Community Fan Page on Facebook | San Clemente Living

There are some great examples out there of agent-centric fan pages on Facebook. But Ashly Fox of the Ashly-Thomas Real Estate Group, is doing things a little bit different.  She has created a Facebook fan page called “San Clemente Living” that is centered around the community of San Clemente, California.  Several well constructed elements of her area fan page include:

• On the fanpage wall, she highlights area events such as interesting musicians coming to play on the local stage, links to the “Best of San Clemente” People Choice Awards, and community garage sale details.
• A photo album titled “Views” which highlights some of the great area scenery
• A “Discussions” tab which highlights relevant news articles on the area (some real estate related, such as an update on home sales in the market)
• The only “Favorite Pages” link is to the Ashly-Thomas Real Estate Group fan page – a traditional agent-centric fan page.  This is interesting because it reminds the San Clemente Living fan that the site is sponsored by a Realtor, but also succeeds in letting the fan know that San Clemente Living ISN’T as real estate pitch page.  It is a community page.  If they want real estate information, they know where to go.  San Clemente living is a resource that is designed to, as Ashly says on the page, “connect you with all things in San Clemente and near by”.

It appears that the fan page is just getting started (November 2009), but already San Clemente Living is receiving some interaction from it’s fan base, with “thumbs up” on several wall posts, and fan contributed images such as a view of Catalina Island on Thanksgiving Day. This is a great foundation for which to build a strong community resource.  With continued relevant content and continued engagement on the wall, Ashly stands a good chance of being know to a highly targeted, relevant consumer audience to her business.

This site is positioning itself as a resource that is offering information relevant to it’s customer – people who live, or are interested in living, in San Clemente.  It is promoting the lifestyle.  It is being provided by a Realtor who is not selling to the fans.  What a great way for Ashly to brand herself as a local expert who understands the community and the lifestyle of the area she works?  This is a great example of how Facebook fan pages can be used by Realtors.

**IMPORTANT UPDATE – 4.15.10** In reviewing the terms of service for Facebook Fan Pages, it appears that the strategy that Ashly has deployed here may be in violation which state “You may only administer a Facebook Page if you are an authorized representative of the subject of the Page.”   Unless Ashly has a business case for why she is the “authorized representative” of San Clemente Living (maybe she owns the URL and can show a real estate business practice built around that phrasing), it is possible that Facebook could remove her administrator access to this page.  It seems possible that an entity like the Chamber of Commerce for San Clemente might have a stronger claim to being the authorized representative of this page.  As of April 1, 2010, Facebook launched a new tool called “Community Pages”. Community pages are to “Generate support for your favorite cause or topic…If it becomes very popular (attracting thousands of fans), it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community”.  In other words, in Community pages, Facebook may take away your administrator rights as the page becomes popular.  As of this update, there is still not a lot of clarity about how Facebook is managing community pages but it does seem that they have been created to account for the type of unauthorized fan pages uses that Ashly is bordering on here with this strategy.  Before you start your own community based fan page, review the terms of service, and position your fan page to be within them.