N-Play, a provider of real estate Facebook applications, has launched what it says is the first real estate advertising service built entirely into Facebook.
READ ADvantage enables agents to create listing and promotional ads on Facebook that lure local sellers and buyers to different Facebook pages.
“READ ADvantage simplifies ad creation and audience targeting for agents while giving them a customizable, inexpensive and effective real estate advertising solution on Facebook,” said Raina Van Cleave, director of marketing at N-Play, in a statement.
To use the service, agents must sign up for N-Play’s core product, the Real Estate Agent Directory. The directory has a claimed membership of 192,000 and allows consumers and real estate professionals to search for agents based on location and expertise.
N-Play launched a similar product to READ ADvantage last year that generates listing ads for agents when they post them to their Facebook profile pages.
READ ADvantage builds on that service. In addition to having the option to send consumers to listing pages, agents may now drive traffic to business pages and their profiles on the Real Estate Agent Directory through ads.
And along with listing ads, agents may now create agent ads and promotional ads using a variety of templates unavailable with the old service.
READ ADvantage also offers a new lead-capture capability.
If a person signs up for N-Play’s new consumer app, Property Pins, after clicking on an agent’s ad, N-Play informs the agent of the consumer’s identity and offers the agent the option to message them on Facebook.
N-Play argues that READ ADvantage provides a more cost-effective approach for generating leads than ad services offered by Zillow and Trulia.
READ ADvantage claims that it provides agents with “an experience that is more personal and socially connected than that of the large real estate portals,” whose platforms live on Web-based portals.
Also differentiating it from Zillow and Trulia’s services, READ ADvantage offers an automated lead-capture system and does not require agents to purchase ZIP codes to target ads, the company said.
Over 70 multiple listing services representing over 600,000 Realtors have signed up to offer N-Play’s Internet Data Exchange (IDX) listings search application.
The National Association of Realtors’ social media policy allows individual MLSs to determine their own rules for listings display on social media sites.
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