I’ve been using the Roost App to pre-plan my Facebook business page posts for a few weeks and I must say that I’m impressed with the ease, convenience and supplied content.

My personal real estate fan page has been around for about a year, and while engagement is still a little slow, my goal is to post frequently in an attempt to stay “top of mind” with those in my circles. The Roost app makes this simple. Their claim that you can spend only 20 minutes a week on social media really is true.

Yesterday (Monday), I received an email bright and early reminding me that last week’s Roost campaign is about to expire. So I head on over to Facebook where I search for the Roost App and click “go to app”.  This takes me to the Roost website where I’ve already created a profile. I click to create a new “campaign” and the Roost programs takes me step-by-step through my plan for the week.

The app suggests that I schedule 9 posts this week in varying formats. It recommends:

  • 2 links
  • 3 status updates
  • 1 “quote”
  • 2 questions
  • 1 photo

You can follow this plan or you can create one of your own. I find that links, questions, and photos seem to get the most interaction. This week I opted to create four  links, one status update, and two questions. Through the Roost app, I opt to send my posts to Facebook as well as Twitter. Throughout the week I will also send posts from my own blog to the fan page.

My favorite feature of Roost by far is the link scheduler. Once you click it, it takes you to a series of articles from blogs in related industries. For real estate think: CNN Real Estate, Inman, Curbed, Zillow, Trulia, etc. From this page you can choose several articles to post automatically throughout the week. I always try to pick articles that have accompanying photos because they seem to get more attention. Roost also allows you to cite your own blog as a link source. However, I personally prefer to link blog posts manually right after publication.

Roost for real estate

I don’t do a lot of direct selling on my Facebook page though I do add a photo of each new listing into an “Our Home Listings” album with a link to the virtual tour in the description box. Once a listing sells I move it to a different album of “Our Sold Homes”.

The Roost features mentioned here are completely free however there are limits on the number of posts you can make per month. They also offer paid programs to feature listings and MLS search options.