Neural networks are a powerful tool for solving a wide range of problems in artificial intelligence and machine learning. They are particularly useful for tasks that involve pattern recognition, such as image and speech recognition. In this tutorial, we will learn how to build a basic neural network in Python using the popular deep-learning library Keras.

Prerequisites:

Before we get started, you should have a basic understanding of Python programming and some familiarity with machine learning concepts. It is also helpful to have some experience with NumPy, a library for working with large, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices of numerical data.

Step 1: Install Keras and TensorFlow

The first step is to install the necessary libraries. We will be using Keras and TensorFlow. Keras is a high-level library for building and training neural networks, while TensorFlow is a low-level library for performing mathematical operations on tensors (multidimensional arrays).

To install these libraries, you can use pip, the Python package manager. Open up a terminal and enter the following command:

pip install tensorflow
pip install keras

Step 2: Import the necessary libraries

Next, we need to import the necessary libraries into our Python script. Add the following lines at the top of your script:

import numpy as np
from keras.models import Sequential
from keras.layers import Dense

The numpy library is a popular library for working with large, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices of numerical data. The Sequential class from keras.models is a wrapper for creating a linear stack of layers in a neural network, while the Dense class from keras.layers is a fully-connected (dense) layer that works by multiplying its input by a weight matrix and adding a bias vector.

Step 3: Prepare the data

Before we can start building our neural network, we need to prepare the data that we will use to train it. Neural networks are trained using a large dataset of input-output pairs. In this tutorial, we will use a simple dataset of two input features and one output label.

To create the dataset, we will use the numpy library to generate some random data. Add the following lines to your script:

# Generate random data
np.random.seed(0)
x = np.random.random((1000, 2))
y = np.random.randint(2, size=(1000, 1))

This code generates 1000 samples of random data with two input features (x) and one output label (y). The output label is a binary variable that is either 0 or 1.

Step 4: Create the model

Now that we have our data, we can start building the neural network. We will use the Sequential class from keras.models to create a linear stack of layers in our network. Add the following lines to your script:

# Create the model
model = Sequential()

Step 5: Add layers to the model

Next, we need to add some layers to our model. A neural network typically consists of an input layer, one or more hidden layers, and an output layer.

To add a layer to our model, we can use the add method of the Sequential class. Let's start by adding an input layer and a hidden layer to our model. Add the following lines to your script:

# Add an input layer and a hidden layer
model.add(Dense(units=64, activation='relu', input_dim=2))
model.add(Dense(units=1, activation='sigmoid'))

The first layer has 64 units and uses the rectified linear unit (ReLU) activation function. The input dimension is 2, because our data has two input features. The second layer has 1 unit and uses the sigmoid activation function. This is the output layer of our model, and the sigmoid activation function is commonly used for binary classification tasks.

Step 6: Compile the model

Before we can start training our model, we need to compile it. Compiling the model involves specifying the loss function and optimizer that we want to use.

Add the following lines to your script:

# Compile the model
model.compile(loss='binary_crossentropy', optimizer='adam', metrics=['accuracy'])

This code trains the model for 10 epochs (iterations over the entire dataset) with a batch size of 32. The model will update the weights and biases after each batch.

Step 8: Evaluate the model

After training the model, we can evaluate its performance on the test data. To do this, we can use the evaluate method of the Sequential class. Add the following lines to your script:

# Evaluate the model
loss, accuracy = model.evaluate(x, y, batch_size=32)
print('Loss:', loss)
print('Accuracy:', accuracy)

This code calculates the loss and accuracy on the test data. The loss is the error between the predicted and true labels, and the accuracy is the percentage of correct predictions.

Conclusion:

In this tutorial, we learned how to build a basic neural network in Python using the Keras library. We prepared the data, created the model, compiled it, trained it, and evaluated its performance. You can now use this knowledge to build more complex neural networks and tackle more challenging machine-learning tasks.

DeFi tokens also transfer value, but not necessarily always in a financial sense. Utility tokens can be used like passwords to provide access to a resource, asset tokens can be used to represent physical assets such as real estate, and of course, there are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that represent one-of-a-kind “items” such as digital art (For example, Nyan Cat recently sold for $600,000). DeFi tokens are also different from coins because they can be built on existing blockchain networks.

The last 12 months has seen an enormous amount of interest in all the different Defi platforms and the Defi ecosystem as a whole. This interest has seen the price and market value of the associated platform coins skyrocket.

Below are the 5 Defi coins that have seen their market value explode.

1. Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche launched in 2020 as a platform for smart contracts, the creation of decentralized applications, or dapps, and subnets, or custom blockchains.

“Subnets are powerful, reliable and secure private or public blockchains built as offshoots to the core Avalanche platform,” John Wu, president of Ava Labs, tells CNBC Make It. “Developers of these custom blockchains have complete control over the design, with the only requirement being to participate in securing the core platform.”

Wu sees subnets as a powerful use case for Avalanche going forward.

Avalanche operates on a proof of stake (PoS) model, where validators verify transactions according to how many coins they hold. Supporters of PoS say it is significantly less energy intensive than other models and has less of an environmental impact.

Currently the most valuable Defi coin (outside of ETH) at $26B market cap

2. Terra

Terra is a trustless, programmable blockchain e-commerce platform that offers fiat-pegged stablecoins to provide more stability when conducting cross-border payments. Terra relies on its utility and staking coin, LUNA, as well as several other stablecoins that are pegged to many of the world’s top fiat currencies — including TerraUSD (UST). By using stablecoins, the Terra crypto ecosystem offers low fees, instant settlement, and frictionless cross-border exchange to power retail transactions.

Terra’s current market cap is $17.5B

3. Wrapped Bitcoin

WBTC is an ERC-20 token that’s backed on a 1:1 basis with Bitcoin. (In some ways, they could be compared to stablecoins, even if Bitcoin itself isn’t always very stable.)

When Bitcoin is wrapped, the cryptocurrency is held in a reserve by the BitGo Trust. In an aim to be fully transparent (something that other stablecoins have struggled with,) the amount of WBTC in circulation has been made public — with proof that Bitcoin, the underlying asset, is being securely held in custody.

WBTC market cap at the time of writing is $14.5B

4. Uniswap

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Uniswap allows users to swap ERC-20 tokens — which can be used to represent a wide array of digital assets as well as financial values. Uniswap exchanges only lists tokens built on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Uniswap traders need to enter into smart contracts via which they can deposit their crypto assets into pools each of which comprises of two ETH-based crypto tokens — which in a pair represent the assets deposited in that pool. To put it more simply, Uniswap is a way for people to exchange different types of tokens built on the popular Ethereum blockchain, in a secure manner, without having to rely on a centralised exchange.

Uniswap’s market is currently sitting at $13.3B

5. Chainlink

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that is poised to play an important role in the real-world implementation of blockchain technologies. The purpose of this network is to provide input on a variety of external sources of data.

Although blockchain is great at what it does — providing a decentralized, secure ledger for digital transactions — it isn’t so great at taking input for things happening outside the blockchain. There are many “off-chain” forces that influence markets, including fiat currencies, credit cards and even the weather and sports scores. As a decentralized oracle, Chainlink can provide input to what’s known as smart contracts.

The latest market cap of ChainLink is $12.4B

If you’ve enjoyed reading this and want to be notified when we publish more news, trends and insights then simply subscribe to our free newsletter below.

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When first getting started things can seem somewhat overwhelming.

And as this platform continues to mature, targeting becomes more and more specific.

There are also many strategies that you can use to drive traffic and generate leads with Facebook, and each method has its place.

So where do you begin with so many options?

And how can you avoid joining the ranks of those who tried and failed to produce satisfactory results with Facebook ads?

Well for starters, it can be very helpful to review what NOT to do with your campaigns.

That way, you can have a much better understanding of what is more likely to set you up for success right out of the gate.

PLUS, even if you are someone who has already given Facebook a try in the past with little to no success…

The following five ad mistakes will help you to get a better grasp on areas that you can improve right away, so you can get a better return on your investment much faster.

Mistake #1: Not Keeping Current With Changes

It’s no secret that things are always changing online, and it can be a challenge to keep current with the constant updates to Facebook’s platform.

However, when this is viewed more as a benefit than a hurdle to overcome, you can always be a step ahead of your competition.

This provides a unique way for an advertiser to feature various images and offers within one single ad…with multiple landing page URLs!

Because this is so new, nobody in his local market is currently using this strategy, so he is reaping a major reward for being ahead of the game (currently he is raking in $.58 leads).

This also goes for the type of offer you are using. For instance, in many markets the “What’s My Home Worth” seller offer is becoming overused and outdated.

As a result, it’s important to research and implement new and fresh ideas that will set you apart from the crowd and exponentially increase your conversions.

Mistake #2: Over-managing or Under-managing Campaigns

This one can be a challenge, because it is very easy to swing to either side of the pendulum.

For instance, many brand-new advertisers will make the mistake of turning ad sets on and off far too quickly before enough data has come in to truly measure results.

It’s a good idea to allow an ad set to run for at least a week, and ensure that you are setting a reasonable daily spend to get enough quantifiable results.

It can take Facebook several days to serve your ads and gather enough data to best optimize them for specific goals.

In other words, Facebook tracks a ton of data and is very good at getting your ads in front of the right people, but this takes a little time.

On the flipside, you also do not want to make the mistake of setting your ad and forgetting it.

Even if it is generating great results this week, eventually it will start to lose its effectiveness.

The remedy could be as simple as swapping out a photo, but you must actively keep an eye on your results, so you are always aware of how things are performing over time.

Split testing is another key component in all of this, because it will allow you to tweak and improve your current results.

This will also ensure that you are always serving fresh content so your audience remains engaged with your message.

Mistake #3 — Not Measuring Results

This point is HUGE, because if you fail to measure every aspect of your campaign (ie. click throughs, cost per click, cost per lead, cost per client, etc.) to discover what produces the best results, you will be unable to truly quantify success.

In other words, your ad may have a higher cost per click, but your landing page is converting at over 40%.

So even though you need to spend a little more up front to get a website visitor, you still have a high percentage of people opting in for your offer.

Additionally, you must closely track not only your cost per lead, but also the average value per client you receive.

For example, even if you have to spend up to $1000 to get one client who purchases a luxury home, your commission could easily be 20X’s or more based on the sale price.

If you are able to closely track this data, you will have a keen awareness of how much you can spend to earn a client.

This alone will separate you from your competition, because you will be more focused on the proven outcome rather than the temporary expenses.

Mistake #4 — Poor Targeting

One of the biggest issues we find when reviewing campaigns is that an ad is not properly targeting the right audience.

So instead of choosing the demographics necessary to match a luxury real estate offer with people in that income range for example, an agent may choose to only narrow down by age and location.

The problem with this approach is that your ad is now being served to a larger number of people who are not interested in, nor able to purchase a home in this range.

Therefore, you relevance score will be much lower, your ad will receive a lot less interaction, and your costs will be significantly higher as a result.

Additionally, we often see that agents attempt to target several cities/areas in one ad. Again, this will only distort your results, because you are not focused on one specific market.

Instead, it pays to segment your ads and landing pages into cities or even zip codes, and drive traffic from those areas only to your locally targeted offer.

Now, although we recommend that you use a variety of targeting based on your chosen offer, it’s still ideal to have an audience size of at least 10,000–25,000, and up to 50,000 max.

You can still generate great results if your coverage is under 10,000 people, however, your ad sets will be more likely to tire faster.

If this occurs, you may either need to change out your copy/images, or you can move on to a different location for a while to get in front of a fresh audience.

Mistake #5 — Crappy Landing Pages

Regardless of how great your offer is and how compelling your ad copy may be, if your landing page sucks, you will lose a majority of your potential leads.

Time and time again, we see agents using highly cluttered pages with very poor formatting, that are guaranteed to convert at less than 10% every time.

Although there are a ton of different factors to consider, we’re going to outline some of the biggest areas of improvement below.

Here are a few reasons why landing pages will not convert:

• The opt-in box falls below the fold
• There is too much navigation, imagery, or “attention grabbers”
• Your copy is not congruent with the offer in your ad
• The page is not mobile friendly
• There are too many input boxes for a user to fill out
• Loading time for your pages too slow
• Your offer is simply not compelling enough

Of course this list goes on and on, but this is enough to get you started.

BONUS Mistake: Poor Congruency

As was alluded to in mistake #5, if your offer is not congruent from your ad copy to the landing page and beyond, your results will suffer.

Here is a quick checklist of everything that must be in place to get the highest conversions possible:

1. Facebook fan page — this must be area specific and match the city or area that you are targeting with your ad and offer
2. Facebook ad copy — the ad will call out to a specific audience that is related to the area you are focused on for your fan page
3. Landing page — once a person clicks on your ad after seeing your offer, the landing page should mirror the exact offer promised within the ad
4. Thank you page — this should reaffirm what the person just opted in for and include instructions on how to access the free resource
5. Follow up emails — your initial offer should be delivered via email, and all future correspondence should be related to the audience you are targeting

Originally published on Authentic Insights

For Authentic Insights customers, Facebook is the third highest source of new leads, outperforming Google AdWords as well as organic search from both Bing and Yahoo:

All told, Facebook has generated 12,176 new leads since January of this year alone. And that’s leads. Not traffic, not visitors, not followers, not fans … real leads.

Imagine the difference a few hundred new leads could have made in your business over the last year. Image what they could do for you in 2017.

Simply put … that kind of lead-generating faucet is absolutely transformative.

So how do we do it? I’m glad you asked.

Facebook Ads for Real Estate: The “Why”

ou may be wondering what makes Facebook such a phenomenal place for real estate advertising.

At the risk of stating the obvious:

• Real estate is personal. Facebook is personal.
• Real estate is emotional. Facebook is emotional.
• Real estate is visual. And Facebook is visual.

However, not all Facebook content is created equal.

After analyzing over one billion Facebook posts from roughly three million brands, Buzzsumo discovered that the three most engaging post types overlap perfectly with those three qualities: (1) questions, (2) images and (3) videos.

Of course, the obvious question is: why do you need to pay for ads if Facebook is tailor made for the types of posts that come up naturally in real estate?

Facebook “organic reach” is dying

To determine what posts you see — and more importantly, what posts your audience doesn’t see — Facebook’s algorithm uses what’s known cognitive computing; in simple terms, machine learning. These algorithm’s learn by testing and figuring out how people respond to those tests, because Facebook is all about providing relevancy and rich experiences for the people who use it.

Unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.

When it comes to companies and brands — as opposed to personal profiles — the average organic page reach is tanking while Facebook’s stock prices continue to climb.

This inverse relationship is no accident.

As Convince and Convert recently explained, Facebook “is banking on the dominance of social selling and could basically care less how your company’s non-paid, organic efforts suffer as a result.” In other words, the free (Facebook) lunch is over and if you want your posts to reach your audience … you have to pay to play.

Your goal must always be to get people to engage with the stuff you post. But make no mistake, the deck is stacked against you. As a real estate investor posting on Facebook, your fans only get to see a very limited number of your posts.

And that’s where understanding Facebook ads becomes so vital.

Facebook also allows for fine-grained ad segmentation based on just about any demographic you can imagine; this is especially powerful for targeting and retargeting specific real-estate audiences.

On top of that, Facebook ads remain the most economic choice among both traditional and digital media.

While you should certainly invest in an “organic” presence on Facebook, those 12,176 leads I brought up earlier are driven by ads.

Facebook Ads for Real Estate: The “How” of Getting Started

You can begin running Facebook ads with either your personal profile or through your business page; however, using a business page — i.e., Fan Page — gives you far more customization options.

Ads Manager is Facebook’s platform for small to mid-sized campaigns and Power Editor is designed for large organizations looking to run multiple campaigns simultaneously.

When setting up your account — which Facebook makes incredibly easy — be sure to specify under Billing both an overall “Daily Spend Limit” as well as an overall “Account Spend.”

Doing this ensures you’ll never go over budget. If you’re just starting out, experiment by setting a modest budget so you only pay when you reach $50-$200.

Facebook Ad Types

The biggest distinction in Facebook’s ad types is between (1) “Boosting” and “Promoting” existing posts … and (2) creating and running an ad.

The global click through rate for something like Google is a stark 0.20%. That number gets even more disheartening when you limit results to the United States alone:

The good news is that, according to SmartInsights, all three types of Facebook ads far outperform that average:

Notice the distinction between the Power Editor, Promoted, and Boosted. While there’s a place for each in your Facebook mix, because this is a post about ads — and because that’s what we use here at Authentic Insights — we’ll just focus on the Power Editor.
Facebook’s Ads Guide walkthrough the various placements and even includes annotated examples of each type:

When selecting your ad type, the primary question is, “What’s your goal?”

Goal 1: Drive Traffic

(1) Domain advertising.

The simplest of all Facebook ads, domain advertising places your ad in the right-hand column. It’s unobtrusive, inexpensive, and perfect to get your feet wet.

(2) News feed advertising.

This is the most popular Facebook ad method. Along with driving traffic to your website or landing page through the link, image and “Learn More” button, the ad also includes options to like, comment and/or share.

Ads featured in the news feed have a 44% higher click through rate than right-side-column placement as well as a five-times-higher conversion rate. With this type of ad, you can include high-quality images, your logo, a custom message, and a link to your website through the “Learn More” button.

Goal 2: Generate Leads

(1) Carousel ads.

These ads are placed in the news feed and investors or agents can promote up to five properties at once (or feature multiple images of a single property). Each image may also include a unique link and title:

(2) Lead ads.

Just like the name implies, lead ads focus exclusively on generating leads. By setting up lead ads, your prospective buyer or seller can complete a signup form without ever leaving Facebook itself. This offers less customization, but is perfect for Facebook mobile users:

(3) Canvas ads.

Canvas ads are only available on mobile and appear in the regular news feed. The great thing about Canvas ads is they look like a normal post. Prospects can swipe through a carousel of images, tilt the image in different directions, and zoom in or zoom out.

For you this means advertising a property listing with multiple images as well as videos, unique descriptions, individual prices, or even a map of the area … all without your prospects needing to leave Facebook. If viewers are interested, they simply have to click on the call to action button.

Goal 3: Likes or Followers

(1) Post page like.

This is an ad type for any page position, either in the news feed or the right hand column. You create a custom post and — while it includes a call to action button — priority goes to “Like Page” in order to build your Facebook audience.

(2) Video page like.

These are the same as post page like ads, but instead of using an image, you’d use a video.

Goal 4: Attend events

(1) Event ads.

For physical events — like showings, open houses, or buyers or sellers seminars — event ads are especially powerful at targeting audiences in specific location.

Once you’ve created your event on a Facebook Page, you can simply pay to “Promote Event” or you can build an ad for the event itself through the choices above.

Even more digitally savvy, such events don’t necessarily need to be physical. In the first virtual open house tour in 2015, traffic was directed to this page:

Facebook Ads for Real Estate: The “How” of Running and Optimizing

Step 1: Understand your objective

I’ve already said this, but it bear repeating: before you do anything, you need to know what you want to achieve with your ad.

For instance, is your goal to get more page likes — which I only recommend if you’re trying to intentionally build a large Facebook following — or is it to get more people to a specific landing page?

Your goal will determine which kind of ad to use. And once you know the right end result, Facebook makes it easy to create the right type:

Step 2: Focus on creating eye-catching visuals

Visuals are what make or break every Facebook ad.

Despite our natural instincts, I’ve found that using pictures that look amateur or are made to look amateur actually work better than using professionally edited images.

Why?

From a psychological point of view, people are on Facebook in a very personal capacity: to keep up to date with friends and family. They’re not there to buy houses or view listings. So when an image looks like you or I just took it and uploaded it ourselves — especially if you select an ad type that is featured in the news feed — it feels less like an ad and more like it belongs; as if a family member or friend uploaded it instead of a business.

Here’s another little trick to use on your ad picture.

Edit your picture with a very small, bright colored outline like you see on the right. I suggest using a lime green, orange, or something bright other than red. The human mind is conditioned to subconsciously notice circled and outlined things because your mind associates that outline with something that must be important.

Think of it this way: when you read a magazine or thumb through the classifieds, how do you remember which items are your favorites?

You circle them.

Images in Facebook ads are not “one size fits all.” Each goal has its own specific proportions that Facebook recommends:

We’ve already covered a number of ads that feature properties themselves. But don’t stop with the traditional fare. Instead, experiment with unique imagery like these examples of organic real-estate posts that went viral:

Step 3: Write attention-grabbing copy

News feed ads don’t give you much room for creativity. Each element is strictly regulated, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stop your audience in their tracks:

(1) Headline: 25 characters.

To attract buyers, think about what would catch the eye of your local community.

As you know, when somebody is looking to buy real estate, they want to connect with real and above all trustworthy people. That should be well expressed in your short ad. Titles such as “Looking for a Home?” “Where are the best schools?” or “Behind on Payments?” are all attention grabbers that lean on the most popular type of post on Facebook — questions — while at the same time attracting the kind of customer you’re looking for.

(2) Message: 90 characters.

Your Facebook ad text should be brief and to the point. If the real estate that you’re selling has something unique, let your audience know. Make sure to mention the city or neighborhood, and add a call to action.

(3) Link descriptions: 90 characters.

Here’s what all three of those look like in action:

Write the ad copy based on the needs and desires of your target audience. Never make it about you or your real estate business.

A brilliant example of this comes from Rentec Direct, who provide property management software. Their two most profitable ads — at first — appear to have nothing to do with selling property management software:

Notice that with both they directly address a need — or more accurately, a pain — their target audience already feels. These kind of well-crafted ads are exactly what you should be creating as well.

Step 4: Targeting the right audience

Facebook ads let you laser target the audience of your choice.
When you create an ad, you can isolate the people you want to reach based on a host of factors:

The options can feel overwhelming, so here are some tips on the most important factors

Age: the age range should be chosen according to the price of the home and the neighborhood. If you’re listing an inexpensive college home, range it from 18–25. If it’s a roomy family home, range it from 30–45. If it’s only one bedroom home, set it for 45 and over.

Location: select the exact city and state as well as the surrounding area where the real estate is located.

Interests: this one is tricky. If there’s a local college in the area, then make sure to include that college as an interest and all of its athletic teams. Same goes for families, bachelors, and retirees. Think of places near the real estate property that your audience would frequent and include them. This puts your ads in front of the people who liked other Facebook pages of these places.

Facebook ads show up on the pages of people based on who they are and what they’re interested in, so that’s what they see is — here’s that keyword again — relevant to their lives. This is good news for real estate agencies, because your money works to bring in more of the right people, instead of just anyone who may give you a like, but would not become a buyer or seller.

Facebook ads also have a “likely to move” category. If you pull zip codes for certain areas, together with the “likely to move” behavior, you can really narrow your target audience down:

Targeting is massively important to your Facebook ad success. As Nathan Miller from Rentec Direct told me:

I’ll be honest … the first ads we put on Facebook almost made us abandon the platform altogether. We spent thousands and receive maybe two conversions. It was by far the lowest converting ad spend we had ever experienced.

The answer to a successful Facebook campaign turns out to not be the amount of cash thrown at it, but the power of Facebook’s targeting. You want 100 people who are very interested in your product to see your ad and the other tens of thousands who aren’t not to.

We accomplished this with Facebook’s lookalike audiences and retargeting. These changes were so simple, and we overlooked it for months.

Our conversion rates have increased by a factor of 40, and our costs per engagement have gone down at the same time.

The Leads Are Waiting…

It’s true … Facebook and real-estate marketing are a match made in social-media heaven.

Since January of this year, Authentic Insights customers have generated 12,176 new leads through Facebook alone. And remember: those are leads: not traffic, not visitors, not followers, not fans … leads.

When you combine a great Facebook marketing strategy with Authentic Insights execution, it’s a combo that can’t be beat.

Tapping into a platform like Facebook and coming back with hundreds of new leads can transform your business.

So get started today …

Originally published on Authentic Insights

We at Authentic Insights believe that Facebook Ads are still the best investment you can make in advertising online since you can easily generate over 500% return on ad spend. Many real estate agents have been paying to buy ads on Google for years, trying to appear above the major portals (including my former employer) for those terms to earn those clicks. And SEO? Forget about ranking for terms like [Sydney real estate] unless you have a huge budget or are attached to a big franchise.

Real Estate is Personal

Because a house is likely a person’s largest financial purchase ever, it’s intimately tied to their picture of themselves and who they want to be. People prefer to work with those that they trust and are local, and this holds true for real estate agents especially.

People trust those they know and those their network knows. You will often see people asking their networks of friends if they know “a good real estate agent” or if “anyone has sold their house recently and would they recommend someone?”

On Facebook, you can pay to promote your page to a specific audience. By getting more of an audience on your Facebook page by providing outstanding content and information to your ideal audience of homebuyers, you can plug into your ideal customer’s network and provide your customer social proof that their friends also endorse you.

Take for example a site like Outside Magazine, one of my favorite magazines. When I see there in the left that nine of my friends like Outside, I am much more likely to Like the page myself and therefore see its updates.

Real Estate is Visual

My wife and I are just beginning our home search. Like most first time home buyers in our early 30s, we begin our search by finding houses that we think are beautiful. We’ve followed countless interior design sites on Instagram, saved many mid century modern homes on Pinterest, and set up multiple searches for the type of home we want in our target location.

The Internet is visual as well. If you look at your Facebook feed, what do you notice? It’s full of images.

You can use this to your advantage, as Open Listings is above (albeit to work against an agent’s best interest), to inspire your potential customer and begin to familiarize them with your brand.

You’re probably already investing in professional real estate photos for the homes you list. I recommend that you get permission to use these images in promotional materials, then use them within ads to draw in your potential customers.

Real Estate is Data Driven

You have a good idea of the factors that make up your ideal customer — age and income at the bare minimum. Because real estate is local, you also know where they live or where they may be considering moving.

Did you know that Facebook Ads allow you to target ads based on all of the above factors?

For example, did you know that as a sydney real estate agent (for example) you could target millennials who make over $100,000 a year who have recently been in the sydney CBD postcode?

The targeting gets that specific.

This ad will reach over 8000 people a day on Facebook and 1700–4500 people a day on Instagram, depending on your daily budget.

Real Estate is Emotional

This point goes hand in hand with real estate as a visual industry. Real estate is emotional. Whether it’s a person’s first home or their third, people become attached to places and excited about new things. With a large transaction such as real estate, they also have those feelings of both fear and excitement.

While emotions should never overshadow solid financials, you cannot ignore the fact that home buying is emotional. Why else would people so excitedly post all over Facebook about finding and buying a new home?

People want to be inspired. They want to be hopeful. They want to dream and move forward in life, being surrounded by beautiful places.

I’m not saying that you should start posting stock photos of beautiful locations with cheesy quotes in front of them. Instead, use the visual and emotional nature of real estate to connect on a heart level with your potential buyers.

People buy because they trust, and building trust through emotional connection is fantastic business.

Facebook ads is a worthwhile investment in your time to understand its potential.

Originally published on Authentic Insights