How a realtor should be using Social Media – Top 7 tips for Realtors & Social Media
I do many coaching calls for our 500millionstrong clients. Many of them are Realtors and I get a lot of the same questions about Real Estate & Social Media.
So I thought it might be helpful to the Realtor community to give this advice on how to use Social Media.
Here are some of the best ways to use Social Media as a Realtor.
Top 7 ways for a Realtor to use Social Media.
(*in no particular order)
#1 Facebook - Facebook is great for Realtors. Most Realtors get a ton of referral business from friends and family – and primarily this is exactly who your connected to on Facebook. This is also who you clients are connected to 
The trick is to not be selling your services all the time.
No one goes on Facebook to be sold, so updates like “I am taking new clients” never work.
How do I use Facebook then? Simple, Take the “Top of mind/awareness” approach.
Post updates like “I am grateful to be blessed with so many great clients.” Or post photos of your listings with comments like “Super excited for this new listing – Could you live here?”
Then get ninja and tag your sellers in those photos. This is a great way to get in front of their network ALWAYS add your clients on Facebook. Communicating with them on “their wall” is a great idea as well. Just keep it classy and don’t sell using this approach – ever”
Be sure to leave an update on their wall once you close. Example – “I just wanted to say thanks for your business. You guys were a treat to work with” or something along those lines.
#2 YouTube – This is often times the most overlooked of all the networks. Hands down YouTube is one of the best things you can do to get more business as a realtor online.
How? Simple – start filming all of your listings and throw them up on Youtube today. I did this, I kept it real simple (as you can see here) and just turned on my camera and then proceeded to walk and talk. My buyers loved it – My agents loved it as the buyers they showed homes to who had seen the videos were 5x as likely to sign. Biggest benefit of youtube – if the videos are done right (proper keywords, call to action etc.) they will send you daily leads forever as your potential clients will find them via google for years to come. Look at just one of my videos and click the statistics button (next to the view count) and you will see the power of YouTube. Google serves up the video when people search for the keywords many times daily.
1 quick tip when it comes to YouTube:
Make your title “Keyword rich” – Example: If your listing is in Santa Barbara – Make your title “Santa Barbara Real Estate – 1234 hight st” Most of my videos ended up on Google as the first result. This in turn drove a ton of targeted traffic to our website.
If you want the blueprint on how to get your videos to show up on the first page of Google for popular terms like ” Denver Real Estate” or “Foreclosure listings Columbus” go get www.VideoTrafficAcademy.com – I guarantee if you get it – your videos will be all over Google for the best keywords. The course is that good.
#3 Twitter – I honestly think Twitter might be one of the least useful ways to use Social Media for a Realtor. Actually I take that back. It can be useful, but is very time consuming. BUT – if you enjoy Twitter and use it currently – make sure you are focusing on building a local following. If you live in Miami Florida, a follower in Denver probably will never lead to new business.
To build a local following I would look at the followers of News Celebrities, Radio DJ’s, Local Restaurants, Rotary Clubs Etc. These kind of profiles will almost always have a local following. I would then go and follow all of their followers as many will follow you back. Using this tactic – it works as a virtual handshake. Most people you follow will wonder who you are and why you followed them – they in turn will look and your profile and many will click on your website link.
If you don’t want to do this following – you can use a tool like Tweetadder to do it on auto pilot. Tweetadder can be your best friend if you value your time. It’s not cheap – but it’s worth it.
#4 Linkedin - This is the diamond in the rough of Social Networks. Take full advantage of LInkedin I promise you will thank me later. The best thing you can do first is to optimize your profile. My business parter Lewis Howes has a great post here explaining exactly how to do that. The second thing I would do is get active in groups. I would start my own group, and also get active in others that are local.
Start a group – this is a great way to get more referrals. We have a Realtor student in who started a “Young Professionals” group on linkedin. He then invited all of his local friends and the group took off. After 2 months He held a happy hour mixer/get together for the group. The first time he did it – 25 people showed up – not bad! The second mixer he hosted had over 100 in attendance. As you can imagine – as the head of the group, and the host of these events – he got & gets a ton of referrals! Literally over 2 million dollars in business came from this one tip for him. Get leads daily with linkedin in 20 minutes a week or less with this training- Linkedinfluence (not free but worth every penny)
#5 Ads – Linkedin & Facebook – As a Realtor, personal branding is everything. Ads can be an amazing way to build your personal brand. There is probably no better tool than Facebook ads to build your personal brand. The targeting options on Facebook are ridiculous. Do you know your customer? If you do you can laser target them on Facebook. Categories for targeting include – Sex, Education levels, Zip Code, City, Marital status, Interests etc.
TIP: With Facebook ads you can use the CPC (cost per click) model. The goal with this model is to be seen. Your ad does not have to generate any clicks and will be working for you at little or no cost. You should purposely design an add that does not generate many clicks with this model. THink of it as a billboard! I know realtors who are using this and targeting there desired market down to age & location and paying as little as $10 for it to be shown 1000 times.
#6 Blog / Website – While a blog is not a necessity, you should definitely have one. This can be the hub of all your online marketing efforts. A great place to drive Social Traffic to turn it into leads. WordPress is the only platform I would recommend. There a million great themes specifically for Real Estate. I used a WordPress site for my listings. WordPress is super easy to use.
#7 Email Marketing – While not necessarily social – A good email marketing campaign should be your #1 priority. If you set up a decent site with a good email capture in place – you can expect to convert 5-15% of your traffic to your email list. This was vital to my success in Real Estate. Every time I sent an email – my phone immediately rang off the hook. in 1 year my list quickly grew to over 10,000 people. People loved getting my listings by email.
Hopefully this will spark some ideas on ways you can use the internet and Social Media to drive more traffic to your listings. Do me a favor and share this with your Realtor friends – they will thank you!
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