The real estate market is constantly evolving. Yes, that’s obvious, but did you know that in the past decade, the industry has shifted its priority from traditional marketing methods to digital? As more people search online for information about almost everything, searches for real estate professionals and houses for sale increase. Now, the real estate business relies heavily on social media marketing to advertise services and homes while also generating quality leads.
If you’re a real estate agent, social media can be a helpful tool to increase your business. Social media marketing can help real estate agents reach a wider audience without needing to spend a great deal of time generating leads. We know this is another obvious statement, but we want to provide you with some must-know information and strategies you can utilize yourself when it comes to building your real estate social media strategy to increase your business.
Establishing your digital real estate marketing goals and tactics
Let your personality shine through with a niche
The first step in establishing one's real estate social media presence is to determine your niche. A niche is a narrow area of an industry that an agent positions themselves as the most knowledgeable in. This can be a type of home they sell or a problem point that buyers frequently deal with. For example, some niches are helping first-time homebuyers, specializing in commercial real estate, helping families buy a second property for a vacation home, offering decorating tips and more.
When an agent positions themselves as the most knowledgeable person on the topic, users are more likely to trust and invest in their services. This is especially true if they solve a pain point or issue that many people experience. After identifying a niche, their content strategy is guided by its topic and pain points that their target demographic experiences.
Select your platform
After identifying a niche, an agent will need to identify the social platforms that they will be using for their online presence. The platform that one decides on should be tailored towards their demographic and their Internet habits.
For instance, most agents have found great success using a Facebook business page because the average Facebook user is within the same age demographic as people looking to buy a home. Choosing a platform that is used largely by their target demographic will allow agents to easily advertise their real estate listings, generate leads and build a strong relationship with previous buyers.
One should also consider a platform's built-in business features to track post engagement and insights. For example, Instagram and Facebook's features can easily compare likes, shares, comments and views across various posts. This tool will allow agents to discover what ad copy, content type, post timing, and more, is receiving the highest interaction with their users, then tailor their ads. However, it can be difficult to analyze this data and optimize one’s social strategy without the help of a digital marketing company.
Stay on top of social media management
Social media management is a growing trend among most industries because it sees drastic results for the better. When businesses maintain their social media presence, create content and communicate with their following consistently, they receive greater user engagement. While user engagement is beneficial simply because it reaches clients, it can also improve web traffic to a real estate website, improve search engine results and help reach one's target audience easier. This is extremely beneficial for improving marketing reach and generating leads.
While most agents frequently update their social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it’s recommended that they devote at least 20% of their time to social media efforts. This is because social media for real estate receives the best performance when content is both consistent and high quality. As a result, agents need to devote a great deal of time and effort to researching and creating content for their Facebook page or other social media platform.
For many agents, devoting 20% of their time to social media management is a startling 8-hour workday. This takes time away from speaking to potential clients, organizing open houses and having a personal life. Rather than taking precious time away from working with clients and selling homes, trust a digital marketing agency to manage your online presence for you. Many agencies will assign a social strategist to operate your business's social media channels. Not only will this provide more time to focus on your real estate business, but it can also increase your engagement thanks to their expertise in social media for real estate.
Create a unique social media strategy
The next step in digital marketing is to create a unique strategy. Merged Real Estate Marketing’s favourite way of creating an attractive social presence is by strategically advertising an experience and highlighting real people who have used your services.
Create a memorable experience
One of the most important things one can do on social media is to create an experience for your users. This can be done through unique and compelling content that highlights a feeling, experience or moment that potential customers are drawn to.
For example, some real estate agents post pictures of their new home buyers setting off confetti canons outside of their newly bought house on closing day. The people's excitement and joy at the moment can be seen and felt through social media posts. As a result, other users will associate that same feeling of joy with the experience of buying a house using your services and encourage them to hire your services.
Highlight clients and client testimonials
A leading part of creating a successful company is creating loyal customers. This is especially true for real estate. Before digital marketing became one of the most popular lead generation methods, realtors received leads through word-of-mouth recommendations. Past clients who were happy with their experience recommended a real estate business to their friends, family or coworkers who were looking to buy or sell their house. While methods may have shifted in favour of the digital, agents can still capitalize on their clients to reach more potential homebuyers.
A large benefit of using social media for real estate is that agents can showcase their connection with their previous customers. Posting pictures of past homebuyers and captions detailing their success stories will be viewed as both celebratory good news and testimonials to your work. This displays to potential leads that an agent has the ability to meet clients' needs and create happy customers.
Similarly, all businesses are known to receive more engagement if they post pictures including people. Users like the ability to connect to other people through social media. If a real estate business fails to post pictures including people – whether it be their agents or clients – they will likely see reduced engagement and interaction. Consider for-sale signs for example. It is industry tradition to include a portrait of a realtor on a for-sale sign because it captures passerbys' attention better than text or a logo. Therefore, it is better to post pictures including staff and clients rather than just homes that are for sale or have been sold.
Invest in professional videography and photography
Photography and videography are important parts of selling homes. In recent surveys, it has been discovered that visual content plays an integral role in attracting potential buyers and selling a home. For instance, homes with high-quality photography are 32 times more likely to sell faster than other homes. Homes with multiple photos also sell faster than those that have only one. A home with 20 photos is likely to spend only 32 days on the market whereas a home with only one photo will spend an average of 70 days on the market before being sold.
Recently, real estate businesses have started creating video marketing content to promote the homes that they are selling. These videos are in the form of live video home walkthroughs, virtual tours led by a real estate agent of the home's current owner, or even drone footage of a property. Videography presents many benefits to real estate agents. In fact, property listings with videos generate over 4 times more leads than regular photography does. This makes video an important part of any real estate agent's social strategy.
Overall, photography and videography is a great tool for advertising new listings and attracting new clients. This is especially true on Instagram, a visual platform that relies heavily on photography and videography to grab users' attention. Agents should hire a marketing company to create high-quality photo and video content for their socials. It is guaranteed to grab their audience's attention, create leads and improve sales.
Use online advertising to your advantage
In the past, realtors used traditional marketing methods to advertise their services. While print and broadcasting advertisements were beneficial, they are costly ways of reaching new clients. Online advertising is a more affordable way to receive leads.
Realtors can use an online ad campaign on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to reach their target clients with ease. Ads can be targeted to users based on their demographic and whether they have shown interest in buying a property in the local area. When users click on these ads, they can be directed to landing pages on an agent's website where they can fill out their contact information on a lead form.
While this may sound simple, it can be much more difficult to grab a user's attention. A topic needs to be both relevant and something that your desired demographic will be invested in. This could be a blog post about how what to expect while buying your first home or new listings in the area. The ad should also be visually appealing. Only if all these boxes have been checked will users click through to the landing pages and fill in their contact information.
A digital marketing agency's team of specialists can create the perfect advertisement with ease. Graphic designers, content writers, and SEO strategists will create ads that are beautiful, relevant and optimized to user's and the algorithm's preferences. This can save any busy agent from enduring a tedious trial and error process to create the perfect advertisement.
Get help with social media consulting
While many individuals in the real estate business strive to optimize their social media marketing, they still find that they have difficulties standing out among other real estate agents. This can cause their social media posts to perform poorly, missing the mark with their target market, or failing to attract more clients. This can be especially frustrating after hours of research and work have been put into online marketing. Rather than continuing on with the vicious cycle of optimizing and failing, utilize the industry's best-kept secret – real estate marketing agencies.
Agencies like Merged Real Estate Marketing offer consulting services to help optimize a company's social media performance. They can provide a digital marketing audit to show the true potential of professionally planned, created and optimized social media content for a real estate business. Similarly, they can provide advice on how to best use social media for real estate marketing. Instead of spending your budget, devoting your precious time and receiving no results, speak to a real estate social media expert.
Stand out in the real estate industry
Social media marketing can help realtors, agents and other real estate professionals generate the highest quality of leads for their company. It also helps nurture client relationships to create a loyal customer base. The instantaneous delivery, consistent communication and quality content make it easier to reach users. Despite this, many real estate businesses are too busy showing homes, speaking with clients, filing offers and completing paperwork to spend time mastering their social strategy. As a result, their social channels perform less than ideally. A digital marketing company's services are a worthy investment. Their specialized services will handle everything from ad creation, strategy, management and optimization. By investing in social marketing services, an agent can trust that they will gain more leads and grow their company.