Using Social Media to Build Your Real Estate Business
One of the best tools for marketing your business today lies right at your fingertips. Social media. Whereas before we had to rely on putting picture perfect ads into newspapers and print media, we’re now able to instantly upload our professional, magazine-worthy images right to our target markets phones and computers.
Make no mistake about how powerful this is. Most homebuyers begin their search online. So they are actively looking for your listings on their mobile devices and computers. Most of these homebuyers are also users of social media, a platform that has the ability to multiply the number of people that see your listing almost exponentially.
What Social Media Platforms are the Best for Realtors?
Let’s take a moment and look at the different platforms and how they’re used.
Clearly the most popular social platform with a reported 1.3 billion users, at a minimum every realtor should have a personal profile and business profile on Facebook. Each time you have a new listing, share your professionally done real estate photographs in your newsfeed for your connections to share.
Twitter is known for shorter text and photo and video sharing. Sharing videos along with the links back to your listing website is the best use of this social media tool. Twitter posts are also easy for your contacts to share with others, with a simple click of the “retweet” button.
Just as important as Facebook, Instagram is really where you can showcase your photographs. Put your best listing photo on Instagram along with the best hashtags to make your listing stand out. Using local hashtags will help your listing be noticed by people looking for homes in your area.
According to NAR, 75% of realtors actively use LinkedIn as a networking platform. Slightly different in its approach than the other platforms mentioned, LinkedIn is more of a networking avenue for professionals. You won’t find pictures of your friend’s children, or verbose posts about what they ate for breakfast or where they stand politically, but you will have an opportunity to connect with other professionals. You may have other realtors in your LinkedIn feed, but you also have other professionals that may choose to do business with you because of how you present yourself and conduct yourself on this channel. Sharing your latest listings are not necessarily encouraged on LinkedIn and many of your connections there would consider this “spamming”, however you can share articles that clearly demonstrate your knowledge, experience, and understanding of the real estate market and the local communities.
What to post on Social Media
If you’ve got your social media set up but you’re just not sure what things to post, we’ve got you covered. One of the most important things to do, especially if you’re just starting out, is to focus on just one social media channel. Do you get on Facebook regularly to keep up with family? Are you on Instagram regularly connecting with accounts like @OldHouseLove? Whatever channel you spend time on, this is the channel you should focus your initial efforts on. Here are some tips for what and how to post on social media to help your real estate business:
Your Best Professional Photographs
Resist the urge to grab your smartphone and post a quick photo of that listing you’re about to make public. Any images posted to social media need to be professional real estate photographs. This is an opportunity for you to make a first impression to people that may never see your advertising. Consistently posting professional photos will also help establish your brand and make you known to those that follow you on social media that you are a top professional in your field, leading to future listings and potential new homebuyers. This is especially important on platforms like Instagram, where the feed is nothing but photographs. You need to make your photos stand out and only a professional, like Northern Virginia Real Estate Photography can help you take your photography to the next level where it can easily withstand the competition on these photo-heavy platforms.
Valuable Tips and Helpful Information
First rule of social media posts is to not constantly post sales or promotional posts about your business. If you always post about your new listings, people will quickly mute you or remove you from their feed. Post articles of interest depending on the season, household maintenance tips, and articles about events coming up in the community. These types of articles are easily sharable and provide value to the reader.
Community Events
Sharing events that are happening in your local community shows your followers you are active and involved in your community. Even better than just sharing these events? Attend the events and post photos to your newsfeed. Let your followers see that you are active and a part of the community fiber.
Charitable Causes
Many realtors have reported getting listings simply because they are actively involved in a cause that a potential home seller is passionate about. Think about it. There are no shortage of real estate agents. Most potential clients at least know of a handful of realtors in their area. What could make you stand out above the others? Being known for being passionate about a particular cause is one way. This does not mean that you should bombard your followers with constant posts about said cause. But do post regularly–maybe once a week–and share articles that relate to that cause that you’re passionate about. Also, be willing to be a little vulnerable here and share why you’re passionate about that cause. Your vulnerability and authenticity is what will draw people to you and help them get to know, like, and trust you, so when they are ready to do business, you’re the first person who comes to their mind.
Listings
Of course, it should go without saying that you absolutely want to post your listings. Be strategic about this, though. Do a “Coming Soon” teaser when you know you’ve got something about to list to intrigue your followers. Then post your professionally done videos and photographs once the listing goes live, making sure that your posts are set to public so that people can share them.
Sharing for the Win
You can take this a step further and encourage your friends and followers to share your listings by offering a small incentive. Maybe every month do a drawing for a door prize or gift certificate to a local small business, stating clearly that those that share your posts will be entered into the drawing. This creates excitement and buzz around your real estate business. It gets your listing in front of more people. And it can promote goodwill and improve your reputation in the community by working with local businesses. Another advantage to doing this is that the business you partner with may also be willing to promote your monthly drawing, giving you an entirely new audience. Choose to partner with one business or rotate among local business owners throughout the year. .
The possibilities and way that you can use social media to grow your business are always evolving and are almost unlimited. As new channels rise in popularity (yes, Realtors are already reporting success on Tik Tok and Snap Chat) best practices change depending on how these channels are used. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Your business will likely be rewarded for thinking out of the box when promoting on social media.
Connect with me on any of these channels to learn more about how professional real estate photography can boost your real estate business.
