Social media can help companies of all types promote their products, generate leads and build relationships with customers. And for those who sell, rent and manage residential and business properties, social media for real estate can be highly effective in serving all of those purposes and more. In fact, when employed strategically and in the right ways, real estate social media marketing is getting top results for real estate companies and agents throughout the U.S.
According to research, 63% of Realtors already use social media to promote their listings. One reason for that is the low cost of marketing a real estate business through social media, as most social media platforms don’t cost a thing to use.
But not all real estate companies and agents use social media effectively.
Consider these top tactics real estate companies and agents can employ to best use social media for marketing to current and prospective customers:
1. Plan which channels to use.
First, determine who your target audience is. Then choose social media channels based on that audience’s preferences. For example, the younger crowd tends to trend toward YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, while older consumers generally use Facebook more than the younger clients do.
2. Create a marketing calendar.
You are off to a good start if you have given careful consideration to which social media channels to use. But to ramp up the effectiveness of your efforts, keep that planning going. Social media marketing for real estate companies and agents won’t be as effective without making a detailed plan ahead of time. For peak results, companies and agents should create a marketing calendar with effective posts for some or all dates of the month in advance.
Real estate companies should create content for several dates at once for the most efficient use of time. To do that, simply create a list of topics to cover for each upcoming date. In planning for those topics, think of posts that have worked well for your company in the past. Or if you or your company are new at coming up with social media posts, check out social media content of other companies that have had good results. (Of course, you’ll need to be ready to act quickly when timely content opportunities arise. But whenever possible, advance planning enables you to put more thought into your less-time-sensitive posts.)
3. Target your posts.
With social media advertising, agents and real estate companies can promote posts to specific demographics, locations or areas of interest. That can help your message reach the right people and help you avoid wasting valuable resources trying to reach people outside of your specific market.
And your posts don’t have to focus solely on real estate. They can feature other areas that might interest your target clients. For example, if your company sells higher-end homes, you can also post items on other topics that might appeal to potential buyers of those homes, such as news about luxury cars, luxury travel or luxury dining. Or if first-time home buyers are your target audience, posts about personal life milestones might interest them, such as engagements, family events or, of course, home purchases.
One tip is to follow the social media rule of thirds. That rule suggests that marketers divide posts into the categories of “personal,” “point” and “promote.” Every third tweet should be personal, helping followers get to know the characters behind the brand or in the business. Another third should point target audience members toward interesting third-party blogs, articles, videos and content that those audience members might find useful. And another third should promote your company and the services it provides.
While creating all these posts, agents and real estate companies should consider another strategy: “batching” their posts. And that means to write a bunch of social media content at once, then repurpose that content so one post can quickly become several more without requiring much extra time. For example, you could write an Instagram Reels script about the latest real estate news in your area and then use information from that to post a shorter item on Twitter. And you could save different portions of the Reels video to place them on YouTube, Facebook or TikTok.
Need help leveraging social media to grow your real estate business? Brandon offers 60 years of experience in providing real estate marketing strategies to help businesses boost sales. And the agency has led the way in using social media as a marketing tool for its clients. To unlock the full potential of your company’s social content, contact Brandon today.
Barry Sanders
New Business Director
Barry is the VP/Director of New Business at Brandon. While actively involved in all major business categories that we serve, he is especially focused on the agency’s real estate and healthcare marketing efforts where he leads our very capable specialty teams. Barry’s real estate marketing expertise is grounded in his extensive work on one of the industry’s greatest luxury brands, The Cliffs Communities. Prior to joining Brandon, Barry led a team that launched three new communities over a three-year period. Paramount to the success of these efforts were customized programs with the USA Today, early adoption of experiential sales center marketing and the highest level of visual assets to deploy in the various marketing campaigns. Barry leveraged this experience and expertise to help Brandon grow its real estate client base to include some of the premier real estate brands in the Southeast, including The Reserve at Lake Keowee, Colleton River Plantation, Haig Point, The Landings and Sea Trail Plantation. After the real estate crash, Barry was instrumental in forming a marketing partnership with Newland Communities that resulted in award-winning work on RiverLights community in Wilmington, NC. Barry continues to hone his real estate marketing skills via partnerships with Ideal Living and has presented at the Association of American Retirement Communities Conference.