Connect the Past with the Present Using Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network by professionals stretching from college age students on up. For most, about 20 percent of the people you know are already using Facebook. Facebook reports around 400 million accounts. The younger you are, the more people you will find. Also note some of the most recent Facebook statistics:

• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
• More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
• More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month
• There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices

Like LinkedIn, signing up for Facebook and connecting to friends is fast and easy and takes just a few minutes. Using your Gmail username and password allows you to quickly load your contacts just as you did in LinkedIn. In a little more than a few more seconds, and you could be chatting with old friends from high school, past clients or coworkers.

Start at the homepage at www.facebook.com and click on "Sign Up."

After filling out the form, check your inbox to confirm your registration.

With Facebook you can share more details about what is going on with your life and/or your business. You can share listings, your website, listing photos, videos, just about anything you like.

Strategically, your Facebook account can be used simply as a tool to have one of the largest websites on the Web link back to your website. It is excellent in terms of search engine optimization (SEO). However, if you delve deeper, you will find that there are lots of groups that have formed in your community around things you might be interested in. Why not chat about pets, cars, recreation, and community development, or just about anything you have an interest in.

Another great feature of Facebook is that there are a variety of ways you can go mobile. You can easily take photos or video on your phone and publish them quickly to your Facebook page where you can share them with others. It is far more efficient than sending media from your mobile device to one person at a time. Once you set up your Facebook account, select applications—mobile—Facebook for Blackberry®.

There has been a lot of activity in technology circles to develop applications that can be added to your Facebook page. Here is a review of a few of them to get you started.

• Testimonials – This allows you to gather up references and share them with others.
• Live Pads – Specifically for real estate professionals, this application allows people to search for homes, sell homes, and find other real estate information. There is another application that is similar called Cribfinder that you should also take a look at.
• Business Cards – You can personalize your Facebook business card, which will attach your business information to all of your Facebook communications.
• LinkedIn – Yes, you can incorporate Linkedin to view and share your LinkedIn contacts on your Facebook page.
• Mortgage Reports – Provides mortgage rate information directly to your Facebook page.
• I Am Real Estate – Allows you to share real estate information with your friends.
• MyPhone – Lets Facebook friends call your phone or leave a voice message while keeping your phone number private.
• Big Photo – It does what it is called—allows you to put high resolution, large photos on your page—this is especially good for luxury real estate.
• Your Neighbors – allows you to find other Facebook users within a particular distance to your home or office allowing you to meet people you might want to meet. This application is also cool for promoting open houses.

This is the fourth part of a series of articles on 'Tired of Networking in Person? Try Online Networking.' The series will describe how online networking can help real estate professionals secure new clients, work more effectively with buyers and sellers and help create clients for life.

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