This guest post was contributed by Jade Mills Estates. Jade Mills is a Beverly Hills real estate agent specializing in Beverly Hills and Bel Air homes.

The real estate industry as a whole has truly embraced social media marketing over the past few years. Real estate agents use social media sites to post video house tours, schedule showings and connect with their local community. And there is no better place to do all this than on Facebook.

Facebook reported having 845 million monthly active users at the end of 2011, and it has the widest user base demographically out of all the social media sites. These days, no matter what your real estate niche, your clients are almost certainly on Facebook. That being the case, it just makes sense that you should be there as well.

Facebook offers many opportunities for real estate marketing. It provides one place where you can post video tours and photos, highlight your listings, offer advice and establish yourself as an expert in your local community. Here are 6 steps to help you set up a Facebook presence so you can take advantage of all the social network has to offer.

1. Create a fan page

As a real estate agent, your personal networks are probably interconnected with your professional networks. Even so, on Facebook it’s best to keep the two separate. You can’t always control what your friends and family may post, which can be detrimental to your image as a real estate broker. Similarly, your friends and family probably don’t want to see all of your real estate-related posts. The simple solution is to set up a local business fan page.

2. Write a great About section

Use this area to key in on your particular target audience. What specific real estate niche do you serve? Are you a Beverly Hills real estate agent who caters to clients looking for luxury homes? Write about how you help people to find the dream properties that allow them to live the elite life they crave. Are your clients more often families with a modest income? Tell them how you’ll help them find a home they can enjoy in a community where their kids can get a fantastic education.

3. Choose a vanity URL

The URL that is automatically generated for fan pages isn’t terribly user- or SEO-friendly. Make sure that you personalize your Facebook URL so that people can find you more easily. A custom URL also looks nicer than the default if you add it to your business card or email signature.

4. Create a custom landing tab

Once you’ve got your fan page set up, use Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to create a custom tab. You can set it so that anyone who comes to your page but hasn’t “Liked” it yet gets sent automatically to this tab. Make sure to include a beautiful image, info about your real estate agency and a call to action (“Like this page!”).

5. Add a tab for testimonials

Don’t just sing your own praises–get other people to sing them for you. Potential clients want to see that you’ve served others well. Including a testimonials tab is a great way to do this and at the same time get others to provide free content on your wall. Whenever you complete a real estate transaction successfully with a client, ask them to post a testimonial. You could even offer some kind of incentive to do so.

6. Add Facebook buttons to your website

The point of social media marketing is to get people to share your website and other content with their networks. Make it easy for people by providing buttons so they can do it with a simple click. Put a button that links to your Facebook fan page right on the top of every page of your website. Add a “Like” button to every blog post and article you publish. All of your online profiles should be interconnected so that people can navigate between them with ease. Link to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles from your real estate blog and vice versa.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll have a good start on marketing yourself as a real estate agent on Facebook. Now all that’s left is to start providing useful content to your fans that will make them want to share your page with their networks and also establish you as their go-to agent for all their real estate needs.