REAL ESTATE AGENTS, HERE'S SOME ADVICE.
Digital Marketing is not as simple as it seems. You are creating many touchpoints throughout the Internet to drive traffic to your website and increase your success in business. In order to help our real estate agent friends, we created this quick article to guide your decisions and actions.
A big part of any company’s digital marketing plan is social media. There are dozens of widely-used channels to choose from, the main ones being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+. Unless you hire a professional or contract with a business like Korst.co to handle this for you, you’ll have to choose only a handful of these. You don’t have time to post to all of them.
So, how do you choose? We study your audience, the competition, and the industry as a whole, and so should you. We go in-depth, but you don’t have to dig as deeply as we do to understand the in’s and out’s of your sector of social.
Whatever social media channel(s) you decide to use, there are some constants:
Create company pages in addition to your personal page. This is especially true for Facebook, LinkedIn and Google My Business. Personal pages have serious limits. You can post there, too, but your Fan/company page is where you should concentrate your efforts.
Always fill in every bit of information in your profile. Long descriptions, short descriptions, website address, profile image, street address, email…it’s all important. Once all of your company info is added, create a professional banner image for your company page header. Or, if you don’t have the creative chops, hire us to develop one for you.
Share a variety of content. You can have posts that are dedicated to your listings, but you should also have posts that are full of eye-catching images that are related to home living. Any visual content you create (as long as it’s informative) can help your social media page. On every social media channel, it is perfectly fine to share other content that interests you. Above all else be human! You don't want to be just a Real Estate robot.
Print versus digital media: get your mix right. Look for the ability to create multiple impressions in a variety of channels to get the best ROI from your marketing program. Digital and traditional media should be treated the same. It all comes down to reach, frequency, and engagement. If you create a physical newsletter, make sure that the content is also on your blog, posted on Facebook and LinkedIn. This increases your findability (SEO) online.
Make sure your website works! Link to it whenever possible.
Create a plan and a schedule and stick to it. We have a great Excel spreadsheet we use (and we’ll share -just ask). Planning takes the pressure off of daily decision-making. You can also invest in a tool to schedule your posting in the future. Hootsuite, Hubspot and Edgar are just a few of the many scheduling tools available. This doesn’t free you from paying attention to your social media accounts, (you still have to engage with your audience, answer questions, and reach out) but it helps.
Social media is all about engaging your followers and building trust. Simply put, you want your followers to look at you as the expert for all things real estate. The more you can build your case that you’re a knowledgeable, experienced, hard-working real estate agent, the more likely a local lead searching social media for real estate representation will consider you.
If you need professional help setting up accounts and handle your social presence, want someone else to do your analysis, or need a shoulder to cry on, We're here. Just give us a ring.