For a real estate agent to be really successful they don’t just sell homes, they sell lifestyles. In doing so, agents devote much more time to getting to know the personal details of a client’s life: their personality, their work, their hobbies and how they interact with their community.
Consequently, the idea of interacting with current and potential clients via digital forms of social interaction can be somewhat daunting. Social media provides an opportunity to further connect with local clients and groups and is definitely an invaluable tool to keep in the arsenal. But the question remains, how do you apply your interpersonal skills to an impersonal platform?
Below is a breakdown of the most popular social media sites and a few tips for communicating and making real estate pages on social media outlets more marketable to an ever-expanding pool of clients.
Facebook is the go-to site for people to connect with friends and family online and is a great platform for word of mouth marketing.
It can be extremely beneficial to create a Facebook account for the business. it is also imperative that this is kept separate from agents’ personal accounts. Personal accounts can be appropriate, but tend to lack the level of professionalism that is projected to prospective clients.
Learn About Our New Ads and Leads Program - TRIBUS Engage
In terms of posting, keep it local. Post about local neighborhoods. This proves to followers that your real estate agency is the expert on what is going on in the local community and should be the one showing clients around. Use images and posts that are familiar to the local client-base. This will not only show that you have your finger on the neighborhood pulse, but will also generate interest in the post and thus create opportunities to engage with Facebook friends.
Twitter is another great opportunity to engage with the community. Asking questions is a great tactic to get feedback and to show that the real estate agent is open to clients’ input. Valuable questions to ask might be:
What’s the best thing about moving to a new home? How often do you renovate your home?
It is also important to use hashtags in Tweets. These relevant and specific #’s are an incredibly easy tool to generate more views. Some simple ones to use as Twitter becomes more and more familiar are a geographic neighborhood or anything related to the Tweet (ex. #stagingtips, etc.).
This digital bulletin board is the perfect site site to show off your knowledge as an all-around home expert. Pinterest connects people all over the world through the power of images and provides the savvy real estate agent with an opportunity to advertise listing visuals as well as an acute knowledge of other home elements.
Create a board specifically for your listings. A good rule of thumb for all form of social media is the 80/20 rule. Make 80 percent of postings about engaging lifestyle topics and 20 percent about listings. This is a smart way to promote your skills as a realtor without hitting people over the head with all of the fabulous properties that you are representing.
Pinterest is also a great way to reveal a little more about the personality and lifestyle of the agent without getting too personal. Create pin boards that appeal to home decor, community events that you support and hobbies. This will market you and your business as trustworthy, real and caring and a great asset to anyone that is searching for their next home.
