The real estate market is officially online. What used to be an industry that depended on cold calling and traditional marketing, is now an industry that relies heavily on social media marketing.
If you’re a realtor, you understand how big of an impact social media has on building trust in your client base. Social media is a major lead generator for real estate businesses, yet most real estate brands fail to maximize their efficiency online.
It’s simple to tweak your content strategy in order to achieve great results for your real estate brand. Here are 10 tips that will help you step-up your real estate social media marketing in 2020.
1. Use the Right Real Estate Hashtags to Optimize Your Content
Hashtags are often misinterpreted as a tactic with the sole purpose to increase likes on a social media post. While hashtags do bring more engagement to your content, they also facilitate discovery on social media. They are an avenue for potential customers to find your real estate brand.
You can use real estate hashtags for your content, as an excellent way for homeowners and buyers to find you. But, hashtags are an even better way for you to discover potential buyers and opportunities for your real estate business.
Here is a full guide on Instagram hashtags that we’ve created in a previous blog post.
Here are some hashtags you can use to find potential homebuyers or to attract potential real estate clients:
Generic Real Estate Hashtags
#realestate #realtor #justlisted #broker #forsale #homesale #newhome #househunting #dreamhome #properties #homelisting #oldhousecharm #property #housing #mortgage #homesforsale #openhouse #homeinspection #homesweethome #foreclosure #renovated #justlisted #reo #fixandfliphouses #homeevaluation
Real Estate Agent Hashtags
#investmentsales #realestate #commercialrealestate #realestatebroker #realestateagent #realestatelife #listingagent #homebuyers #homebuyer #realestateinvestment #propertyforsale #businessbrokerage #commercialboardofrealtors #business #realtoroffice #banking #invest
Customized Real Estate Hashtags
#[Target Neighbourhood] #[Real Estate Team Name] #[Brokerage Name] #[Target City]homes #[Target City]property
Since Instagram only allows a maximum of 30 hashtags per caption or comment, I’ve included 30 hashtags that you can use for more general real estate Instagram posts. I would recommend you do some keyword research and choosing hashtags that are more relevant to your real estate brand and targeted location. You want to experiment with your hashtags and change them up depending on what works.
Use Hashtag Tools
If your hashtags aren’t generating the engagement you’d hoped for, there are some great hashtag tools available to help you take the guesswork out of which hashtags to use. Hashtagify is a popular tool that makes suggestions for Twitter hashtags, as well as allowing you to track and analyze hashtags. Ritetag offers hashtag suggestions for images or text on any site, based on real-time engagement data. Both services offer free trials, if you’re unsure they’ll be worth it.
2. Include Realtor Quotes in Your Content Strategy
If you run a real estate business, you probably know how difficult it is to come up with quality content for your business. You’re looking for simple ideas that resonate with your audience so that you can focus your main efforts on buying or selling homes.
Real estate quotes and testimonials are a great thing to include, and a way to improve your overall content strategy. The fun and chatty nature of sharing quotes can help you build trust and camaraderie with your audience. You can use real estate quotes and turn them into image quotes!
1. Funny real estate quotes
2. Real estate inspirational quotes
3. Real estate sayings
4. Real estate agent quotes
There are so many different realtor quotes you can use to create social media graphics for your real estate business. These examples are just a guideline and you can write your own quotes that make sense for your real estate brand.
5. Real Estate Testimonials
You can also contact previous customers and see if they are willing to give any customer testimonials. With testimonials, you can then use tools like Snappa to turn these quotes into social media graphics for your real estate social media marketing needs.
3. Utilize The Best Social Media Tools for Your Real Estate Business
Time is always a scarce resource, so maximizing efficiency is important in real estate social media marketing. There’s always something else to do, and if you can spend less time creating content, you can spend more time closing deals and buying homes. There are a ton of real estate marketing applications that can help you maximize exposure to buyers and save time. The folks at G2Crowd.com have created a grid to compare some of the different real estate software in the industry.
With the amount of technology and resources available online today, you have the ability to simplify and automate marketing for your real estate brand. The barrier to creating great content is low and you can save yourself quite a bit of money by using the right resources for your social media efforts.
1. Free Stock Photos to Find Realtor Images
Getting professional photos taken can be quite expensive and although it’s often worth it to pay for professional imagery, you may not have the budget. The good news is, you can get photos for free that will work well for your social media marketing. There are plenty of websites that offer free stock photos, but some of the best ones for real estate images, include:
2. Creating Real Estate Social Media Graphics
Once you acquire great stock images, you’re off to an excellent start. But having bare stock photos isn’t enough. You need to be able to customize your social media posts to resonate with your audience. Using stock photos, you can create customized social media graphics with text, shapes, icons, and much more to help cater to your message and really reach your target audience.
Infographics are a great way to engage with people and they provide an easy way for your readers to consume your content. If you’re looking to highlight quantitative information, creating a real estate infographic is the way to go! Done correctly, an infographic is a highly shareable piece that shows industry expertise. I’ve compiled a list of some infographic examples to help you get started.
Venngage wrote a great post that explains the benefits of using infographics in real estate and they offer a selection of pre-designed infographic templates for your needs. Check them out!
Snappa is a great tool and can help you create these real estate social media marketing graphics. You have the ability to select from a large collection of free stock photos and you can build a graphic with text and icons – all in one application.
3. Automating Real Estate Social Media Marketing Posts
Consistency in your social media posts can make a huge difference in your social media performance. Having a consistent post schedule is essential, but that can be extremely tough in the real estate business where your schedule is always changing.
That’s why we suggest using free tools and online resources to help you automate your social media posts. That way you can prepare content ahead of time, and keep your posting to a regular schedule, even if your schedule is variable.
Tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite are great tools to use to schedule your social media posts for your real estate business. Once you’ve finished creating your social media graphic, you can integrate Snappa with Buffer to automate your social media posts to go out on a specific date and time.
4. Generate Valuable Real Estate Blog Ideas
Every real estate website seems to have a blog, but many blogs are either inactive or fail to provide any real value for their audience. Your blog posts should help you show your expertise in the real estate market and they should be optimized to attract new prospects to your website and social channels. But how do you do that?
Coming up with real estate blog ideas can be tricky, but here are some examples of blog post ideas you can use to help improve your real estate marketing:
- Articles on market predictions and market statistics
- Tips for homeowners and what they should know when buying or selling
- Posts about the neighborhood and information about the community
Put yourself in the shoes of a new homeowner who may already be in the area or those looking to move into the area. What would you want to know? Chances are someone else is wondering the same thing. These blog post ideas will help familiarize your readers with your expertise and your real estate brand.
Examples of the Best Real Estate Blogs
To give you a better idea of what works for great real estate blogs, here are a few real examples that generate a ton of traffic and have posts that are a key part of their lead generation.
The BREL Real Estate Team
The BREL team based out of Toronto does a great job with their real estate blog. They focus on local content and on information that homeowners and homebuyers actually want to see. They showcase their listings weekly with their “real estate crush of the week” segment and it gives readers a better look at great listings available from the team.
The BREL team also includes posts focused on the consumer. These posts include Q & A segments on various topics related to real estate, as well as posts relating to the real estate industry and statistics to back it up. They put themselves in the clientele’s shoes and create content surrounding their consumer base.
Zillow.com Blog
Another great real estate blog you should check out is by Zillow. Zillow is a real estate marketplace where you can search for listings, compare home values, and connect with other real estate professionals. The Zillow blog provides great articles that once again relate to the average consumer. Posts filled with “what you need to know” or “market trends” to better educate their readers. These blog posts provide value to their audience and help their readers make more informed decisions.
5. Optimize Real Estate Facebook Posts and Ads for Realtors
Facebook is a widely used platform that homeowners and home sellers are actively on. Many real estate businesses have great success using this platform Success from both paid and organic content and it is your time to join in and take advantage.
Real Estate Facebook Posts
You want to start by having the right Facebook posts that won’t bore your audience and will help your real estate business attract new leads. Some popular real estate Facebook post ideas include:
- Real estate tips relating to buying and selling homes for inexperienced individuals
- Showcasing local businesses and events happening in the community
- Holding giveaways or contests to help build awareness and drive engagement
- Real estate stories and testimonials from previous buyers or sellers and their experience
- Professional images and graphics of new homes on the market
What you want to avoid is overselling your audience. Yes, the main objective of your business is to sell homes, but social media is a long-term play and your audience will buy a home when they’re ready. No point in pushing a sale, when your followers are not looking to buy or sell.
Give your audience value and awareness so that when the time comes, your real estate brand will be the first thing on their mind. Here is a detailed post we wrote on Facebook post ideas all businesses should use!
Create The Right Realtor Ads to Generate More Leads
Facebook offers more than just a social environment for people and pages. Facebook has access to an enormous amount of valuable data, due to the massive quantity of users using the platform to express everything from opinions to preferences. This data makes paid advertising on Facebook very cost-effective if done right.
As a real estate business, you can target your ad to an audience in a very specific area with specific interests. Along with that, you can choose to target an audience based on their spending habits, their household income, their relationship status, and much more. This opens up a window of opportunity for you to get creative and to form great ads to connect to the exact audience for your real estate business.
Facebook also offers carousel ads, multi-image ads which are a great option for real estate agents trying to promote listings and open houses. Carousel ads allow you to show both the exterior and interior of a home, which both capture attention and gives the potential buyer a fuller picture of the different benefits of the house.
6. Share Your Real Estate Success Stories
It may seem like posting every time you close a deal is just bragging, but it actually helps build trust and confidence in your real estate brand. The more people see you both buying and selling, the more they’ll trust you when the time comes for them to need your services.
User-generated content is especially powerful in this case. Share people giving a shout out to your page, and if your customers are on social media themselves, they can always tag you to generate even more engagement and interest. But even if they aren’t posting about it, whenever possible try to get a photo with the happy customers in front of their new home, and share it on your social media channels.
7. Consider Accessibility
It’s easy to forget about accessibility when you barely have time for social media marketing as it is, but doing so can be unwise. There are a few simple rules to follow, and they can help your marketing reach an even wider audience.
When posting videos, always include closed captions. They’re absolutely essential for the hearing impaired, but beyond that 85% of all Facebook, videos are watched with the sound off. Captioning the video allows your audience to consume your content in a way that works for them, which makes it more likely that they’ll stay interested. Similarly offering image descriptions of some kind, either in the caption of an image or using Instagram's alt text feature (located in the advanced settings), is a must. Image descriptions don’t need to be fancy, simply describe what people are seeing so those using screen readers are in on it too!
If you are lucky enough to offer bilingual services, run ads in multiple campaigns in the different languages you speak. Just make sure to send them to the relevant landing pages, so that potential customers will be able to find you in the language of their choice. The key is to make it easy for everyone who needs your services to find them.
8. Make Video Part of Your Realtor Strategy
A video is a great option for connecting with your audience. It’s dynamic and engaging, and it typically performs well both in the algorithms and in engagement.
Don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera and be yourself. Remember to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer, and make sure your videos offer value. Educational and informational videos are often a huge success, you can offer general information like how to find a good mortgage broker, updates on the industry, or things relevant to your local community.
Another popular choice is live video. “Going live” may be intimidating at first, but it’s a valuable way to reach your audience and drive even more engagement. Live videos allow you to host a live Q & A session, such as “Ask Me Anything About Buying a House,” which you schedule ahead of time, so you can share your expertise directly with your potential customers.
9. Collaborate With Local Businesses And Experts
Many realtors have partnerships with other local businesses, such as photographers, mortgage brokers, home stagers, and inspectors. It can be valuable to connect with others in your community, and when you do it’s easy to give each other a boost on social media. You can share each other’s content, and even create content together, and even create resources together.
Remember that it’s not just about waiting for them to share your content. In fact, promoting them can help you to establish greater trust and credibility.
10. Collect Real Estate Reviews
These days, most people are not going to hire anyone for anything until they’ve read a few reviews. That’s why it’s vital that you collect reviews and make it easy for potential customers to see them.
On Facebook, the Reviews tab is located to the left, and you can send a direct link to clients after working with them, to remind them to leave you a review. You can find this link under the Settings section of your Page once Reviews are enabled.
When a potential customer is on the brink of hiring you, they’ll likely be looking for reviews and testimonials to give them a clearer picture of what working with you may be like. That’s why having positive reviews right on your social media platform is so valuable. If you’ve been doing a good job with your social media marketing, great reviews will be just one more reason they’ll trust you, and choose you to help them.
Final Thoughts
The influence of social media and online marketing has made a huge impact on the real estate market. Social media has changed the way that real estate businesses reach their clients and has forced companies to be more interactive and more customized to their audience.
Time is always a rare resource for business owners and real estate brands are no different. Making time for real estate social media marketing can be tough, but there are several tools and ways for real estate companies to minimize the work and maximize results. By optimizing ads and social media posts, businesses should see better performance on social posts.
Focus on generating content surrounding your end-user. Once you know what content to create, use available free resources to create professional content with excellent visuals. Put yourselves in the shoes of your consumer. What would you like to see if you were buying and selling a home? Cater your content and you will see great results.
Need affordable professional listing photos and videos? Contact Charlotte’s top real estate photographer at www.MarkJacobsProductions.com
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