Make the Most Out of Social Media for Your Business

Marci Sepulveda Leave a comment

Finding potential buyers for your listings is one of the most important aspects of your job — and marketing is essential to your success with this task. With social media’s important role in marketing, most real estate agents maintain at least one social media account for their business. Social media holds a varying level of importance, depending on your target market, but you should ever appear to be technologically challenged. Here’s how to get going and make your social media content the best it can be.

What to use/why to use it

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat are among the most popular, but additional networks, such as TikTok, may emerge and you’ll need to be ready. Keep your company relevant and useful. Here’s an overview of the biggest players at this moment:

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media network in the world. It’s best used to stay in touch with your followers. Create a page dedicated to your business and make sure to add a cover image and your logo. If you have a large personal following, feel free to share your business posts, but don’t make business posts from your personal page. 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is aimed at professionals who are either looking for a job or want to network with other professionals. It is also a good place to show your expertise in the field. Use LinkedIn to find employees, and to learn what other real estate professionals are talking about. Its blogging platform allows you to highlight your thought leadership in the field. If you’re managing a brokerage or large team, encourage your agents to write a regular blog. Even a quarterly one will help you build credibility and expertise in the space. 

Twitter

Twitter is a great tool for marketing your business and letting users know about properties and open houses. It is primarily used as a broadcast tool. Posts are limited to 140 characters, so keep your messages brief, but remember to vary them so that your page doesn’t look redundant. 

Instagram

Instagram is a photo-sharing network that is best for sharing the personality of your company, stylized photos that highlight a great staging effort or property, community activities and even great pictures from the neighborhoods in which your properties are located. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is a site that often details the best way to do something, and essentially works as an online bulletin board. You can build a page that’s oriented toward other agents (and potential recruits) that shows examples of how to do things like stage a property. 

Each platform comes with its own set of analytics, so you can easily see if your posts are effective in driving engagement and, ultimately, sales. Use any analytics that are available to optimize and refine your message.

Tech that can schedule posts

Facebook and Twitter allow you to schedule posts, but if you’re using more than one platform, it’s a good idea to use a dashboard like Hootsuite or Agorapulse that allows you to generate all your posts from a central location. Depending on your subscription level, you can easily replicate posts across platforms and receive more detailed  analytics to help you determine how well your posts are performing.

Creating an editorial calendar

Another way to plan posts is with an editorial calendar. To create an editorial calendar, follow these steps:

  1. Use a spreadsheet program such as Excel or Google Sheets. 
  2. Decide on a time frame; generally one to three months is good, depending on how often you post.
  3. Structure your spreadsheet with dates going vertically and columns going horizontally that allow for each social media property, approvals, whether or not there is an image and a link to that image, actual date posted and any feedback or analysis you get after posting. You may also want to have fields that allow for multiple authors or approvers.
  4. You can fill in certain posts way ahead of time, including ones that are related to dates, or those announce community events you are sponsoring.

There are four general pillars to consider when using social media across all platforms.

  1. Accuracy. It can be tempting to just tap out a post and be done with it. But the internet is not very forgiving. Typos, broken links and other inaccuracies can cost your brand credibility and trust. Double check before you post, and then afterward, view the published item to make sure it’s displaying your content correctly.
  2. Relevancy. Don’t post just to post. Make sure that everything you post has some value to your reader. Social media is a crowded landscape with lots of content competing for eyeballs. The more relevant your content is, the more likely it is to encourage engagement. Remember: Engagement with a post is good, even if it doesn’t lead to a sale. 
  3. Positivity. There is a lot of negativity on the internet. Don’t engage in it. Never bash a competitor or take a side. Stay away from politics and religion. Remember, sometimes the value that a post brings is that it is upbeat. If it’s a beautiful day in a neighborhood where you have a property, post about that. 
  4. Personality. Social media is an opportunity to show your unique self as a brand. An Instagram photo of your agency serving meals to the homeless shows that you’re compassionate; a Facebook post showing your team at a Cubs game shows that you’re fun. These are qualities that a client wants in an agent, and social media is a great way to show them off.

In addition to these four pillars, there are a number of best practices to keep in mind when posting on social media. 

  1. Don’t overpost. You need to find the right balance of the amount of posts on each social network that you can realistically create. It’s better to post infrequently than to post too much because once someone unfollows you, they are unlikely to come back.
  2. Use images when you can. Statistics show that posts with images on social media have significantly more engagement.
  3. Check your analytics. Many social media sites and dashboards have built-in analyses of how well your posts are performing. Take advantage of them whenever possible. You might find that your users engage more in the afternoon, or that they really love posts about neighborhoods. 
  4. Monitor and engage with your users. Watch how people respond to your posts and answer them. By doing so, you will show that your company is caring and responsive and involved with your customers. If someone sends you a direct message or asks a specific question, get back to them as soon as possible with a relevant answer.
  5. Don’t get pulled into a fight. Many people use social media as a platform for complaints. Often, when someone is clearly just looking for a fight, others who see the post will combat the tone without you getting involved. It’s not a good idea to delete posts that criticize your company, but make sure to post rules for engagement on your page and don’t hesitate to delete a post that doesn’t adhere to those rules.

Learn more about social media

To learn more about how to make the most out of your social media marketing, click here to start your seven-day free trial of AgentEDU today and watch our course on determining your target market and developing the right advertising message.

6 ways an assistant should market listings

Marci Sepulveda Leave a comment

Attracting qualified buyers to purchase properties is one of the most important skills that sellers expect their agents to have. As an assistant, you can be very useful in helping your agent reach the right customers. In this blog you’ll learn more about how to help marketing listings to sell a home.

#1. Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

The first place your agent will want to put a listing is in the MLS, or multiple listing service, a task that is often the responsibility of the assistant. This database of listings offers agents a centralized location to post details on the properties they have for sale and is an industry standard.

Accuracy in preparing a listing cannot be overstated. Not only is the MLS the central location for your listing, but websites that are accessible to any potential home buyer, such as Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com, use the data directly from the MLS. So remember to check and double-check that the specifications and descriptions for the site are exactly as you want them.

Besides the standard form data, which includes details on the home such as square footage and the number of rooms, you’ll have an opportunity to provide a description. This description will appear on the listing sheet and on any websites that pick up MLS data. It’s important that this copy is focused on selling the home, and should be treated like any other marketing material.

#2. Uploading and Optimizing Photography

Photography is one of the most important parts of your marketing plan and should be handled with care. You may consider outsourcing listing photos to a professional company. Along with ensuring that your photographs are of the best quality, there are a number of other concerns when preparing your photos to upload. 

Photos should be beautifully lit, color-corrected, cropped properly and show off your property’s best qualities. In addition, your MLS may have limits on the size and dimensions of the individual images you upload, so familiarize yourself with its requirements before you begin.

Most MLS allow a maximum of 25 photos, but don’t confuse quantity with quality. A photo of the exterior of the home is standard, and it’s a good strategy to have at least one photo per each feature mentioned in your description. For example, a description that mentions an attached garage, a bay window and high ceilings should have photographs that show each of these features.

#3. Social Media

The most popular social media platforms used in real estate are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Your agent might use one, some or all of these. Each platform comes with its own set of analytics, so you can easily see if your posts are effective in driving engagement and, ultimately, sales.

Facebook and Twitter allow you to schedule posts, but if you’re using more than one platform, a dashboard like Hootsuite allows you to generate all your posts from a central location. Depending on your subscription level, you can easily replicate posts across platforms and receive great analytics to help you determine how well your posts are performing.

#4. Traditional Advertising

In many cases, traditional media is still very effective for the real estate business. Your agent may be getting great results from direct mail postcards and advertising in print and online.

Using postcards to let neighbors know what was just listed or just sold works because it offers market information, as well as exposure for listings and the agent. Make sure the photos look great, the message and the call to action are clear, and that the brand is properly reflected. Advertising in print is effective in certain markets, not in others.

Online advertising allows potential clients to click through the ad to the agent’s website or email. And don’t forget to look into marketing opportunities on syndication sites like Zillow. These can help with lead generation. Ultimately, advertising works best when you know who your target market is and how to best reach them.

#5. Surveys, Testimonials and Reviews

And there is much more marketing that you can help with as an assistant. A completed transaction is not the end of the relationship. There is still marketing work to do! It’s a good idea to send a survey to clients after a transaction is finished to let them share the pros and cons of their experience with the agent. This information is useful to agents so they can make improvements to their systems and services.

And getting testimonials and reviews on sites like Yelp can really help an agent get new clients and stand out from the competition.

There are third party survey services that are simple and inexpensive to put into practice. This should be part of your operating procedure at the close of every sale. 

#6. Participate in the Neighborhood

Lastly, one of the best ways to market the business is by simply being top of mind when it comes to real estate in a given neighborhood. The simplest and most effective way to do this is by actually spending time participating in the community. Suggest that your agent sponsor neighborhood events, have a presence at festivals and town meetings, and consider volunteering at the local school. You may want to keep track of event opportunities for your agent and maybe even attend yourself. Seek out opportunities to put your agent in front of the right target market.

No one likes someone who only talks business, but there’s nothing wrong with being helpful and relevant. If you keep your ears open and engage with people, you will find organic ways to help market the company and make it truly feel like part of the neighborhood.

It’s important to remember that selling homes is just one part of an agent’s business. It’s just as imperative to ensure that agents have a future flow of potential customers and that the brand and reputation is being managed in the best way. To learn more about an assistant’s role working with an agent, sign up for AgentEDU’s Assistant Certification Course, an 8-part course designed to teach assistants everything they’ll need to set their agent up for success.