Social media marketing is growing quickly, especially among real estate professionals. More agents and brokers are using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with potential clients. Many people used social media platforms to advertise their products and services.
The common trait of agents and brokers who use social media well is that they have developed concrete social media marketing strategies. They identify goals, track their analytics, engage in social conversations, and use the sites to generate real estate leads. These pros know how to use social media. Many of them need to learn how not to use social media.
There are some common mistakes that agents and brokers make when it comes to social media marketing, and some tips to avoid these errors.
1) Coming Off as Impersonal, Arrogant, or Unrelatable
While it may be tempting to brag about your business, it is not advisable to do so as it will not be received well. It is better to avoid making grandiose statements that come across as arrogant. This does not mean that you should not express pride when closing deals. While it’s important to show off your successes, you don’t want to come across as arrogant. The best way to do this is to express appreciation for your clients. Tell your clients that you are happy for their success.
Make sure to show your personality every once in a while. If you share photos or videos of yourself with colleagues, clients, or even family and friends, it can make you seem more relatable and human to your audience.
2) Publishing Inappropriate Updates and Comments
You should avoid crossing certain lines on social media, especially on your business accounts. If you post photos or comments that people find offensive, you will get a bad reputation. Just one inappropriate action or comment online can ruin your business nowadays since everything you post online is permanent.
Before clicking the “share” button, think about whether or not the content is appropriate. If you have to think twice about it, then it probably shouldn’t be shared. Even though big brands sometimes make mistakes on social media, you can learn from them so that you don’t make the same mistakes and damage your reputation.
3) Promoting Your Business Too Overtly or Too Often
You should avoid being overly promotional when posting on social media for your real estate business. Sharing your listings, promoting specific offers, and showing homes you sold is great, but should only be done occasionally. If you post too much on social media, your accounts will become boring and, for some people, even annoying. Social networks such as Facebook have started to remove content that is excessively promotional from users’ News Feeds.
It’s important to include other types of content like blog posts and infographics with your promotional messages. You should only focus on sharing content that is original and useful to your audience. Your content is shareable which means it can be seen by more people. You can share something multiple times to make it last longer and get more people to see it, which will make more people want to follow you online.
4) Embellishing Listing Features or Business Information
Feel free to post pictures and information about your real estate listings on visual social mediums such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, some agents go overboard with their social updates, exaggerating features or even doctoring photos to make them more appealing.
If an agent violates the National Association of REALTORS®’ Code of Ethics by altering media of listings, they could get into trouble and their character could be called into question. It is not advised to change listing information or images, especially for the purpose of posting on social media.
Do not try to be too clever or funny in your real estate social media bios. Make sure to include information about your business that can help build trust with potential clients, such as your company name, any relevant accreditations or certifications, sales history, reviews, and contact information. However, avoid exaggerating any details about yourself or your agency. For example, don’t estimate the number of homes you’ve sold. Be sure to add the actual sales price for your transactions so that your leads will not be suspicious.
5) Not Connecting
It is clear that technology is essential for businesses today, and this is also true for the real estate industry. If you want your business to succeed, you need to market it and generate leads through prospecting.
The key is connecting with others and forming relationships.
There are many ways to make contacts, such as FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, postcards campaigns, calendars, email programs, phone calls, networking groups, door knocking, and calling on ‘For Sale by Owners’ and expired listings. However, it is important to consider if you are just making contacts for the sake of making them, or if you are actually CONNECTING with them.
The purpose of these strategies is to develop a relationship that eventually becomes a source of business opportunities.
In his book ‘Everyone Communicates Few Connect’, John Maxwell defines connecting as having the ability to establish a rapport with people which then increases your ability to influence them.
If you are not trying to build a connection with the person you are communicating with, you will probably be frustrated with the results. If you want to be successful in the real estate industry, it is important to build good relationships with people. Every lead generation activity is about relationship building.
Even FaceBook is about connecting with people. This is also true for technology; it is good for the good it does.
You are not calling on a building when you try to sell For Sale by Owner (FSBO) or a person whose listing just expired (Expired Listing). You are calling on a person. A person with goals, dreams, problems, and challenges. It is likely that if you are skilled at this type of prospecting, you are also good at connecting with people.
The best scripts are the ones that work quickly and naturally to create a connection.
As you go about your daily tasks, take a moment to ask yourself whether you are doing anything to build and maintain relationships with others.
6) Posting Only Personal Updates
It’s okay to post the occasional personal update, like a photo from your holiday party or hanging out with your family. Most of your content should be focused on your work: pictures and videos of your newest listings, content you have curated (like links to reports on the local housing market and updates on businesses), and blog posts are some of the best things to share on social media.
If you want to avoid the hassle of creating and organizing content, use an editorial calendar on a platform like Google Drive or Trello. This will allow you to compile all of the content you want to share via social media and plan when you want to publish it on each social channel.
7) Publishing Too Frequently/Infrequently or at the Wrong Times
You can figure out what days and times to post to social media by experimenting. To find the best content strategy for your business, try scheduling different kinds of content on each social media platform for a month or two. After that, you’ll have a better idea of what content to publish on each channel and when. There are certain times of day or week that are best to post your content on each channel.
One of the keys to social media marketing success is keeping a consistent posting schedule on each social media platform. Do not post too much content on one or more social media platforms, but also do not post so infrequently that your posts are not noticed by your audience.
8) Not Posting New and Original Content
Sharing content from other sources on your social media can be very helpful. When you find content that is educational and entertaining to share, it can save you a lot of time as the work is already done. Although you should share other people’s content, you should make sure that most of the content you post is original and created by you.
Additionally, your content needs to have a niche focus. You’re more likely to generate qualified real estate leads if you target people who are already interested in buying or selling in your market.
9) Not Using Images and Videos in Social Media Posts
In addition to using text in your social media marketing, consider using multimedia content such as images, videos, and slideshows. Adding visual elements to Facebook and Twitter posts results in a significant increase in engagement, according to data from Socialbakers. The firm notes that Facebook posts with photos have an 87 percent engagement rate, while nearly half of the top 10 percent of Twitter interactions involve tweets with photos.
Don’t worry if you don’t consider yourself to be a technologically savvy real estate agent. There are many tools available to help you easily edit photos or create graphics and videos. 10 apps that make filming your listings and testimonials easy: There are several software options available for editing photos, such as GIMP and Pixelmator. Canva is another option that is easy to use for creating graphics.
10) Paying People to “Like” Pages or Post Fake Reviews
If you’re looking to boost your credibility on social media, don’t fall into the trap of paying others for fake reviews or likes on your Facebook page. This will only backfire and make you look bad in the long run. Doing any of these things will be a waste of time and could get you in trouble with Facebook.
There are many better ways to use your resources than paying people to like your Facebook page. You could use that money to create ads on Facebook and other social channels.
11) Deleting Comments or Responding Negatively
Some users who visit your social media accounts may leave negative comments on your pages. Do not let people bring you down when they insult you, your content, or your company. Do not remove their comments either.
Think about whether it is worth responding to the comment, even if it is not a deserved one. If you choose to respond to someone who is bashing your business, be kind and understanding. Wish them a good day or ask for more information on why they are unhappy.
If someone responds to your page with something that is inappropriate, you should report it to the social media site so that that person can be blocked from responding to your page again.
12) Engaging with Followers Only Intermittently
Much of the most insightful feedback comes from customers who are just trying to give you a heads-up. Although some negative comments may come from angry customers, many helpful insights can also be gleaned from customers who are simply trying to give you a warning. If you regularly post great content to your social media pages, you will undoubtedly get positive feedback. Reply shortly after you get positive comments from users. If someone has a question about something you wrote in a blog post, clarify the confusion and ask for further thoughts and even content ideas.
One of the best ways to connect with individuals and identify potential leads is through social media engagement. Even if you’re not generating real estate leads on one or more channels, that doesn’t mean your followers aren’t saying good things about your business online and helping your real estate marketing efforts.
13) Generalizing vs. Specializing
We all know the saying, “Jack of all trades and master of none.” This is accurate in the real estate industry for sure. You see, in order to be successful in real estate, you have to be good at many different things. The other day, someone said at a networking event, “Hi, I’m ____ with _____. I help people buy and sell homes.” Is that really what they do? Specialize?? Isn’t that what EVERY Realtor in town does? How is that specialized?
No wonder real estate agents feel so much tension in their efforts to generate leads. When you think about it, every person on Earth could be a potential customer. Where to start? What to say? How do I connect?
That is the real question. Is it even possible to connect with everyone in a meaningful way? Face it — You can’t. No wonder you are tired.
If you had a clear target market or specialty and were known as an expert in that area, people would seek you out for advice and guidance. Wouldn’t that feel great?
To become an expert in your field, you need to choose an area in which you know more than anyone else. This makes you the go-to person for information in that area. Doing this provides a lot of benefits.
The Benefits of Specializing
If you choose to specialize in a certain topic, you will have many opportunities to talk to people about that topic, and they in turn can talk to others about it. This can be a great way to make friends and connections.
If you want to be successful as a real estate agent, you need to specialize in a certain area. This will help you stand out from the hundreds of other agents in your market. For example, there is no one else in town besides you who knows as much about helping elderly people sell their family homes, have an estate sale, and move into an assisted living community.
When people are in need of a quote or guest speaker for their newspaper, blog, or meeting, they look for experts. They are looking for someone who has a unique quality that no one else possesses.
People remember the names of specialists. They rarely remember the names of a generalist.
Specializing helps you to focus your energy and time. By understanding who your ideal client is, you can better target your marketing efforts and use your time more efficiently. You know which deals to chase after, based on your personal goals, values, intentions, and strengths.
If you’re trying to manage condos, commercial rentals, and listings in areas that are new to you, you’ll spend a lot of time learning about those aspects of the business.
People who are true professionals know when they are outside of the areas where they are strongest.
Think about your ideal client. Create a specialty. Be an expert.
14) Manual Social Media Scheduling Instead of Automating
Scheduling software can make your real estate marketing on social media much easier. The days of manually entering every social media post are over for professionals and brands. This scheduling and sharing of content over time allows you to save a lot of time and energy.
Some social media platforms offer analytics that allow users to track the performance of their status updates, tweets, and other posts. This is a great feature that can help users improve their social media strategy. Speaking of which …
15) Not Using Analytics to Monitor Social Media ROI
Google Analytics helps real estate agents and brokers by giving them data about their marketing, which they can use to improve it. This includes social media marketing. If you’re not using analytics to track social media progress, you’re missing out on the essential way of measuring how well your social media marketing is working for your lead generation and brand awareness strategies.
