Social Media Tips for Real Estate Agents and Brokerages
You’re at a listing appointment and your potential client asks some variation of “Do you have social media?”,“Will you use social media to market my property?” or “How will you market my home on social media?”. How confidently can you answer?
Whether you’re a newly licensed REALTOR®, a highly experienced broker, or a Marketing Manager that supports a real estate team – we can guarantee that social media will add value to your business when used correctly. Psttt… Marketing Managers, check out this list of the 6 Best Marketing Tools for Small Business in 2023. You can thank us later!
Tips for using social media for your Real Estate business –
1. Master of 2 things
We see it all too often, small businesses posting okay content across every social media platform just to get something posted. Unless you have the time and team to manage 4+ platforms we highly recommend you select 1-2 to focus on. Prioritize the quality of your social media content over the quantity of your posts. After all, the main purpose of social media is to connect with your audience and ultimately to book your ideal client. Social media is essentially a free digital advertising tool but can work against your brand quickly if you aren’t maintaining it properly.
How do you know which platforms to focus on? Thinking about your target market and where they are most likely to spend their time. Are they business leaders who focus on LinkedIn? Do they spend most of their time scrolling through Instagram? Facebook? Twitter? You want to “be” where your target market is, so keep that in mind when selecting which platforms to start on.
2. Develop a Content Strategy + Highlight Your Clients
Developing a content strategy with stock images (Tips for Using Stock Images) for your social media accounts can be daunting. Especially coming up with social media content that accurately reflects your branding and tells your brand story – multiple times a week. We highly recommend breaking content out into 3-5 categories. Here’s what we mean by that –
Develop 3-5 overarching umbrella categories that align with your brand and would be interesting to captivate your audience. These should be unique to your industry but broad enough to “fit” specific content into. Here’s an example –
Category 1 – Helpful tips
Within this category will be helpful tips or tricks for your followers. Examples: “How to prepare your home for an open house.”, “Get prepared for a seamless closing.”, Market highlights, etc.
Category 2 – Entertainment
This can essentially be a “catch-all” of content as long as what you’re posts aligns with your brand messaging and provides value to your audience. Think of reasons WHY you follow the social media accounts you do. They provide valuable information and entertainment that is relatable and inspiring to you. Examples: Design inspiration, quotes, lifestyle advice, etc.
Category 3 – About you, your services/portfolio (this is where you SELL)
This category should be reserved for highlighting your business (who you are, who your team is, the value you provide to your clients). Really lean in with this category to connect with your audience on a professional level. This is where your followers should feel like they’re getting to know you. Toot your own horn, but not so loud that potential clients run the opposite direction! We love the way @thedawnmckennagroup of Coldwell Banker Global Luxury does this on Instagram.
Category 4 – Property Marketing
A great opportunity to spotlight a few of your listings and what makes them stand out. In all these categories, we can’t stress enough the importance of using video content (posts and stories). Don’t be afraid to showcase that listing with a quick highlight video or get in front of the camera to introduce yourself as the listing agent of your stellar new listing!
3. Embrace variety
This one is simple. After you’ve come up with a general list of content, make it a point NOT to post the same thing (on the same day at the same time) to both social media platforms. To your audience, it would be the same thing as having you call them with a sales pitch and then immediately sending an email of the exact same conversation 1 minute later. Not just boring, but annoying!
If you have limited content to provide, you can use the same post image (with a different caption!) just make sure you’re not posting it on “platform B” the same week, and especially not the same day that you’re posting it on “platform A”. Add a little variety to your pages so your audience feels as though both are adding value. Otherwise, you’ll get unfollowed on one (or BOTH) accounts!
Recap:
We can go on and on about tips for marketing your real estate business, and how to use and elevate social media for your small business. Begin with the basics – start small and master 1-2 platforms, break your content into categories so it’s not so intimidating, and be smart about how you post your content.
If you’re still feeling a bit overwhelmed or have questions, we have a team fluent in all thing’s social media management. Feel free to send us an email!
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