January 5, 2018
Clients do not visit social media for its advertising. Those agents who continue to use social media solely to advertise their latest listings will see social media engagement drop off and get a poor ROI on their efforts. An effective agent knows how to grow relationships with past buyers, sellers and potential clients and provide them content of value through social media channels.
Learn more about why agents need to do more than share their listings on social and improve your social media marketing plan today.
Maintain Credibility
A listing is useful and necessary. At the end of the day, agents want their clients to be aware of properties available. However, a listing itself is a rather impersonal form of content and social media platforms may not be the best channel for sharing such content. Follow the 80/20 rule and keep any content that can be considered sales-y, such as listings, to 20 percent of what is shared via social. More than this and users either ignore the content as spam or take negative action with negative feedback or by leaving the page itself and unfollowing. No feedback and negative feedback can hurt an agent’s chances of sharing similar content organically in the future.
More Competition Than Expected
How does an agent stand out? Find out more about what type of content is popular and engaging on a particular platform. Regularly check in on business social media usage stats to understand more about the performance of content and where to adjust a real estate marketing plan for a specific audience. Those using Facebook Ads should check out the parameters and see how many advertisers are in competition. The goal is to find out more about the percentage of people who may see a posted listing and reach out for more details.
Don’t Miss Out On Broader Benefits
Social media is used to build a following and tap into a community. This calls for content which encourages engagement with an audience. The more actions that occur on a post, the more it shows up in feeds, is potentially shared on other people’s pages and may reach a broader circle of individuals which were outside an agent’s original circle of influence.
This is the power of organic reach when it comes to social media. But this aspect comes after building a community that talks and engages on a page or online group. There is great value in Likes, Shares and Comments on platforms. Sharing and retweeting shows strong interest as a person who shares believes the content would be useful to others in their circle. Agents want to provide content of value that can either be insightful or entertaining, and they need to be ready to respond to comments and questions. Give value to followers and become influential in their daily life, so that you become top of mind when it comes time for them to sell or buy a property.
Key social media KPIs include:
- number of mentions
- fans
- followers
- general reach.
Reach or how many individuals one may be able to touch with content means little if there is no engagement. Mentions are helpful as they indicate an amount of engagement. Don’t buy followers; authentic numbers of followers do matter. Inflating numbers with followers which have been purchased will inadvertently lower engagement rates as generally such followers do not engage with content.
“Give value to followers and become influential in their daily life, so that you become top of mind when it comes time for them to sell or buy a property.”
Transparency Pays Off
First of all, deliver great content. Listings should only act as a supplement to the general content offered. Don’t forget about the impact of visual content. Authentic videos and photos can be very useful in getting engage rates up as well as for showing the personality of an agent. It was found that those posts with videos and photos got the highest organic engagement on Facebook, with 13.9 percent and 13.7 percent organically. Be transparent about being a real estate agent. Share your knowledge with others and how you have helped customers handle difficult situations. Be a problem solver. Stay on top of social media content performance statistics and use them to tailor a strategy and any campaigns.
Measure Results
It can be difficult to assess how well content is performing. Agents do eventually want leads and conversions. Why use ads if no one reaches out for more details? Some goals agents have include conversions, sales revenue, number of leads, cost of lead and lead conversion rate. The importance of social media is continuing that initial contact with a past or potential client. It is beneficial to measure how content performs, and how much revenue is invested to see desired results.
Not only does an agent want to see how their content works to elicit desired responses but a boss will be interested in such results as well. There are multiple ways to measure how effective social media content is and some include the direct method and the sharing of voice. Choosing an approach may depend much on the industry and services or products offered.
Persist Toward the End Goal
It will take time to create steady engagement and reap tangible benefits and additional revenue from followers. Make sure there is engagement on a page and deliver useful content. Be aware of significant drop offs in followers or those liking a page or part of a community. Be responsive to those who take the time out to comment or ask a question. Be there to inspire and guide. Agents dedicated to providing real value will find social media a useful tool for building trust and fostering long-term relationships.
