Social media is a powerful way for real estate agents to connect with a larger audience, in the right location at the right time. The National Association of Realtors states that 77% of real estate agents use social media as a way to market themselves and their available properties.
Social media marketing offers realtors the chance to further connect with local clients and promote their brand on a broader level. When done right, social media marketing helps you find, and build, lasting relationships with your target audience. It also helps to expand a post’s reach towards people with who you may not have connected otherwise.
So we know that social media will be beneficial for your business, but what does successfully real estate social media marketing look like in practice?
Well, you don’t need a myriad of resources or apps to manage social media. Savvy real estate agents can build meaningful relationships and gain more clients by implementing the right strategy and maintaining an active online presence.
Maintaining an active presence on multiple social media platforms and using endless marketing techniques may seem overwhelming. To better help you reach success, we’ve rounded up seven useful tips that will help simplify social media marketing for any real estate professionals. Let’s take a look!
7 Social Media Marketing Tips to Improve Your Real Estate Business
1. Don’t just post pictures of a property — showcase the area!
When posting property, be sure to also showcase the local area! Most platforms allow you to post multiple photos under one post, so be sure to take advantage and showcase the local area around a property.
Showcasing the local surroundings can make potential buyers feel more comfortable when visiting the area, which will increase your chances of making a sale. For instance, you can post about a new community center that may be being built. Showing clients any exciting developments going on in the area can have a positive impact on a potential homebuyer’s thoughts regarding the property.
2. Encourage two-way communication.
Did you know that 94% of millennial homebuyers start their search for their new home online?
With so many buyers online, this presents endless opportunities for realtors to use social media marketing to connect them with potential clients. To effectively connect with them, you must understand your audience and encourage fostering relationships with them.
Consider encouraging two-way communication between your business and its following. Potential home buyers want to work with a realtor that they trust, and don’t want to be seen as a mere number. Instead of bombarding your following with endless advertisements, use your post to show a more personal side of your business, or to encourage further engagement.
Ending posts with questions can help not only increase your engagement levels but also provide your business with a chance to show your following that providing timely responses is important to your business.
Smart real estate businesses also use social media marketing to walk clients through the process. Considering there are always new homebuyers on the market, uploading informational posts will help nervous buyers feel more comfortable. The more comfortable your potential clients are, the more likely they’ll be willing to give you their business.
So instead of posting endless promotional content (a one-way broadcast), you should focus on encouraging two-way conversations.
3. Post any local or upcoming events!
Organizing an open house or other such events? Always post it! Posting upcoming events on social media well in advance can give you a glimpse into the number of people to expect.
When users accept an event invitation, most platforms tend to make a post regarding so. This can be a free, easy way to increase the reach of your post, increasing the chance of it being noticed by potential clients.
You can also post about local events happening in your town. If you’re attending an event, tell your followers, and invite them to join you! Building friendly relations with your clients will keep your business in their minds for when they need to sell their home or move.
4. Show your clients you care.
You care for clients in person, so why not show you care about your clients on social media too? Simple messaging such as wishing them all a good morning, or seeking the best available options on the market for them are all small gestures that can truly show your following you care for them.
5. Post each update!
Whenever there is a status change to a listing, your business should let your following know by creating a new post. Many potential clients may have missed the original post, so posting each update will help ensure a post isn’t being forgotten about.
The key to social media marketing boils down to consistency. By keeping your audience up to date with information regarding a listing, you’re making it easier for buyers on the fence to make the step forward and make a purchase.
Remember, social media marketing isn’t like advertising on traditional mediums such as print. Your posts are ever-evolving, so be sure to make any changes quickly to always have the most updated information being presented.
6. Know which platforms to market on.
With so many apps on the market, it’s easy to view social media marketing as being fast-paced, ever-evolving, and chaotic. It wouldn’t take long for a new realtor to get overwhelmed with social media marketing due to the sheer number of platforms.
Currently, Facebook is the most popular platform with over 2.6 billion active users. Because Facebook has the most users, it is crucial for your business to have an active presence on the platform. Facebook also offers your business access to key demographics that will help you directly target your ideal audience.
The next 3 social media platforms your business should be using are Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Which platforms should you focus on? The answer will rely significantly on your audience. As you go through your social media marketing journey, you’ll find the platforms which work best for you and your goals, so adjust your presence on each accordingly.
Take some time to conduct preliminary research before joining a platform. This will help pinpoint important information such as where most of your ideal clients are active.
7. If you find yourself too busy, use a social media tool!
Managing all your social media accounts, creating relevant posts, handling ads, tracking live updates – all these can easily become too much to manage single-handedly. If you find yourself too busy to run a successful social media marketing campaign, there are software-based services available that can help.
Consider using an intelligent tool like Practina to improve your social media marketing, automatically. Practina is an automated social media marketing tool that removes the hassle of real estate marketing business. Using artificial intelligence, Practina automates your practice’s social media posts, eliminating the time-consuming process of manually conceptualizing, creating, and uploading a post to each of your social networks. Practina operates at a fraction of the cost of a traditional marketing specialist, helping you save money while improving your digital marketing.
With Practina, simply let the system know what your property’s MLS number is, and Practina will automatically begin creating and publishing content relating to the listing across all your social networks each time there is a status change — it’s that simple. Practina’s intelligent system learns the best time to post to each social platform, so you’ll always reach the most amount of people.
Moving forward with social media marketing.
Effectively using social media marketing provides your real estate business with countless opportunities to grow. Realtors should be using the power of social media as a way to connect with current and potential clients, and as a resource to help them make more sales. For those who may find themselves too busy to become an expert at social media, intelligent services like Practina are available to help you simplify the process through the ease of automation.
