5 Tips for Great Real Estate Social Media Advertising

It’s a given these days that your business needs to be on social media.  Consumers spend 1 1/2 hours a day glued to their phones, scrolling through different social platforms.  If your business doesn’t have a presence it may as well be invisible.  So how do you ensure your presence on social media is as effective as it can be?

1. Set goals

Now, you’re not going to hit a million followers overnight.  Let's face it, as a real estate on social media, you probably never will.  But setting yourself achievable goals will ensure you move in the right direction.  For example, if you’re managing your social media in-house, it’s important that you post regular, relevant content and it doesn’t get forgotten amongst the million other things you need to do.

Set yourself a goal to post once per day and stick to it.  Be sure to look at where you are now and ask where you want to be in 3 months’ time?  Whether that’s to grow your social accounts to gain more followers or drive more traffic to your website.   Maybe you want to achieve higher levels of engagement on your posts.  Whatever the aim, take the necessary steps and stick to them.

2. The Vendors should be Involved

Social media is a great way to interact with potential new businesses.  It’s also a great way to engage with current clients so make sure you tell them that you’re on social media.  This will raise your following and engagement levels.  More importantly, it will mean that the people following you are the most relevant people possible.  Thus, when you advertise a new offer, service, or property, the right people are already there in front of you!

Ask your happy clients to leave positive reviews on Facebook and Google.  This will help your Google ranking and show you to be the go-to agent in the area when new potential clients research your company.  Not to mention 71% of consumers who have had a good experience on social media with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.

3. Post relevant content

Posting is the most important aspect of a successful social media campaign.  Don’t be fooled by companies out there who offer social media management for a ridiculously low monthly fee.  Their content is most likely regurgitated, automated and irrelevant.  Ensure you don’t post the same things every day.  For example, property after property posted in the same way will just lose you,r followers.

A strong social media campaign requires a healthy mix of post types that you need to review on a regular basis.  Here are some types of content that tend to work well for agents to give you some ideas.

• Local property news
• Local area information
• Hot properties. Top tip: try boosting these types of posts on Facebook to drive more buyers/tenants to your stock. After all, they say Facebook will be the next property portal!
• Fun posts to drive engagement. For example, running a competition, asking your audience questions, getting them to “vote” on something, the possibilities are endless!
• Human interest posts.  Now, this can be anything from staff shoutouts, and successful settlements, to charity work undertaken by your team. Top tip: social media is also a great way to raise money for charity events

4. Connect with local businesses

As a real estate agent, you’re constantly being squeezed for your fees by competition and online agents.  Consequently, you should make sure consumers know why you are worth your fees and give them the value.  Social media is not only a great way to improve customer service, it’s essential for showing how connected you are in your local community.  One way you can show this is by interacting with local businesses online.

You can even take this a step further and start doing joint promotions – this will cut the cost of your marketing campaign in half and show potential customers that you know everyone and everything going on in the area.  Hence, you’ll leave them no choice but to instruct you to sell or let their property.

5. Review your campaign

It’s all well and good following the above steps but if you don’t review your campaign results, how can you hope to improve?  It’s literally Einstein’s definition of insanity, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Social media is all about trying new things, but if something doesn’t work or doesn’t get the results you were hoping for, don’t despair.  Review why it went wrong and try something new!

I hope this blog was helpful for those of you looking to do more with social media.  If you’re going to take anything away from this, let it be this.  Social media management shouldn't be an afterthought.  It’ll take time, dedication and thought to make it a success but when you get it right, you’ll wonder how you ever operated without it.

RealWay provides more of this kind of support for your business.  To find out more contact Greg Watson CEO on M: 0407 122 398 or E: greg.watson@realway.com.au