How to Use Facebook Live for Real Estate: A Step by Step Guide for Realtors®

Published in

roomvu Academy

7 min readJan 19, 2021

Learn how to easily get ready for and host a Facebook Live broadcast to generate leads

Facebook Live was officially released in April 2016. This enabled users to host live broadcasts and share them with their friends and others on the platform. Facebook live provides a mutual video interaction between the audience and the user and is used for both personal and business purposes. Realtors also have been using this feature to promote their business. However, many people do not know how to use Facebook Live for real estate properly.

In this article, we will go through the steps to host a Facebook Live video on both PCs and smartphones. Why real estate agents should use Facebook Live is not the focus of this article. If you need to learn the importance of live videos on Facebook for real estate and the ideas you can use for Facebook Live videos, click on the link above to read more.

Where to Use Live videos on Facebook

There are 4 places that you can go live on Facebook. We will briefly go through each of these options:

1. Your Personal Profile

Although not recommended, you can host your Facebook live broadcast right from your personal profile. We do not recommend doing so because not all of your friends on your personal profile are there to learn about your business and offers you have. Best-case scenario, they will ignore your business-related content and worst-case scenario they might unfollow you. Neither is what you want. It is also against Facebook’s terms of service and they might remove your profile from the platform if you use a personal page for business purposes.

2. Your Facebook Business Page

This is the place you should host your live broadcasts. It allows you to run retargeting ads to anyone who engages with your live broadcast.

3. Your Facebook Group

It is highly advisable that real estate agents create real estate Facebook groups. Then they can share valuable and compelling content with other group members to both introduce them as someone who knows real estate in the area and to increase their reach as more people join the group. When group members have questions regarding real estate, agents can participate in the discussions and provide answers. This helps make sure they stay on top of group members’ minds.

This is where Facebook live broadcasts related to real estate can add more value to the group and help generate leads.

4. Facebook Events

An event page is the perfect place to host a Facebook live broadcast. Virtual open houses, QA sessions, tips and tricks, and many more live sessions can be broadcast in a Facebook Event page.

How to Prepare for a Facebook Live for Real Estate

In this section, we will stick to the technical preparations you need to make for your Facebook live broadcast and we will leave the promotional preparations for the Facebook Live for Real Estate: The Ultimate Guide.

1. Make Sure You Are on a Fast Connection

You would not want your live video to get interrupted due to a bad connection. That will disappoint your existing audience and leave a bad impression on your new audience. It will show you as an unprofessional agent who has not thought everything through.

2. Make Sure Your Battery is Fully Charged

If you are hosting your live broadcast, another embarrassing incident that might happen is if your phone’s battery dies. Due to the high network usage, there will be a heavier load on your phone’s battery, and it will drain faster. Therefore, make sure you have it fully charged before you start your live broadcast.

3. Put Your Phone on DND or Airplane mode (on Wi-Fi)

While you are on your live video any phone call or message notification can interrupt the live video or at least distract you. Make sure you put your phone on airplane mode so that unwanted calls will not interrupt your live video. Of course, you need to be on Wi-Fi and cannot use cellular data.

4. Set the Scene

If you will be stationary and are not planning to move around, make sure you set the scene for the live video. Run your camera to see how your surroundings look. Remove anything that should not be there. Try to make the setting as professional as possible. Get rid of the clutter and make the place look neat and tidy.

How to Use Facebook Live for Real Estate: PC

On your computer browser go to your Facebook business page. Find the Create: Live button and click on it.

Live Video: Page

To the right you can choose where you want to broadcast the live video.

Right below that, there are two fields: one for the headline and the other for the description.

Headline

Many real estate agents ignore the headline which is a huge mistake. When you run a Facebook live video it will appear on your audience’s newsfeed. Without a headline, they have to guess your live video is about, and rest assured most won’t bother to click on the video and find out. Your headline plays an important role in attracting visitors and getting them on the live video. After you are done with the live broadcast you can share it on your timeline and others can search for your videos. Without a headline, the same case of ambiguity occurs. Try to make the headline catchy so that it encourages visitors to join.

Description

You can say what your live video is about in the headline but as the name suggests it is just a line. The description gives your audience an idea of what they will get out of your live video and increases the chances of them joining the live broadcast. Do not leave this space empty. Describe the purpose of the live video and mention the main features and points which appeal to your audience.

Audience Setting

Below the Headline and Description settings, there is the Audience Settings where you can specify the Audience age range and also the allowed and restricted locations. These options will allow you to decide who sees your live broadcast and who does not.

Create Polls

You can create Polls or Questions to ask your audience during the live video and increase user engagement.

Live Video Link

Next is a new feature added to Facebook that provides you with a link by which others can view all of your live videos in one place. You can copy this link and share it on your website or across all your social media channels to encourage people to watch your live videos. Copy that link and keep it where you can use it easily.

For the next step, you need to specify the source of your live video feed. You have three options:

Use Stream Key

Here you can use external apps like OBS, Wirecast, XSplit, or Be.Live to broadcast live videos.

Use Camera

In order to use your PC’s camera, choose this option to directly record the video.

Use Paired Encoder

Choose the option to use paired encoders to stream live on Facebook. If you are using pre-recorded content make sure it is clearly distinguishable from live content and includes appropriate disclosures about being pre-recorded in the description or through graphics.