Social media is a powerhouse. It’s changed the way businesses operate today, and without it in your marketing strategy, you could be selling your services short. With millions of people using social media every day, creating a strong social media presence is essential for real estate agents. Here are 5 crucial tips for social media that will captivate, engage and entertain prospective clients – and generate new leads for you.
- Focus Your Content on Your Expertise
The first thing to do is to find your real estate expertise. It doesn’t matter what it is, but you must have something on which you can focus your content. As such, it should also reflect what your expertise is within real estate, whether it’s luxury homes, condominiums, or even specific areas within the community. Clearly define what your expertise is, and use your content to brand your services more accurately, while also making your channels the ultimate resource. Tapping into your unique niche can be a powerful way to increase your brand awareness and sales potential.
- Analyze Your Competition
It’s essential to stay on top of your competition, especially within the real estate industry. Social media channels can be the perfect place to check out your direct competitors, and readjust your business strategies as needed. Find other real estate agents and industry influencers online, and analyze their content, postings, form and online presence. See what works for them, and implement it into your social media platforms. Here are some ideas on what social media accounts to search for and follow:
- Real estate brands
- Home decorating accounts, home renovation and real estate television shows
- Renowned real estate industry personnel
- Create Professional and Engaging Content
Once you’ve found your real estate expertise, it’s time to create content. Incorporate as many different forms of content into your social media channels. Whether it’s images, articles, insights or videos, you can use them to highlight your expertise. This also allows you to provide a mixture of content that brings value, entertainment, discounts, information and knowledge to your viewers.
- Rotate Content Forms and Create a Theme
The key to social media is consistency. However, with frequent postings on your social media channels, things can quickly seem redundant if the content form is always the same. One of the best social media tips is to rotate the various forms of content you produce, but make sure they all reflect a similar theme. You don’t want to post a black and white photo of an interior, only to switch to full color videos, nor do you want to post 50 videos followed by 100 testimonials. Instead, be consistent with your post frequency, style and theme of the content, but rotate the type of content. Here are some ideas to form a theme surrounding all forms of social media content:
- Use the same filters and editing apps
- Be consistent with the features you use, such as frames, angle tilts and focusing/blurring aspects
- Create an editorial calendar for your social media to remain consistent with your postings to create a strong online presence
- Do Something Different
With millions of users on social media daily, you have to offer something different if you want to create a strong online presence. It could be as simple as providing unique, high quality photos that aren’t as prominent online, such as aerial drone footage of homes for sale or behind-the-scenes videos of a day in the life of a real estate agent. Find something that sets you apart from the rest, and that also brings value to your viewers. Some ideas to consider include:
- Conduct interviews with local businesses and offer exclusive discount codes
- Host sweepstakes/giveaways (a free BHG magazine) to increase likes/followers and engagement
- Produce guides for your customers to bring value to your social media channels
To some, social media is entertainment. However, for real estate agents, social media channels can increase your online presence, prospect and generate new leads, all the while branding you as the go-to real estate agent in your market!
