Now social media is an extremely different space when compared to email marketing as discussed in the previous blog. While email is more interpersonal, social media puts out your information in the public domain.
This information is essentially intended for your followers, but it is important to keep in mind that people researching your real estate company and its web pages may also venture onto your social pages.
In conjunction with this, 77% of realtors use social media (Source:sproutsocial.com) in some way, shape or form. That means that if you’re not on it, your competitor with active social pages has an advantage. And why give them that advantage? If it’s an open playing field you should definitely step in on it.
The social media ecosystem is massive. There is a different platform for every content format. Be it pictures, short videos, news articles, etc. Does this mean that a company has to be present on each of these platforms? Not necessarily. You need to prioritize and focus your energies on select platforms, where your real estate business will see benefits.
Which is why we are going to be talking about 3 key platforms for real estate businesses. Read on to know what they are.
Facebook is one of the most widely used social networks across the globe. However, it makes for a particularly good platform for real estate businesses. This is because Facebook’s main user base, according to their age and income, possesses one of the highest purchasing power for real estate.
Along with this, there is a business page feature built into Facebook. If you have a real estate business page you can publish project-related updates, let customers book appointments for site visits, communicate with them and curate reviews in a single platform.
Not to forget, Facebook Ads. You can target a demographic who is interested in purchasing real estate property but doesn’t have your company on their radar yet using Facebook ads.
You can target this new audience based on demographics, interests and behaviours and really narrow it down to your exact target group in order to generate high quality leads.
The second platform which is essential for real estate businesses is LinkedIn.
Now LinkedIn has a two pronged benefit for real estate businesses.
Tip: Make sure to set up a LinkedIn business page and not a LinkedIn profile for your business. Profiles are only to be made for people, while pages can be made for business. Since LinkedIn is very strict with its moderation laws, it may be important to keep this in mind, to avoid your page being restricted or taken down.
Now, this may be a surprising entry for a real estate business, but Instagram is essential.
First off, the demographic on Instagram is growing and more middle-aged, high-income consumers have been joining the site. This is extremely helpful for real estate companies.
The image-based platform is also especially attractive for realtors and real estate businesses to flaunt the pictures of their property, amenities, and show flats. These visuals attract a following and businesses can capitalize on that clout.
Along with this, Instagram stories have achieved overwhelming success. It is a great way to showcase new launch events, promotional events, company gatherings, or even events that happen at existing projects. Stories divert the attention away from the real estate project as a building and make the audience connect to the people within. It is a format that builds an emotional rapport.
Stories also have plugins such as quizzes or music which makes the audience experience more interactive.
Lastly, there is IGTV. Instagram's newest platform gives you the ability to post videos longer than one minute which was not allowed previously. Since Instagram is now pushing IGTV content on its explore page more aggressively than other formats, it is best to repurpose your longer videos on this platform.
This increases the chances of your brand popping up on an interested leads “Explore” page and them consequently following you.
Now that we have discussed platforms, what kind of content is appropriate for social media? It is the one place where you don’t have to shy away from selling or showing off your real estate projects. Instead, that is what works well. Let us take a look at what type of content may be a right fit to showcase across your social channels.
Now once your platform is set up and you’re ready with your content there are some hygiene practices you need to follow if you are a real estate company. These are basic social media practices that need to be in place for social media marketing for real estate businesses.
This means that on each social page your contact information needs to be front and centre, and glaringly obvious. This is so that anyone landing on the page can immediately get in touch if the need arises.
This information includes:
Now, a common mistake is that companies put information in obscure parts of their social page which is a redundant action. You need to take active efforts in order to make it visible.
For example:
First of all make sure you have an Instagram business page and not just a profile. Instagram business pages have an option where you can optimize your bio to make custom buttons that call the business or open an email window addressed to the official ID. Make sure you update this information on the backend.
Meanwhile, Facebook has an option called “Book Appointment” where your leads can directly communicate with you about when they would like to visit the site. There is also an about section on the right side of the page called “About Us” with dedicated space for a phone number, website and Facebook messenger link. If not filled, this section will stay blank which is a bad hygiene practice. Make sure you fill it with your current website link, phone number and connect your page to Facebook messenger.
According to research done by Sprout Social, a mere 11% of real estate businesses respond to their incoming social messages. Don’t be one of them. Make sure you respond to your consumers on time.
You can set up a chatbot on platforms like Facebook which may answer generic FAQ’s automatically. Or an easier way would be to subscribe to a message aggregation service. A message aggregation service puts all personal message queries that come from leads across all platforms into one dashboard. This means that you can see and answer all messages from a single place. Consequently, you don’t have to waste time jumping from platform to platform. All your queries can be found in one place.
Tools like Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox or Hootsuite allow you to access DM’s from all platforms in a single dashboard
Don’t let your social accounts stagnate. Make sure you’re putting out content on a regular basis.
Now, if your account is new you might need to post more aggressively (i.e. 3-4 times a day). You may also need to boost posts to build an audience and reach relevant people who just don’t know about your business yet.
But once your account has gained enough traction you can put up more specific posts 1-2 times a day. Keep track of when the highest number of your audience members are online through insights and post during those timings.
Now this may be the most cumbersome task to keep track of but every social network has different sizing requirements.
While Instagram works best with 1:1 posts. Facebook sees better traction of posts with 16:9 dimensions. Along with this, there is a difference in sizing for cover pictures, profile pictures, IGTV videos, stories, etc.
There are plenty of resources on the internet that break down the sizing of each platform. Make sure your design team gets the sizes right when making the post to avoid awkward cropping when the creative is uploaded.
The last way to build an interested audience is to promote your social channels on all other platforms.
Make sure your social pages are:
And that’s it! These are the social media essentials you need to keep in mind before kick-starting social media marketing for real estate businesses. There are a lot of moving pieces in this puzzle such as the right creative designing, timing of posts, or catchy captioning. However, It’s not a difficult space to crack if you follow best practices and basic hygiene along with making relatable and relevant content.
It is quickly becoming a central channel for spreading awareness and generating leads. Not capitalizing on it is just a missed chance. Follow the practices as mentioned above and get your foundation right. Once that is done it will be extremely easy to build the presence of your real estate company from there.
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