It’s been over a decade since the idea that social media was meant for interacting with friends and family was discarded. Social media and social sharing tools have become a critical business tool, and it is more evident in the real estate industry than in other sectors.
Social media primarily fuels real estate transactions in today’s world. According to REAU, about 84 percent of real estate agents are actively using social media as a core of their marketing strategy. However, to build a successful business, you need to be giving home and property buyers the proper information and the right type of value.
Buying a property—especially a home—is more of an emotional than a logical decision. Potential buyers would naturally want to carry out exhaustive research and ask a lot of questions.
Having a real estate license means next to nothing if you can’t position yourself as the solution to their research and questions. You need to build trust with them and walk them through the complicated journey of property ownership.
An excellent real estate social media marketing strategy can help you achieve this, whether your clients are renting, selling, or buying a property.
Here are a few boxes to tick if you want to see immense success when doing social media for real estate. It doesn’t matter, which is the best social media for real estate agents; the tips below will work for any major social media platform.
You’re selling a neighborhood, not a house.
A massive 10-bedroom mansion with an Olympic size swimming pool sounds magnificent. But if it’s located in a tornado area or a neighborhood with a notoriously high crime rate, most buyers won’t touch that property—especially if they find that you’re hiding that truth from them.
The neighborhood and the town where the property exists are just as important as the property itself. Potential buyers want to know beforehand everything about how a prospective city operates: its pros, cons, and everything in between.
Use your social media strategy to deliver an honest and robust knowledge of your property markets and neighborhoods. Today’s buyer understands that all towns and neighborhoods have cons. It’s about finding a healthy pro-to-con ratio that fits their particular needs the most.
If the town in question has an official social media handle—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.—feel free to mention/tag them in your posts. Most City accounts—especially on Twitter—welcome these shout-outs, and will usually share/retweet them, effectively exposing your listings to their followers.
Pay attention to how you write.
How proficient are you at writing? The words you use in your social media posts, ads, listing descriptions, profiles, and entire social media messaging are crucial to your success. You need to be knowledgeable enough to avoid real estate buzz words and to write copy that rings with honesty and authenticity about who you are.
Today’s buyers want to be able to connect personally with their agents. But not everyone has these expert-level writing skills. In this case, you can use the websites that write papers for you for free to help you craft the perfect write-up. You will still have to be involved in the writing process even working with the best websites to ensure that it exudes your personality.
Always give value and prioritize relationships over sales.
It sounds counter-productive, I know. But the fact is potential buyers are more open to working with you if they find that you always seek to educate them without asking for anything in return. This is a time-tested strategy where it concerns social media marketing for real estate.
In your time as a realtor, you’ve probably made a ton of mistakes that resulted in trying times. Use the lessons learned from these periods to educate your audience. The more they glean from your knowledge about navigating the real estate industry, the more inclined they are to buy from you.
Always think about the common questions your home sellers and buyers ask. These questions could look like these:
- How to find the best realtor
- How to purchase a house on a low budget
- Common negotiation mistakes to avoid when negotiating a home buy
Find ways to answer these in your social media posts. If the answers are too long for a single post, you can make them into a series or publish a comprehensive article on your blog.
This doesn’t mean you can never talk about your listings. Do that reasonably, but never make it the core of your discussion with your audience.
Always respond to your followers.
The days when phone calls were the primary means of reaching out to realtors is long gone. Most first contacts now happen on social media. People can find you via Facebook Recommendations, a hashtag search, and more. Or they may already be following you on social media.
Whatever the case, whether you receive a personal message or a comment on your post or tweet, your aim should be to respond as quickly as possible. Early responses position you as an agency that is on top of its game. It also allows you to begin a conversation with someone who may be considering buying a property.
Sometimes, these outreaches can be negative or even brash and hateful. While you should try to correct wrong impressions about your business, you have the right to ignore people who are just being bullies.
As much as is reasonable, acknowledge people that reach out, but don’t get dragged into a war of words with anyone. Acknowledge praise, address concerns people have, and ignore hateful comments.
Incorporate video.
No social media marketing for realtors can go wrong with video—that’s if you’re doing it right, anyway. Video is the most viewed form of content online. For a real estate agency, it’s the next best thing to a property tour.
For both Facebook and Youtube, 45 percent of users consume over an hour of video content weekly. Factor in other video-enabled social media platforms and the numbers rise astronomically.
While you may be worried about the cost of shooting and editing a video, don’t forget that real estate is a visual-driven industry. A properly done video tour of a property triggers an emotional connection with the buyer that no other form of content can achieve.
Use video-based listings on your social media (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, etc.) and your website. It’s also critical to know that video (especially on Youtube) is a Google ranking factor for your website. And since Google’s search engine is where most buyers or sellers start their search, this makes video critical to your marketing success.
Create content for more than just first-time buyers.
It’s alarming how frequently realtors can assume that their audience constitutes only first-time buyers. Think about these stats released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR):
- 36 percent of American homebuyers are 37 years old at the most
- 66 percent of this demographic are first-time buyers.
This leaves well over 30 percent of buyers with prior knowledge about home buying, selling, and renting. You will be surprised how many people on your social media have flipped a house before or understand the intricacies of the market.
You should use your social media to engage with your audience so you can create content for the different levels of the real estate experience. If they can all find something worth engaging with on your social media, this raises your chance of selling a home or receiving referrals from those who are not buying.
Final Words.
People often ask: why do real estate agents post so much on social media? This question should only be worrying if you’re not following social media for real estate best practices, like the ones in this list.
Remember, it doesn’t matter what social media platform you’re prioritizing for your agency and listings. These strategies will work on all major social media platforms.
Biography
Anna is a specialist in different types of writing. She graduated from the Interpreters Department, but creative writing became her favorite type of work. Now she improves her skills while working as a specialist for the websites that write papers for you for free to help everybody in it. Also, working with the best websites on the Web for this purpose, she also has a lot of training and offers assistance and basic writing tips for students all over the world.