Device.
Contact me or Hollis Brown for questions about Check-In Marketing. We’re setting up pages for real estate related businesses all over the US and selling licenses to Real Estate Agents.
Example of how I’ve integrated Check-In Marketing to one of my local websites.
Check-In Marketing Page on Facebook
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