Social Media Marketing for Agents
Your clients are all online now, they use Google to find their agents or the property they are looking for, they check their Social Media at home, at night, in bed before sleep.
If you can be in one of these places you can win the game otherwise you are out of it.
Let's see how you can use the power of the great Social Media Marketing to promote your Real Estate business.
Do you really need to be on Social Media?
Real Estate Business is all about branding, you can either brand yourself using the magazines or local newspapers (oh no just waste of your precious money) or using the very expensive billboards (which is absolutely amazing if you can afford it), OR you can use Social Media, which is less expensive but much more effective. Yes I said LESS expensive I didn't say it's free, it can be free if you know how to design a nice attractive post, a beautiful piece of video, generating a very good content, and read the metrics, otherwise hire pros to do it for you if you want result.
I can say almost all of your very potential clients are checking their Social Media every day, if one of them likes your post and share it then all of his/her friends would see your post and if 10% of their friends like and share your post again then all of their friends will see your post and ... you got the idea
So be there, show your face, Talk to them face to face, make them follow you by say useful things and DO NOT just ask them to call you and hire you as their seller agent because they will block you right away.
Here is how you can use this very powerful media to promote yourself and your business:
1. Post photos on Instagram & Facebook.
- 1 billion people using Instagram every month, Yes it's the "B" word.
- 500 Million use Instagram Stories EVERYDAY
- Instagram is the fastest growing Social Media Platform in Canada
- 52% of Instagram Users are female and 48% are male
- 63% of all the users are loging in to their Instagram account EVERDAY
- 12.13 Million Canadians have Instagram accounts that means more than half of the Canadian population (between the age of 25-70) are on Instagram ...
Can you compare these number with the Local Newspaper readers or magazine followers?
Can you compare the cost you need to pay for the advertising on the local newspapers with Social Media Marketing?
Note: DO NOT think that advertising on Social Media is either Free or very low, if you think that you are wasting your time and money and your reputation
Instagram and Facebook are very user-friendly basically they have invented the new way of online browsing and they are mostly accessed on mobile devices.
If you do it right you can create conversation which will end up to a sale.
Always check your metrics and always adjust the way you market yourself based on the metrics, that's the most important benefits of online marketing.
Facebook and Instagram are the most beneficial media to promote your listings, your client personas are busy so they can check your pictures and videos in a very comfortable situation which is in bed at night along with their partners so they can decide together.
High quality pictures and professional videos are the key to attract the customer, so don't be cheap, don't ever think you like let's save money on photos and videos.
It's easy enough for anyone to set up an account in Social Media, But how you as a Real Estate Agent should share the content on Facebook or Instagram?
Want to be loved on Social Media?
Do not just post about your business, "Buy this property" or "I'm the best seller" or bla bla bla, talk about community issues too, if you can setup charity events or inform your people about the things happening in their community and so on. if you like to hear some numbers, I would suggest more than 70% of your post better be social and 30% about your business.
3. Tweet to promote listings.
The volume of tweets will greatly boost the Realtor’s exposure. The more tweets an Agent sends out, the more leads can be generated. In addition to sharing listings, there are other types of content or pieces of information worth tweeting, like advice on moving as well as tips for staging and upgrading homes.
Moreover, Real Estate investors should use the platform to connect with local business people, brands and influencers. Chatting up relevant locals is a time-tested way to become more recognizable in the community and reach more buyers and sellers.
Hashtags are also very important, Hashtags (#) are the keywords people use when the search for a particular topic on Twitter. Agents should use hashtags like the geographic area they operate in, recent events or keywords that their target market may be searching.
4. Let's talk about LinkedIn.
Linkedin is the GOLD MINE for B2B marketers, If you are in commercial Real Estate or have investment opportunities go and open a page on Linkedin right now and prepare the top notch content and media, and prepare a posting schedule.
Here are some numbers about Linkedin:
- Has 610 Million members (end of 2019)
- 92% of fortune 500 companies use linkedin
- 97% of B2B marketers use Linkedin
- 260 Million of users loging in each month
- More than 11 million of users are decision makers
- 9 billion content impression every week
Did I say be professional on Linkedin?
5. Be Prepared, Manage your Social Media account professionally.
The door of your shop should be open all the time, remember Social Media is not working 9-5 it's 24/7, if you do not be responsive to the client on time you are not only losing the client you lose your reputation too, because there would always be a competition answering their questions the moment it received.
Most of the Social Media platforms have the records of your response time rate so before the client sends you the request he/she will see how active you are (or better say how good you are).
Prepare your posts way in advance and schedule the posting.
Manage to have good quality images and videos, Try to make a deal with a professional photographer or graphic designers or if you doing it yourself use youtube to enhance your Real Estate photography skills.
6. You need videos and photos more than ever.
Average time spent on a video in social media is 10-15 seconds
100 Million hours of Facebook videos are watched everyday
2.5 Billion active users watch video monthly
Infographics are one of a the best image marketing on social media specially Linkedin
Go live, Facebook announced that live videos are getting 3 times longer view time than others
7. Always Measure the Social Media metrics.
You can learn what your customer persona is and adjust your marketing logic based on that, if it didn't go well then change it and change it again and ...
Almost all of the social Media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube and even marketing of google will give you the most accurate metrics about how your campaign is working for you.
Forbes Real Estate Council is an invitation-only community for executives in the real estate industry. Do I qualify?
These seven tried-and-true ways to market on social media should help real estate agents reach out to their target markets and consequently improve their performance.
