Social Media for Real Estate: The difference that makes the difference

Social Media for Real Estate: The difference that makes the difference

The world of social media is so vast and complicated that trying to reach everyone through every channel will quickly overwhelm you and your staff. Conquering social media requires you to develop a strategy that allows you to bolster your real estate business by creating the right content to develop an army of followers. While the social media gurus might paint this as an easy project, don’t be fooled. It’s hard work and takes time. If you put in the time and work though, social media can be a boon for your real estate business. Objectives Building an army of followers is an objective, of sorts, but it’s not clear enough objective. Just having followers doesn’t necessarily achieve anything. What do you want those followers to do for your business? Are they there to bolster brand recognition? Do you want them to share content? Are they going to drive traffic for you? Define what you want to get out of your social media presence ahead of time, so you can engage your followers the right way to get the right results. Unclear objectives lead to unclear communication. Who is Your Audience Before you deploy a single tweet, or type a lone status update on Facebook, you need to know who your audience is going to be. You can’t simultaneously target first-time home buyers and large-scale real estate investors. Pick your ideal customer and build everything around that ideal customer. Without that ideal customer in mind, you cannot craft meaningful content. Content is King Content, be it a real estate infographic on your blog or a compelling tweet, is what secures a loyal following. It’s not enough just to talk about real estate. Your content should be as focused as a laser. If you deal in industrial buildings in Cincinnati, your content should always come back to that central point. Your followers sign on as followers because they want to hear about you are an expert on. Don’t stray from that topic. You can get creative, as long as it’s on point. Financing trends in Cincinnati for industrial real estate is on topic. A tax change for industrial real estate is on topic. Suburban home buying in Cincinnati or anywhere else will leave followers scratching their heads. Relevance, Above All Else Your content must, above all other things, be relevant to your ideal customers. No matter how interesting a sky rise real estate purchase in Los Angeles may be, if your ideal customer is a first-time home buyer in the Midwest, that Los Angeles deal is meaningless. Consistency Human beings thrive on habits. The less we have to think about things, the easier it is to do them. Make it easy for your ideal real estate customer to engage with your content by delivering it consistently. If you tweet every day at 4PM about your home deal of the day, never deviate from that routine. Your followers will look for that tweet, at 4PM, and share it. Change that formula and you lose all tractions. Shareability Effective social media posts, whether they’re pictures on Pinterest or blog entries, should drive traffic to your other social media profiles or your real estate web site. For social media sites, make sure links direct back to you. A place where businesses often trip up is on the website itself. Make sure you have social share buttons on every page from your homepage to listings. The easier you make it to share, the more likely your followers will share. This sharing is what turns your army of followers into traffic from non-followers and new customers. Don’t Go Overboard When it comes to social media, diversification is usually a one way ticket to mediocrity. You’re much better off picking a couple social media sites and delivering outstanding, highly relevant content on those sites, than you are delivering uneven content across five sites. Pick social media channels you understand and work them with your key talking points. By applying these guidelines and putting in the time and work, you can develop an army of followers who will expand your business and brand.