Success for real estate professionals in the social environment requires a balance between their social goals and the time and other resources available for reaching them. However, starting with a realistic plan can set a course for striking this balance.

Social Media for Every Type of User

When performed and managed correctly, social media is effective and accessible to all real estate professionals, though the perception that its full potential can be realized quickly is simply misleading.

To assist real estate agents in understanding the social media results they can expect from a particular level of investment, Lumentus Social analyzed more than 100 real estate professionals’ social media pages of independent and franchised brokerages in various markets. Following our analysis, we identified four types of users, each based on patterns of activity, engagement, and response level.

• Power User – Active every day, both posting and engaging with others.
• Regular User – Posting regularly, though with limited proactive engagement with others.
• Sometimes User – Posting irregularly and only engaging with those who directly contact them.
• New to Social – Have built pages, though they are mostly static users and can actively view others’ social activity while seldomly engaging with them.

Results Measurement

Whether reaching a personal milestone or business goal, measuring results is critical to long-term success.

Topline Tips

• Account for the time, resources, and effort invested in social media to ensure that the outcome is supported by the investment.
• Identify the most successful social media program features, as well as those that underperform, and adjust your program as needed, while maintaining your primary objectives.
• The key to measurement is setting goals. If you have specific goals, you can achieve them, if you don’t, you often tend to lose momentum. Below are specific social media metrics you could measure and the benefit of each:
  • Number of followers: While building a large follower base is decreasingly valuable on platforms like Facebook, it does send an immediate signal to people who find your page. You want to set a minimum number of connections on each platform.
  • Monthly engagement: Once you are consistently using social media, a good way to measure the value of what you post is to gauge how many people like, comment, share, re-tweet etc. Driving this number up each month means you are improving your value to your audience, and higher engagement rates increases your audience reach.
  • Audience reach: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer analytics tools that provide information on how many people see your content. You should review activity by month to determine overall visibility of your posts, and using these tools, you can determine if your engagement, reach, and visibility is growing month over month.
  • Website Traffic: Social media is a key driver of website traffic. With Google Analytics, you can see what percentage of your website traffic comes from social media channels, and you can increase those numbers over time.
  • Leads: A lead refers to new phone numbers or emails collected through social media campaigns. Typically, there is a separate submission form on a special landing page. Social media posts or ads can drive potential new clients to that special landing page to collect their information.

It matters less what your specific goals are, numbers-wise, but it does matter that you set a goal and consistently evaluate your success in reaching it. Once you can compare your month-over-month numbers, you’ll begin to see where your personal successes will lie going forward.

Note: Once you are active on multiple social platforms and want to measure multiple metrics, you could consider licensing a social analytics tool, like Locowise, Socialbakers, or Sprout Social.

To find the full guidelines for taking advantage of the social media resources at your fingertips, download The Real Estate Agent’s Guide to Social Media whitepaper here.