Three Major Myths About Facebook!

Facebook can be confusing, frustrating, and sometimes feels like it’s just a big waste of time. But, when used correctly, it can be so powerful in our business! This is why I want to bust three big myths I see believed about Facebook…you ready? Let’s go!

Myth #1: I don’t need an active business page.

I don't need an active business page. I see this all the time. I don't need an active business page and here is the problem with this. First of all, that is the myth, right? You need to have an active business page and an active personal page.

There are several reasons why you need both. First off, you have two audiences that you're competing for their attention at all times. You have your sphere, it is your group of people, your friends, your family, those that you influence that are all over your personal page.

We've got to have a presence on our personal page, but here is the big but…you also are competing for the attention of people that don't know you yet. You have to make sure that you have both a professional and a personal outlet for people to find you.

When someone says, "Hey, have you heard of Coach Kyle? You need to bring him in to speak or hire him for whatever." Well, I don't know if they're going to be a super buttoned up business person. I don't know if they're super down to earth, normal, they're a family man, a family woman. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. They may not love my personal page because they might want to see a slightly more buttoned up version of myself as the first impression. I want them to be able to see my business page. I want them to be able to see me in the light that they want to find me in.

We've got to have both pages. We've got to make sure that we're creating content for both, but here's what's also important. Reviews. You've got to have reviews. Perception is reality. You could sell 100’s of houses or close 100’s of loans, but if someone can go online and on Google or Facebook, see two reviews…you’re going to lose to those people.

85% of people say that they trust online reviews as much as they do a review from their friend.

Is that crazy?! That is why we don’t close 100% of referrals anymore…because it’s too easy for someone to Google us. We've got to realize that there is a game we are playing and if we're unwilling to play the game, we will not win. Because, when we play by the rules, we will win. You've got to begin to truly invest and getting reviews to that business page because you want people to see you in your best light possible. Both your sphere and the future business you hope to get which you don't know yet.

Here’s another quick tip…Be careful about just literally sharing content from your business page to your personal page because here's what's going on. Facebook makes all of their money from ads which are on our business pages where we run ads, where we boost post. If you're a realtor and you share a new listing on your business page, what do you naturally do? You're going to click the share button and then you're going to share that video on to your personal page.

Here's what I know that you've noticed. If you haven't noticed, you will notice now. You might get 50 likes, 100 likes, 200 likes when you have pictures with your kids in it, you and your spouse, right? But then you share something from your business page to your personal page and it gets one like, two likes, maybe three likes.

We go, "What the heck? What is going on?" What is happening is Facebook is suppressing the post. Facebook isn't letting people see it because we're trying to cheat the system. We're trying to take where they make their money and then take it to where it's free. The algorithm is literally suppressing post that we just share from our business page to our personal page.

Here's what I encourage you to do. You really need to make two posts. You need to make your business post prim and proper, button it up real nice, use the right language that you want to be found for and then, do not share it. Make a separate post on your personal page and use language that you would use with your friends, right? Imagine if your girlfriend from college was a perfect fit for your new listing and you were sitting at coffee. How would you talk to her? You wouldn't be like, "Oh, you'll love this house. It's four bed, three bath, three and a half bath. It's sitting on a beautiful quarter acre lot." You're not going to do that. That's how we promote a listing from a business perspective, but that sounds weird coming from your friend.

That's how we really win here is when we realize there are two separate things functioning inside of one system and we've got to treat them very differently. That is myth number one which is, “I don't need an active business page, you absolutely do."

Myth #2: I share links all the time.

I share links all the time. I share YouTube links. I share links for my website. I share links from the MLS. I share links. Stop sharing links on Facebook. Here's what this means. Any link outside of Facebook is an enemy of Facebook. It's an enemy of Facebook because if I share my YouTube video on Facebook, when you click that link, what did you just leave? You left Facebook. Facebook doesn't like that. Again, what we're watching happen is when I share a link to a blog on Facebook, it will suppress the heck out of that post. Very few people will see it. Here is the trick. We share the link in the comments. One of the things that I want you to do is go subscribe to my brand new YouTube channel. It’s going to be packed full of valuable content for you as you develop your presence and stay more top of mind to your people.

Here's a part B to this myth. We also want to keep content organic and local to the platform we're on. When you do a Facebook live video, let Facebook Live live on Facebook. Then, download the video and edit it and then upload it to YouTube.

I will never take that YouTube link and share it anywhere. It will live exclusively on YouTube. I can then download it and then I can upload it to LinkedIn and let it live organically on LinkedIn. None of these platforms want other people's links where people can leave their site. They don't want it there.

Then I can download it, chop it up into bits and pieces and use it for Instagram. It's called “compound marketing”

So, once again, put the link in the comments. If you're showing a house, put up a picture of the house. Say whatever you're going to say about the house. Then say in the post, if you want to see all the pictures, the link is in the comments. Now, I don't even want to overwhelm some people, but now, you can even take it a step further. You can go to bit.ly which is a URL shortener and now you can embed that link right in the comments.

Then when people click it, you can understand the data and see if it's working. It's incredible.

Myth #3: Very few people see my posts.

Very few people can see my posts. This is the myth that I hear people say. Man, very, few people are seeing my posts. Here is why I believe this is a myth and yes, I guess it is partially true because we see all these articles about Facebook is limiting it to 25 people, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, whatever, whatever, right?

Here's what is really happening. Facebook is putting relevant content in front of people and you're just not relevant. You're being limited in the number of people that are actually seeing your stuff. We've got to understand the work around. Here's a few work arounds for this.

Number one, different people like different content. Some people love videos. That's why I do videos. Some people love photos, that's why I do photos. Some people love long posts, that's why I do long posts. Some people like short posts, that's why I do short posts. Some people like the colored backgrounds. That's why I do the colored backgrounds. Guys, here's what we've got to understand that's going on right now.

All of your Facebook friends like different types of content. Some of my people will never watch my videos. If I only do videos, then I'm going to miss an entire segment of my Facebook audience. Producing variety in the type of post we do is going to open up a broader audience for us to be in front of.

That's the first part of breaking this myth. The second part is leveraging Facebook messenger. Guys, here's what I believe I've discovered and maybe, this is a secret. I can't find this anywhere, but here's what I've noticed. Facebook is attempting to be more relational. The algorithm is looking for conversations happening in the comments and it's going to throw that post up into the top of the newsfeed. It's doing these things and here's what I've noticed. If I haven't seen somebody in a while on Facebook, I haven't seen their stuff, I'm not noticing them comment or like any of mine, if I direct message them and then they direct message me back, like clockwork, I start seeing their stuff on Facebook.

It happens almost every time and here's why I think this happens. Doesn't it only make sense that Facebook is paying attention to when people are private messaging and that the algorithm goes, “if you all are private messaging each other, you probably want to see each other's posts.”

That has to be the case because I notice this all the time. Again, Facebook doesn't want us to know that, but this is just what I've noticed doing this for a living for the last four years. Try this. Get into a new habit of private messaging five people a day whether it's for business, whether it's just popping in to say hi or encouraging somebody and then when they respond, go refresh your newsfeed and see if you don't see their stuff first.

That is how I get my content in front of a lot of people is that I direct message people all the time. Whether it's a birthday videos or following up or checking in, I am constantly inside of Facebook Messenger leveraging that piece of the platform. Pay attention to that for you. Here's the last part.

The reason very few people are seeing your posts is because you don't engage. For so many people on social media, you only know how to window shop.

I used to hate that when I was younger. When my mom would want me to go shopping and she'd drag me and my brother along. She wasn't really buying anything. She was just looking. She was window shopping. When we window shop on Facebook, we very quickly lose the opportunity to see other people because all you're doing is watching and the algorithm can't follow that. Though you think, "Well man, I'm on Facebook all the time." You're technically on Facebook, but you're not in Facebook. If you want to break this myth which is very few people see my content, start engaging. Like people's posts, comment on people's post, get in there and be active. Be an active participant, not an active viewer.

If you do these three things, I'm telling you, the game will change.

So, here’s what I ask of you…What “myth” stuck out to you? Put it in the comments of this blog. Then, get to work. This stuff works. See you soon!