Keeping the “Social” in Social Media
We all know that we should use social media to market ourselves to potential clients, but when social media is more like marketing media, it’s time to remember it’s about connecting as humans.
Social media — whether you love it or loath it, this platform remains one of the best methods for real estate agents to engage with their clients, communities, and farm areas. The problem? Not everyone knows how to use it to it’s best advantage.
Avoiding Social Media Overload
There are so many platforms to choose from, and every platform serves a different type of demographic. Choosing the platform that your farm area uses most is the surest way to reach your target audience and focus your efforts and your advertising costs, saving you the time and the headache!
Facebook tends to be my go-to because of the age of it’s users is the typical age range of my buyers and sellers. Millennials tend to be on TikTok and Instagram. I will use Facebook as my example, though these same principles can be applied to any social media.
What Should I Post?
I don’t try to sell homes often on social media, but rather, I share information about the community, and things that are happening, and be apart of it. Sharing information on local businesses, fun things in the area, and especially festivals or events. I have people that watch for awhile, and then start to message me because they are looking to buy or sell in that area and they have seen the work I do in promoting it, making me the expert.
How Do I Market To People Who Aren’t My Friends?
I don’t recommend using your personal Facebook page as your Go-To page (not that it isn’t important still) but I suggest creating a Business page on Facebook. In order to do this, you will need a personal page, but the business page will allow you to do things that you can’t do with your personal page.
A business page is a public page, so you aren’t limited to promoting only to those people who are in your friends list. The business page allows you to boost posts, as well as advertise, so when you have a listing that you want to promote, or an event that you are hosting, it will have a much greater reach.
TIP: Check out this related article, “5 Important Tips For Posting on Your Real Estate Social Media Accounts”
Networking On Facebook
Cultivating a friends list takes some time, but you can also look into joining the community pages where you serve with both your personal and your business page. Can’t find one? Consider creating the page yourself! I did that with one of the communities I serve on Long Island, NY, and I now have over 4000 followers. When I post market information on that page, it’s just another way of networking and marketing yourself within the group.
Don’t limit yourself just to communities, but if you serve a certain niche, join groups centered around those niches.
Love It or Lose It
The key to networking and market on social media is this: choose a platform you love to use. If you don’t love it, you aren’t going to use it. If you aren’t using it, it’s not helping your business.
Some people love Facebook, some are great at Instagram, others love TikTok. You may need to try a few to get a feel for how they work and if you like it. Hint: try one at a time. Trying all of them at the same time will get overwhelming very quickly!
It Doesn’t Require A Lot of Time
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, especially at first when you are trying to figure out how it works. Taking 5 to 10 minutes in the morning to post something, or to respond to others in the group. If someone is asking a question in the group, answer! Are they looking for a recommendation? Make one! Did they tell a silly joke? Laugh. That 10 minutes every morning will quickly create a habit.
The 6:1 Rule
Remember to keep the “social” in social media! For every 6 fun and engaging posts you have, you can post 1 listing or a sale. Darryl often talks about the 5:1 rule also, respond to 5 people in the group with something helpful before posting anything about your business.
“My Day Isn’t Important Enough To Post”
I can hear you saying already that your day isn’t special enough to post about, but this is what I suggest. If you are going out to lunch with someone? Snap a picture. In a classroom learning? Snap a picture. In a webinar? Snap a picture! At a home inspection? Well, you get the idea. Taking pictures and tagging people or the restaurant and showing the world what your day looks like makes you look active.
What you are showing your followers is not that you are selling houses left, right, and center, or patting yourself on the back, you are showing them that you live and breath real estate. It just you being real, and people want to follow that.
“Can’t I Just Use My Personal Page?”
Most people will have a ton of followers on their personal page, and not as many on their business page, but having the business page is important because it gives you the ability to advertise, boost posts, and market myself. Legally, you cannot advertise anything on your profile, like a listing or open house, or promote things. Stick to posting the personal daily life things on the personal profile, and then promote and advertise with the business page.
The work around to promoting on your personal page is this: you can share things from your business page to your personal page, and that’s legal, and then your sphere of influence on your personal page can also see it. This works the other way around also! You can share things from your personal page to your business page too!
Why Using Social Media is Important
Social media is the way of the future, and while there are plenty of other great methods to self-promotion, social media needs to be one of them. With 95% of buyers starting their search online, and the vast majority of people using several different social media platforms, they need to see you there, an understand what you are about.
More and more companies are coming down in their prices for advertising as well, so you can make use of social media to market your listings. The best part is, because of their algorithms, it’s becoming easier to get yourself and your posts in front of the right people.
What’s Next?
Are you ready to start taking things to the Next Level®? If you don’t already know what you need to do to get to your next level, we can help!
Power Agents®, for fun social media posts, check out the Social Media Shareables tab in the Classroom. No matter what occasion or season, we have fun and helpful posts ready to go for you!
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