As a real estate agent, you’ve got a lot to do, and sometimes it seems like you don’t have time for real estate social media. However, social media is proven to be a good way to nurture existing contacts and generate new leads. It’s worth your time.
Think about the things you could do in person to reach out to new people in your community, and say hello to people you already know. You could attend chamber of commerce meetings, door knock, volunteer, or sponsor your children’s sports teams. None of those activities has the potential for getting in front of the number of people you can reach on social media.
You may choose to do those things anyway, but it’s a good idea to take some of that offline time and devote it to your real estate social media marketing. Over time, social media will become just another tool you use like your real estate CRM or other real estate agent software. Here’s how to get the most of that time and money you’ll invest.
General Tips
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Create a real estate social media marketing plan
It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but where many people get into trouble is that they just start playing around with social media, they don’t know how to tell if it’s helping them generate leads, so they slowly stop doing it. A plan will help you avoid that problem.
In addition, once you have laid out a plan, you can delegate a good portion of the work to an assistant. The assistant can do all the information gathering, posting, and report creation. You’ll want to be involved in reviewing results and making mid-course corrections. You’ll also want to be the one responding to people who comment on your posts or ask a question.
There are many ways to create a plan and you’ll find many on the internet. Here are a few you might want to review:
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Set up profiles on the social media sites you’ve targeted for your marketing plan
Don’t use a personal profile for your business. It doesn’t look professional and it may include more than you want to share with clients and prospects. And, Facebook, for example, will let you do things on a business page that you can’t do on a personal page, such as setting up contests.
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Stay active
Post on a regular basis to keep followers interested. Use an automated tool to manage posts, such as Hootsuite, SproutSocial, or Buffer. For more tips, check out what A1 Technologies has to say about this.
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Don’t post unless you have something interesting to say
One of the biggest complaints users have about social media is that the people they’re following flood them with useless posts. Planning a calendar will help you avoid that problem.
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Use photos and videos
Posts with photos and videos attract attention and receive more engagement than posts without. Plan on including an image in every post.
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Use free stock images when possible
You probably hire a professional photographer for your listings. In the same way, any photo that you use needs to be crisp, clear and related to your topic. Unless you’re a master photographer and have the time to take photos regularly, it’s best to use stock photography. Consider:
If you want to get a bit more creative, you can go to sites such as Canva.com to use templates designed specifically for the major social media sites.
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Vary the types of posts you publish
Think about the different categories of a post you can create:
- Helpful: answer questions, promote a new eBook or special offer, plug the expertise of someone you know who is looking for a job.
- Reaching out: Congratulate your clients when they take possession, send birthday greetings, comment on some of your follower’s posts.
- Thought provoking: Publish daily quotes from BrainyQuote or their funny quotes. Ask a question that people can reply to quickly.
- Cheeky: Post a photo and ask followers to create a caption, post a meme you like, or a question and ask followers if it’s fact or fiction.
- Enlightening: Local events, case studies of client transactions, introduce new blog posts, ask followers to recommend favorite local amenities such as restaurants.
Facebook Real Estate Social Media Tips
- Keep 80 percent of posts about clients and 20 percent about your business.
- Use a Facebook cover video instead of a photo.
- Use hashtags. Yes, they really do help.
- Use interactive posts such as contests and sweepstakes or voting.
- Use 360-degree photos to make your listing stand out.
- Use Facebook targeting to publish ads to a narrow group within your target market.
- Create neighborhood groups and post information about taxes, events, featured businesses, interviews with residents, video of you and your clients describing the 5 things you love about your neighborhood, and more.
- Activate the Services and Reviews section on your profile to highlight what you do and encourage people to leave reviews.
- Use hashtags to attract more attention, for example: #[your neighborhood] favorites
- Promote your listings on Twitter.
- Tweet buyer and seller tips, with links to your website pages and blog posts, local news and events.
- Tweet questions to encourage interaction, for example: What is the one thing in a home you can’t live without?
- Use @name to keep in touch with clients, send out welcomes on possession or close.
- Say something interesting about your listings, not just the facts. Point out the lifestyle, i.e., Ride your bikes to the park!
- Share one of your Pins on Pinterest to your social networks.
Instagram Real Estate Social Media Tips
If your research indicates that your target market is joining the over 700,000,000 users active on Instagram, it’s a great place for real estate since it is image based!
- Showcase your listings and other videos.
- Use hashtags to generate more traffic. Not sure what to use? Try KeywordTool.io to see popular hashtags.
Pinterest Real Estate Social Media Tips
- Set up a board about your neighborhoods. Include images of amenities and homes.
- Set up a board about lifestyles – yours or your clients. For example, if you are a golfer, or live in a very social community, include photos of golfers and gatherings at the community center.
- Set up a separate board for your listings, and use appropriate hashtags.
- Sponsor a “pin and win” contest; take a look at AdEspresso and Shortstack to learn how.
YouTube
- Publish your videos on YouTube. You can embed those videos on your website, and people on YouTube will find your videos using the search feature.
- Use tags and other available SEO tools to help your videos rank. If you embed a video on another site, include a transcript. Search engines love video, but they need the transcript to see the SEO you’ve done.
Nextdoor
31. Nextdoor has become a new entrant in the social media market, says Andrew Hellig with REthority.com in his article on real estate marketing. Agents can buy a territory and promote their listings to neighborhoods in specific zip codes.
Next Steps
If you’re not using social media, get started now to generate leads! If you are using social media, and you found the tips above helpful, implement them now. To generate new leads, you will need to stay focused and organized. Keep in mind that social media success requires an iterative process: post, measure success, tweak your approach, and repeat!