This spring, Inman is obsessing over helping you to tune-up your listings business, with actionable insights, the best advice from top agents and hundreds of helpful stories from all over the world. Interested in sharing your advice and insights with us? Reach out to me at matthew@inman.com.

Don’t forget that we’ll also be focusing on how agents and brokerages can all move Faster, Better, Together this July at Inman Connect San Francisco. Not got your ticket yet? Buy it here, and remember that Select members get a $100 discount. Thinking of bringing your team? There are special onsite perks and discounts when you buy those tickets together too. Just contact us to find out more.

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In this monthly advice column, Marketing Mastermind Christy Murdock Edgar answers three burning questions from the real estate industry at large. This month’s topic: social media.

We’ve had so many questions come in lately about social media. As you try to step up your game for the spring market, this is a great time to look at what’s working and what’s not in your marketing plan.

Thus, our questions this month are all about strategies for not only creating great content but also for measuring and evaluating it so that you’re always improving. Let’s get started!

Questions of the day

Question 1, from Boca Raton Realtor Jen Sommers and Orlando’s Todd Hutcheson:

Is there a way to measure how effective my social media marketing is working?

[And] is it better to spend a lot of time on one social platform like Facebook, or spread out your time and energy across multiple platforms. If multiple, what is a resource to track your effectiveness across the platforms? 

Great questions. Measuring effectiveness can be tricky because “effective” is a subjective term. Effectiveness, in this sense, can be about raising brand awareness, increasing market share or bringing in leads for conversion.

Here are a few ways to measure the impact of your social media marketing efforts:

1. Determine your goals

Your goals for your social media marketing will probably vary by:

• Platform
• Your business model
• The amount of time you have to devote to social media
• The support staff you have

A variety of other factors might also be at play. For example, if you are going all-in on content marketing with a gorgeous website and top-notch blog, your social media may be primarily about driving traffic to that great content.

If you are just starting out, it may just be about getting your name out there and trying to make some connections. If you have support staff, you will be able to do more with social media than if you are a one-person shop.

2. Determine what you want to measure

If you are looking at brand awareness, you’ll measure volume, amplification and reach. If you are driving traffic, you’ll need to track shares, clicks and conversions.

If you want to look at how engaged your users are, then track comments, replies and retweets. If you are trying to increase your share of the market, look at your competitors’ social media platforms as well to get a sense of how your content compares.

Once you know what you want to measure, use services such as Sprout Social, Google Analytics or BuzzSumo to help you find out how your various platforms are performing and what your audience is looking for.

3. Lather, rinse, repeat

Every month or two, sit down and spend some time with these numbers. See what’s working and what’s not, and make adjustments accordingly.

It may be that you will decide that you want to keep tweaking a variety of platforms, or you may decide you want to go all-in on one that is working particularly well.

Even if you get to a level you’re happy with, keep monitoring to ensure continued growth and to head off any slip-ups.

Question 2, from Chicago’s Sonia Figueroa:

What makes for good real estate videos people want to watch?

There are so many different types of video content that you can create and share as a real estate agent. These may include:

• Listing walk-throughs
• Blog recaps
• Q&As with real estate pros, lenders, contractors, etc.
• Promotional/advertising videos
• Process videos (how-to or informational)
• Neighborhood or local events
• Market updates
• Introduction/bio videos

And the list goes on (and on). But what makes a great, shareable video?

1. Great visuals and sound

No matter how engaging you are or how engaging your content, it won’t help anyone if viewers can’t hear or see you. Terrible video or audio quality is a turn-off — and your audience will stop watching before you even get started.

Make sure you are properly lit and miked (if needed) to ensure a top-quality viewing and listening experience.

2. Valuable content

People are too busy to spend time watching a video that doesn’t give them a payoff. Whether it’s entertaining, humorous or uniquely speaks to their pain points, the video you produce needs to create a fulfilling and meaningful experience for viewers.

Part of that also includes a clear call to action (CTA) to let viewers know who you are and what they should do based on the video — call you to schedule a tour, email you for area listings or go to your blog for additional information.

3. Planned spontaneity

There’s not much entertainment value in watching someone read from cue cards or a teleprompter. Although you may want to put up bullet points to help you track your overall message, spend some time prepping for your video so that you can give the illusion of a spontaneous, off-the-cuff message.

The more you can loosen up and have fun, the more likely your viewers will too.

Question 3, from Chennai, India’s Tara Sundaram:

Though I have 7-plus years experience — most of it in digital marketing — as a small business, I still struggle to get fast results in areas such as social media, blogging and even sales/marketing automation campaigns for more sales. How can I speed things up? 

This is probably the hardest thing for people beginning a content, direct mail or social media marketing strategy — it takes too long! But there are a variety of ways to see results more quickly.

1. Create a great foundation

Your social media, direct mail and other marketing efforts will ultimately lead people to one place — your website. Make sure it’s set up to load quickly, capture contact information and offer meaningful value and content.

2. Define your objective

As previously noted, you need to know what success looks like to measure it. Do you want to boost your brand, bring in new clients or dominate a particular part of the market?

Are you marketing to your sphere? Targeting a niche? Circle prospecting?

3. Build trust

Find ways to telegraph your expertise to website visitors quickly to get them to buy in. A brag board of media mentions or a scroll of stellar testimonials will let people know that you’re legit.

If possible, place these “above the fold” or toward the top of your webpage so that they are prominent and quickly noted.

4. Create great content

Find a way to communicate your expertise to potential clients. A blog, vlog or podcast where you can showcase your market knowledge and personality will give you something engaging and valuable to share, which will then be shared by fans and followers.

It also increases SEO and keeps people at your website longer, where they will continue to engage.

5. Use paid content to boost what is already working

No amount of money will make stale, boring content suddenly shareable. Figure out what people are responding to, and boost that ultra-engaging content.

That way, the maximum number of people will be seeing the very best of your content and your marketing dollars will go further.

Have a question you’d like answered or a topic you’d like covered? Send your marketing, branding, blogging and social media queries to our Marketing Mastermind at Christy@writingrealestate.com, and she’ll bring you great advice, helpful hints and expert insights. 

Christy Murdock Edgar is a Realtor, freelance writer, coach and consultant with Writing Real Estate in Alexandria, Virginia. Follow Writing Real Estate on Facebook or Twitter.