5 Ways to Market Your Rental on Facebook
Social media platforms can be used to market different things—including your rental! Facebook’s Marketplace and housing groups have increased in usage for posting available rental listings. This is especially true for landlords with properties in larger cities. It’s still important to post your rentals to sites like Zillow and Realtor.com. Especially as they’re partnered with RentRedi because our prequalification process ensures that you see prequalified applicants for your rental.
However, with a reported 243.6 million people using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, sometimes it’s useful to crosspost listings to garner more attention to your properties. Especially as the total average cost of a vacancy can run up to $1750.
So, if you want to transition your rental from one tenant to the next, posting to social media to crosspost can promote and drive traffic to the listings!
Create a Good Rental Description
Importantly, a good rental description is key. Crossposting and promoting your listings on social media won’t help you much if the listing itself isn’t created well. To properly showcase your property, play to its strengths – but don’t be dishonest. Ask yourself how would you describe this property to a friend who was interested in it? The ultimate goal should be to engage social media users to comment and like the posting. Algorithms like Facebook use interaction (commenting on or liking it) to boost it in news feeds. Ultimately, you want to create a post that is pleasing and interesting enough for users to interact with.
5 Steps to Posting a Rental on Facebook
The following five steps can help you craft a rental listing that will promote engagement for your rental!
1. Make sure your pictures showcase the apartment in the best light—literally and figuratively.
Make sure that not only does the apartment look nice in the photos. Also, take pictures when it’s a sunny day outside. This helps the apartment look full of light and bright, something that’s very desirable to most tenants.
2. Location, location, location.
The number one thing renters consider when looking for a new apartment (after rent, that is) is the location. How close it is to their job? What is the commute like? And how close it is to…everything? (Or, conversely, how far away is it from the hubbub and noise of the city?) Think of location as an amenity. If the rental property is close to any forms of public transportation, laundry services, grocery stores, parks, restaurants, shops, those are eye-catching descriptors too.
3. Flaunt what ya got.
Speaking of amenities…If you have that little something extra special, make state that in the description. Things like any included bills, security, laundry, parking, pet allowances, elevators, rooftop views, and yard space. Anything that can be construed as an amenity, use it to gain that competitive edge.
4. Describe the SSS.
Describing the apartment using the right vocabulary is another way to draw people in. If you look through listings on Facebook, most of them tend to include three categories of description. The Size, Style, and Sunniness of the rental.
But, just make sure you’re not overexaggerating. For example, don’t describe a rental that’s cramped and dark as “spacious and sunny”. Instead, you might describe it as “cozy and quiet” or “cozy and bright” if you have lighting to counteract a low-light apartment. Be descriptive, but within reason. Style can be used to capture anything from “modern” to “renovated” to “brick walls” and “high ceilings”.
5. Be legit.
The golden rule of the internet is that you’re a scam until proven otherwise. ‘Buyers beware’ is the adage of any online or social media marketplace. So, if savvy social media users can’t distinguish you from the bots and scammers that trawl online listings, you won’t get any hits.
Make sure your business profiles are legit and have valid contact info. Even in responses, always be polite, professional, and respectful even if the other person is not. (As that can be the case in social media communications.)
Market Your Rental On Facebook Marketplace
In general, make sure you are representing yourself professionally, using high-quality photographs and showcasing the rental’s amenities. When posting to Marketplace, take the time to research and read through other rental listings on there too.
Take a few days to peruse rental listings on any Facebook’s Marketplace or housing groups. You’ll see that almost anything—including local establishments, storage, and brick walls can be listed as an attraction. It can be something that makes the rental more attractive to potential tenants. Social media platforms can be used for marketing many things. Promoting listings on sites like Facebook’s Marketplace can be another way of increasing the visibility of your rental.