We spent a long time experimenting and looking at facebook before setting out exactly what our client wanted to achieve – and just as importantly, what it could actually deliver.

We spent a almost year experimenting and looking at facebook before setting out exactly what we wanted to achieve – and just as importantly, what it could actually deliver – for our lettings business, Young London.

The result is a facebook page that focuses on existing tenants, rather than trying to fish directly for new business. We might not have as many page fans as Katy Perry (yet!), but they’re relevant ones and are interacting more than we’d expected at this stage.

The page gives them hyperlocal info about their nearby cafes, restaurants and independent retailers, exclusive discounts that we put together, news about our real-world social events (with the resulting photos that they might not always remember!) and recommendations from other tenants of the best in their area.

It’s a small, but useful element of our focus on ‘creating communities’ that aims to form longer-lasting, deeper relationships with our tenants. Feedback from tenants is great, especially for our ‘welcome drinks’ events – perhaps because London can be a slightly lonely/daunting place to those new to the city and it’s great to see neighbours that we’ve introduced at events become friends with each other on facebook afterwards.

It’s early days, but we’ve already significantly boosted our referral rate and the amount of new biz generated through referrals. It looks to have impacted the average length of tenancy and the % of tenants that are moving to another Young London property.

So, while facebook isn’t ever going to be a brilliant source of new business in it’s own right, I think it’s a fantastic tool in our marketing armoury!

http://www.facebook.com/londonproperty

- Oh, and if you want to see my photos of Katy Perry’s latest gig, they’re on my facebook page!