Have you ever wondered how to capitalize on social media to increase your sales while simultaneously building trust and loyalty in your referral database?
Katie Lance’s new book, #GetSocialSmart guides you through the exact steps to take to succeed on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and streaming video. It is a must-read for anyone who uses the social media for their business.
What does it take to achieve social media success? The first step is choosing the platform(s) that are easiest for you to use. The platform, however, is not nearly important as posting consistently.
Set up a content strategy
Like door-knocking or cold calling, your goal on social media is to start a conversation that will ultimately result in a listing or sale. This requires strong content. As Lance observes, “Content is the lifeblood of the internet.”
The 5 buckets
Lance divides her real estate content strategy into five buckets, which are relatively easy to fill.
1. Local real estate
Share updates on inventory, prices, any important or unusual listings and sales.
You can also spotlight new or historical homes, homes with an interesting history, or notable architectural design as well looking for content on your local Chamber of Commerce or city website.
2. National real estate
Are interest rates trending up or down? Will the inventory shortage continue? NAR updates their research site regularly and it’s an excellent source for national data.
3. Local and community
Feature the local farmer’s market, music festival, holiday parades, new restaurants or profile of the new high school football coach — anything that people in the area would enjoy knowing more about and that they would be likely to share with their sphere.
4. Personal
Tell your personal story using snapshots of your life — the personal things that make you fun and unique.
In fact, look at your life as content. For example, if a friend, colleague, or someone else you know receives an award or leads a local charity drive, publicly thank and acknowledge that person for their work.
5. Home and design
Articles that illustrate what’s “in” and what’s “out” in terms of home decorating trends are always popular with consumers. Use plenty of pictures to illustrate exactly what those trends are.
Other content Resources
- Turn client questions and emails into social media posts
- When you answer a question for a client, turn it into a post. Share it across the social media platforms where you are active.
- Take 30 photos in 30 days
- For each photo you take, write a brief post describing the picture, and then post it across the different social media platforms.
- Use BuzzSumo.com
BuzzSumo aggregates Facebook posts that have the greatest engagement. If you look under “real estate agents” or “Realtor,” you will see popular posts from other agents. You can use these for ideas as models for your posts.
What’s your Facebook strategy?
Would you like to increase the engagement on your Facebook business page? Lance suggests that you take the following five steps:
- Stay relevant.
- Include humor.
- Brief is better — 100-250 characters (less than three lines of text) gathers 60 percent more likes, comments and shares.
- Avoid posting too often — keep in mind that they typical post “lives” about three hours.
- Photos and videos are still king.
Also, here are some of the most common Facebook errors that agents make:
- Too many hashtags — they work great on Instagram and Twitter, but not on Facebook.
- Posting to other platforms through Facebook rather than posting directly to the other site.
- Short posts are best: 89 percent of the users are on a mobile device and prefer “snackable content.”
- Adding your job title on your Facebook personal profile name. (Example: John Doe, Realtor)
- Failure to include your location, job and title (within your bio information) to make it easier for people to find you.
- Posting a profile picture that doesn’t look like you.
- Not checking regularly checking your notifications.
Extend the life of your Facebook posts
Facebook creates a unique URL for each post on their site. Your posts normally stay active for about three hours.
To extend the life of your post, grab the unique Facebook link and then post the link on LinkedIn. You can also tweet out the link on Twitter and Pinterest.
Also, don’t forget to ask for the share, and if you reference someone in a post, tag them so it will appear on their newsfeed as well.
The Amazon trick
Amazon searches always suggest other products that you might like. You can apply the same principle to your posts.
When you post on a specific topic, search for two or three related posts that you could link to from your blog or your website. This builds your traffic while also keeping your visitors engaged.
5 reasons why you should be on Pinterest
Why should you be posting your real estate related photos on Pinterest?
- According to Hubspot, pictures are processed 60,000 times faster than text.
- People spend far more time on Pinterest than any other social media site.
- The number one to topic on Pinterest is “home.”
- 93 percent of Pinterest users use the platform to plan or make a purchase.
- Pinterest drives 25 percent of retail website referral traffic.
Building a social media presence is a marathon, not a sprint. #GetSocialSmart is your roadmap to social media success — check it out!
Editor’s note: This story has been updated.
Bernice Ross, CEO of RealEstateCoach.com, is a national speaker, author and trainer with over 1,000 published articles and two best-selling real estate books. Learn about her training programs at www.RealEstateCoach.com/
