By Tata Rossi 21 days ago, Real Estate Photography
Without a doubt, real estate is one of the most lucrative fields you can work in. Just in the United States alone, newly listed home prices have gone up by 32.6% and yet, the increase in home buying power was 21%. This leads us to believe that although house prices are going up, people are still looking to buy property, thus creating the perfect environment for real estate agents to sell homes.
But even though people are buying property, how can you make sure that they will choose one of your houses? The answer is simple — marketing. Or better said social media real estate marketing.
With over 3.6 billion people using social media platforms worldwide, social media marketing has become an important component of any business’s marketing plan. Real estate businesses are no different. They need social media to promote the homes that real estate agents want to sell or lease and not only.
Besides the statistics that show us the increasing popularity of social media among people, there are other reasons why you should use social media real estate marketing. First of all, according to the latest reports, 98% of Millennials search for homes online compared to 89% of Boomers. The reason behind this is because it is easier and more practical to check the house online before contacting a realtor or scheduling a day to see the house.
Another reason would be the competition. Studies show that 76% of female real estate agents and 72% of male real estate agents are using social media to promote their business and sell homes.
Most real estate agents understood the impact that social media has on their businesses. They learned how to work with social media outlets and what kinds of posts are most profitable for their brand. If you’re not using social media for real estate, not only will your competition steal any potential client that you might have, but leads might also overlook your business.
Lastly, social media real estate marketing is much more affordable than other forms of marketing. For example, PPC (pay-per-click) can offer you fantastic results if it’s used accordingly. But even if you’re a PPC master, bidding on keywords can get expensive.
Compared with that, social media marketing requires you to have:
Out of all of those requirements, the social media automation tool will be the one that needs funding.
Social media also facilitates two-way communication, allowing you to answer inquiries promptly, build relationships, and establish trust with your audience. It's a platform for sharing local market trends, offering tips for buyers and sellers, and positioning yourself as an industry expert.
Now that you know why you need social media marketing, let’s move on and see how your real estate business can use social media to increase profits, customer retention, and customer satisfaction.
By all means, you should always concentrate on the predominant platform for your target audience. But you shouldn’t just post on that one platform and call it a day.
For example, we can imagine that our target audience has the following characteristics:
According to the latest reports, the social media platform that is most popular with women in the United States is YouTube. Although making real estate videos on YouTube might prove to be beneficial in the long run, you might not have all the resources.
What you can do instead is focus on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, which are the next most popular social media for real estate platforms that women use in the United States. f a certain percentage of your target audience doesn’t use one of the social media apps (Facebook for example), it will definitely use one of the alternatives (Instagram or Pinterest).
It comes as no surprise that each social media for real estate has its own requirements. Not only that but there are specific tricks that you can use to make your content stand out. To make sure this happens, you will need to optimize every single post.
To better understand how this works, let’s take an example:
Your real estate business is working with Facebook and Instagram. You have a new house that you would like to promote; therefore you make a promotional post for this house. Although the main idea is going to remain the same at its core, you will have to change the post to fit each app’s requirements.
For Facebook, you will have a post that:
For Instagram, you will have a post that:
These are the optimal conditions for posting on Facebook and Instagram. Some of these elements should be respected accordingly, like the size of the cover photos for Facebook, the pictures and the hashtags, but with others, you have more leeway. It’s best for you to experiment with things such as the type of content you post, the length, the posting hour, etc. It’s also essential to research real estate cover photos of more successful agents.
Although both posts will be promotional in nature and will market the same house, they will be different. What works for Instagram will not work for Facebook. For example, you won’t put a link in your Instagram copy because links are not clickable on Instagram.
All digital marketing agencies will tell you that the quality of your content matters more than you’d think. When it comes to content, the first thing that you need to figure out is what kind of content you will share with your audience. Sure, you can post just promotional content online, but it would be better if you’d mix and match.
Besides posts that promote your houses, you can also add:
When deciding what you are going to post, you need to take your brand into consideration. If your brand voice is professional and serious, then it would be best for you to hold back on the memes and funny gifs. Instead, you can go for promotional content, quotes, and curated content.
You should also be mindful of the promotional content that you post. Luckily, when it comes to this particular type of content, there are certain formulas that can help you. More specifically, we are talking about copywriting formulas.
A few formulas that you might want to look into are:
These formulas can help you get started on copywriting. They will offer you a base on which you can start building your writing skills. Lastly, you should also make sure that the quality of your posts is exceptional. This means writing compelling copies, using emojis in the right places, and performing hashtag research to discover the hashtags that will help people find your real estate business easier.
You want your customers and leads to feel drawn to your posts and read what you have to say. To do this, you must know what information is necessary and how to write it. So, if you are trying to sell a house on Facebook, you can design your copy to look something like this:
If you always dreamt of a house near the beach, but also close enough to the city, then we’ve got just the house for you!
This cozy little beach house comes with:
If you like what you see and you’re ready to visit the house, then contact us and we’ll arrange a tour for you and your family:
[insert ‘contact us’ link]
You need to find the content that matches your audience best and use it.
When it comes to designing brochures to complement your real estate content, consider using free brochure design software to create visually appealing and informative materials that showcase your properties effectively.
In social media real estate marketing, the visual elements are essential and marketers know this. One survey reveals that content creators use visuals in 91-100% of their content.
Visuals are even more important in real estate, as real estate photography and videos are what draw people in. You can tell a person all you want just how amazing home is, but they will not be fully convinced until they see the pictures that prove your statements. Don’t forget that attractive real estate agent photos also play an important role in bringing in more customers.
For your real estate business, you can use the following visuals:
Make sure you elevate your social media posts with original graphics and amazing pictures. When it comes to pictures of the houses you’re trying to sell, you need to bring forth your A-game. These pictures need to be amazing, so you can either hire a professional photographer or look up some real estate photo editing services that can make your pictures stand out.
The best option would be to do both. But if your business only has funds for one of these options, then editing is the best option. A good editor will take average pictures and turn them into something amazing to look at. Another option would be to learn how to edit the pictures yourself, using real estate photography software for realtors.
If you want to do something a bit more different, you can also start investing in videos. When looking for popular real estate video ideas, consider shooting virtual tours, as they are immersive and can be posted both on your website and on social media.
One of the most creative real estate video marketing ideas is incorporating the aerial perspective.
If you want your videos to be extra special, you can lease or buy a drone for real estate photography and give your houses an aerial view. Not only will this make your video look stunning, but it will also give your customers an idea of how the neighborhood looks like.
SocialBee's posting calendar
As real estate agents, you probably don’t have a lot of time to spend on social media real estate marketing. You need to take people on tours, take calls, and close sales. This means that you can’t take hours out of your schedule to create perfect social media posts and make sure they are posted at the right time. In case you are interested in home sales tips, make sure to visit the official website of Porch where you will find invaluable insights on maximizing your income.
Luckily, you don’t have to do that, because there are social media automation tools. For example, with Instagram marketing tools for rapid growth, you can easily create posts, customize, and schedule their posting time. This way, you can make sure that content is being posted regularly on your social media account.
Having content posted regularly is important because, in social media, consistency is key. People generally follow a lot of pages, which means that content is being thrown at them constantly. If you will not post regularly, then your followers will forget that your business exists.
SocialBee's importing option for the RSS feed of a blog
Not only that, but when you do decide to post, it’s likely that your posts will be drowned in a sea of content. Now, when you post regularly, it doesn’t matter if your follower doesn’t see one of your posts, because they are bound to see at least one post.
Social media automation tools keep the posts coming. Not only that, but generally, these tools have many other additional features that can help you make the right decisions when it comes to social media for real estate. If you would like to try a social media automation tool, you can go for SocialBee. With SocialBee’s 14-day free trial, you can test this tool and see how it works and how beneficial it can be for your real estate business.
Bottom Line
Social media marketing might seem intimidating at first. After all, there are so many platforms, so many requirements, and practices to keep in mind that it’s hard to juggle with all of them at the same time.
But once you get the hang of it and get some nice tools that can help you out, you will notice how your real estate business will grow. Your social media for real estate pages will gain more traction and your realtors will get more calls, more tours, and eventually, more sales.
About The Author
Ovi Negreanu is the CEO and co-founder of SocialBee, one of the best social media automation tools on the market. Besides helping you post better content on a regular basis, SocialBee also offers the possibility of making the content for you. Our bees will make sure that your marketing strategy will skyrocket in no time.
