Real estate businesses and professionals sink or soar based on their success in the following three areas:
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Referrals
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Repeat business
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The Internet
In today’s internet-connected world, social media is a vital tool for every realtor. And many real estate agents have already jumped online, networking with potential clients through social media.
Social media boosts real estate marketing efforts by connecting realtors with clients in their locality. Social media can also build trust, and help spread marketing through friends of friends.
However, some real estate agents who are yet to join the movement are daunted by having to choose among the many different social sites out there, setting up, and the impression that they have to add yet another task to their already busy schedules.
If you fall into that category, the first thing to do is to decide which social networks to utilize. For an easier way to select, the simple guide below provides a basic overview of ones that work great for the real estate industry and has proven to be useful in generating leads and interest in their listings.
We have listed social media sites in order taking into consideration the ease of use, the number of users, and the ability of the social media platforms to target your real estate demographic by specifics such as interests, location, age, and gender.
If you can only handle one social media site, that’s fine. But keep in mind, while one social media site may have a certain number of users, not all sellers and buyers in your target market will be on that network. Hence, we advise at least three of various types: an image oriented one, a video oriented one, and one where more in-depth content will attract the type of prospective home buyer or seller who wants as much information upfront as possible.
Facebook remains the most popular social network regarding its numbers of users.
You want people surfing the web for real estate in your area to know your services are available. Now that Google has included Facebook in its searches, this strategy to provide listings will more likely boost your organic (non-advertising) Facebook strategy.
Facebook ads targeted reach is awesome as you can target your posts and ads to the exact demographic you want to reach.
With over 255 million active users, Twitter is indispensable to your real estate marketing strategy. This social media microblogging site is quite easy to use, and it was recently redesigned to feature images more which is perfect for announcing new listings.
You can use hashtags for keywords you want to emphasize, such as the town where you’re tweeting a listing. Twitter also has ads that can target users with specific demographics and interests.
With over 300 million users, Instagram is the fastest growing social media channel. Instagram is an amazing place to show off your listings. Be sure to post images and videos that you took, avoid using stock images or clip art.
Since Facebook owns Instagram, it may be a good idea to post your photographs and videos to Instagram and then select to share to Facebook. This will save you time.
In addition to the ones above, there are online real estate sites such as Trulia and Zillow that offer excellent marketing tools for real estate agents. Pinterest, Google + and YouTube are also great social media networks that could boost your real estate marketing reach.
Online market research shows that posts and tweets accompanied by good graphics get shared more. Now get on the bandwagon, and increase your productivity and sales in awesome ways with your own real estate social media network.
