At one point, the use of yard signs and advertisements in print media were sufficient for real estate agents to grow their business. Nowadays, due to the quickly accelerating development of technology, customers are much more knowledgeable and they are searching for real estate on the internet proactively.
It is improbable for consumers to make a down payment based solely on observing some Facebook statuses or tweets. Developing an innovative and effective plan for utilizing social media for real estate can produce fantastic outcomes.
Real Estate Businesses Need To Be On Social Media
It would not be an exaggeration to say that social media has completely transformed the real estate industry.
Using social media has proven to be an excellent means for real estate agents to network with possibilities customers and develop their business on the internet. Some of the key benefits of using social media for real estate are:
- Cost-Effective Reach
- Targetted Advertising
- Brand Reinforcement
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Instant Engagement
Crafting A Social Media Strategy For Realtors
It is important to have a two-part social media plan for the real estate industry that takes care of both buyers and sellers.
1. Research Your Customer’s Persona
Form separate profiles for purchasers and vendors as they have particular preferences for how they would prefer to buy or sell an estate.
Gather data for constructing your persona and determine their age, income, way of life, etc.
Develop the character traits of your persona and divide your customers into three to four primary archetypes. Understand the requirements and objectives of potential buyers, investigate the issues and impediments that could stop them from going through with the home purchase.
2. Define Your Social Media Goals
By using SMART goals, you are able to monitor your advancement, which can help keep you motivated.
If your goal is to raise your total commission earnings by $550,000 through the use of social media, to accomplish this objective, divide your aim into concise and achievable SMART goals.
Your objectives for using social media in the real estate industry should be concrete, straightforward, and exact.
Boost GCI by $550,000 by concentrating on building relationships and sealing 50 contracts averaging $400,000 each with a commission of an average of 2.75%.
Create social media objectives that can be quantified with key performance indicators and metrics. Keep a count of the numerous appointments fulfilled, contracts authorized, transactions finished, compensations acquired and revenues generated.
Aim for objectives that are hard enough to encourage you to your fullest potential, but also sensible enough that you can fulfil them.
Giving a set timeline to the goal of increasing your GCI by $550,000 can be very helpful to determine what you should do currently to reach that goal. Establishing a month, six months, or a year to accomplish this feat will help create a structure for the activities you should implement.
3. Identify The Best Social Media Networks For Real Estate
You need to put in both effort and resources to use each social media platform. Figuring out which social media networks will be most beneficial for your business assures that you are utilizing your resources in order to gain the highest return on investment.
Using Facebook will help you remain in touch with your current and prospective customers, and it could end up being a great choice for your real estate business.
Facebook offers businesses in the real estate industry the ability to post details about their listings, schedule appointments, and interact with clients and moderate reviews from one convenient platform.
Using Instagram, it is possible to post attractive and exceptional photos of your products. Instagram’s user-friendly characteristics, like hashtags and brief 15-second story updates, can be taken advantage of to attract more leads.
YouTube
Producing high-quality video content and sharing it on YouTube can give you an advantage in the real estate sector. Create a YouTube channel devoted to real estate in order to demonstrate real estate listings. Describe the localities in which your real estate is located and give your potential clients a true feel for the area.
Ryan Serhant, a realtor based in New York, boasts over half a million subscribers on YouTube and serves as an outstanding illustration of what successful real estate social media marketing tactics look like on YouTube.
Ryan has created a successful YouTube channel, uploading content such as his daily agenda and clips of luxurious homes, which is providing him and his venture with ample rewards.
LinkedIn is the ideal spot for individuals engaged in their professional career to communicate with one another regarding job-related information and their progression in their chosen field.
The typical LinkedIn user tends to have more schooling, be wealthier than Facebook and Instagram users, and take concrete steps to nurture their career and monetary well-being.
The majority of posts liked and shared the most on LinkedIn usually include a news article from a highly respected source, together with the user’s opinion about it.
Growing your audience on LinkedIn without advertising is not easy to do, so the best real estate agents who use the platform have a wide circle of contacts that they can easily contact.
For LinkedIn, it is adequate to share content a few times a week as opposed to every day on other platforms. However, it is essential that the content shared is top-notch.
Individuals are not engaging with your material on LinkedIn solely to become more familiar with you; they’re engaging with it to find out how you and your insights can aid them in reaching further success.
4. Create High-Quality Content
In order to make an impression in the crowded real estate market, it is necessary to create a presence on social media that accentuates your credibility and that highlights your values as a brand. Be sure to follow the obligations of a fiduciary and steer clear of posting any material that contradicts it.
Written content
The majority of real estate companies limit their marketing activities to just ads and listings, but the problem is, no one wants to have to search a large amount of ads to find what they need. Instead:
- Share your brand’s story and tell people why you are passionate about real estate
- Explain how you got started in the industry and let people know who works in your company
- Share customer stories describing the problems they faced and the challenges they overcame
- Describe locations and the list of services and facilities in each geographical area
- Ask people questions and give your expert answers in a F.A.Q. Page
Generate tailored material for the customer personas that you declared in advance, and when making social networking posts, articles, eBooks, or newsletters, ponder over how it fulfills the particular needs of an individual persona.
Stand out visually
Real estate properties that have been photographed by experts have a higher chance of being seen on social media in comparison to those without any pictures or pictures that are of poor quality.
Here are some tips to stand out visually:
- Hire a professional photographer to post high-quality photos of properties
- Share staff photos, pictures of events, and show people your brand values
- Put out slideshows that are perfect for how-to content, market information, and serves as quick guides for buyers
Video content
By creating an intriguing video of the dwellings and properties you are offering, you will capture the attention of potential buyers and increase the possibilities of them contacting your real estate firm.
Here are some tips for creating video content for your real estate businesses:
- Create videos of the neighborhoods to give prospects a real sense of the area
- Use drones to highlights property features and neighborhoods
- Provide scenic, compelling photos and videos for your listing
- Use different angles to highlight the USP of the properties
5. Pick A Target Audience And Advertise Smartly
Utilize paid social media marketing for real estate to make up for the loss of organic reach. These are some strategies for building outstanding advertisements that will help generate more prospects.
- Use the location, demographics, interests, and behavioral targeting options
- Use carousel ads to show multiple properties (or even multiple rooms of a single property)
- Be transparent in your ad copy to build customer trust
- Plan ahead to up your ad budget during peak times
- Use testimonials and reviews to instill confidence in your services
6. Analyze, Optimize, And Repeat
Once you have put in the effort to develop listings, establish Facebook and Instagram accounts, and advertise, it is time to ascertain what is successful for your real estate enterprise.
No matter how much time and money you’ve spent advertising your real estate business on social media, it won’t have an impact unless you include metrics that prove it’s working. It is essential to assess your growth on social media and make alterations to your social media plan for improved outcomes.
Establish key performance indicators to gauge the outcomes of your social media plan.
- Increase website traffic
- Raise follower count
- Generate more contact form submissions
- Produce more property inquiries or sales
- Improve engagement rates
The 3 Must-dos to Succeed on Social Media
No matter the platform that you pick to begin your social media experience, a few steps must be taken to have success.
1. Be consistent
We mentioned this above, but it’s worth mentioning again.
The systems utilized by social media firms to provide their material take into consideration how often you publish, how often individuals participate with you, and how regularly you take part with them. Select a timeline for posting, prioritize it, and remain consistent.
2. Constantly deliver value
Every piece of material you put onto a social media network should be beneficial for your followers, and this does not necessarily mean that you need to be sharing advice related to real estate each time.
Your listeners will become increasingly confident in you and happily abide by your suggestions if they realize what you are talking about will help them gain more time, wealth, or expertise. Emphasize to individuals that whatever content you are delivering is worth their time and attention.
3. Constantly learn about your audience
Contemplate every one of your social media postings as tiny experiments. What knowledge or insights can you gain from your audience whenever you post?
For instance, if you are putting up five entries every week on Facebook, you may observe one type of post (let’s assume, a review of the things happening around you) to be more popular than another (information about the most recent mortgage rates).
Your audience is giving out signals about what topics interest them the most; the more you understand what your audience desires, the stronger you can bond with them.
All the prominent social media websites have the ability to run promotions or to increase posts so that the content you share will be visible to a wider audience than just those who are connected with you. Do not make the mistake of investing a great deal of money to advertise without fully understanding the concept; apply the same trial-and-error method you learned in point 3 to your advertisements.
Use up to $10 or $15 each week to broaden your network. Do your engagement levels and the amount of contact you have with your followers equal each other? What does this say about your potential leads? What steps can you take to improve your next paid interaction based on what you learned from the previous one?
Setting Your Social Media Goals
Which platform have you decided on, what tips have you taken into account, and how will you determine if your efforts have been successful? What goals do you hope to reach with your social media marketing?
This query may be harder to respond to than anticipated. It is essential to maintain consistency with social media in order to reap the rewards; this can take a significant amount of time, sometimes up to twelve months, before significant business results are observed.
In the meantime, consider one of the following metrics to help you measure your success:
Realizing: This can be measured by the impressions on your social media platforms; this number shows you how many people actually laid eyes on your material. This is an excellent tool to begin with while you are still growing an audience and discovering your style.
The level of involvement shown on your posts can be judged by keeping track of the interactions. How often are people liking, commenting, sharing your content?
Once you have met your aims in terms of consciousness, engaging your audience is the best way to measure success because it shows the degree to which your followers have bought into and believe in what you are saying.
Once your following is aware of you and is interacting with the material you post consistently, you can measure how successful your efforts are by tracking their response in the form of action. Are they clicking links to your real estate website? Filling out forms? Sharing your contact information with friends and neighbors?