Social Media Marketing: 6 Steps That Work for REALTORs

When it comes to creating an effective marketing campaign, utilizing social media is absolutely essential. While social media sometimes gets a bad reputation, it is a powerful tool for creating your brand, reaching prospective clients, and establishing yourself as an authority in the real estate industry.

The reality is most people spend a significant amount of time on social media. Whether they are interacting with friends, catching up on the latest news, following the lives of celebrities, or mindlessly scrolling through their feed, social media users are essentially bringing themselves to you on a daily basis. So, how can you tap into this valuable resource and what steps can you take to get the most out of your social media marketing campaign?

Step #1: Know Your Options

Before you begin your social media marketing campaign, you first need to identify the various platforms available and become familiar with what each one has to offer. As you explore your options, two things you want to consider are how much traffic the platform receives and how much time users spend on the platform. While these two measurements may sound very much the same, there is an important difference between the two.

Generally speaking, you want a social media platform that gets a lot of traffic but also manages to retain that traffic. Otherwise, what benefit is it to you if users are only dropping in for a brief visit, and never actually see you or your company? On the other hand, a platform where users spend a significant amount of time might not be beneficial if it has a small amount of traffic or if that traffic falls within a very narrow demographic. To ensure your page receives visitors who actually engage in your content, you want to be on a platform where visitors will linger and spend their time.

According to Wikipedia, the top five social media platforms by traffic as of May 2022 were as follows:

• YouTube (#2 of all websites listed)
• Facebook (#3 of all websites listed)
• Twitter (#4 of all websites listed)
• Instagram (#5 of all websites listed)
• TikTok (#18 of all websites listed)

On the other hand, a November 2021 report by Statista found the top five social media sites ranked by the amount of time users spent on the site were as follows:

• Facebook (#3 of all websites listed)
• Instagram (#8 of all websites listed)
• Twitter (#11 of all websites listed)
• YouTube (#19 of all websites listed)
• Tik Tok (rating not listed, indicating it is not within the top 20 of all websites listed)

While Facebook held solidly in third place with both measurements when compared to all websites, Instagram dropped from fifth to eighth place when comparing the amount of traffic to the amount of time spent on the site. Twitter experienced an even greater drop, falling from the fourth to eleventh position. The biggest fall, however, was seen with YouTube, which dropped from the second to nineteenth position among all websites. When comparing only social media sites, YouTube dropped from first to fourth place, while Twitter held strong at third place, and TikTok came in last with both measurements.

Step #2: Consider Demographics

It doesn’t matter how much traffic a platform receives or how much time users spend on the site if none of those users fit your target demographic. Therefore, you want to know who is spending time on the social media platforms you are considering. By knowing this, you can better determine where you want to focus your greatest efforts and time.

According to the Pew Research Center, Facebook has the highest volume of users in the typical home-buying age. Instagram, on the other hand, is most used among Millennials, and is becoming increasingly more relevant as more Millennials are entering the home-buying market. TikTok is loved and talked about by many, but its base consists largely of Gen Z users, who are not yet ready to buy a home. However, it’s still worth watching, understanding, and looking for ways to reach out to future prospective buyers through this platform.

Step #3: Tap Into Your Sphere of Influence

After you set up your social media accounts, you’ll need to build a following. The easiest way to get started with this is to tap into your Sphere of Influence, commonly referred to as your SOI. Your SOI includes all of your friends, family members, business associates, and past and present clients. You’ll want to send these individuals friend or follow requests on your chosen social media platforms. The goal is for them to follow you back and engage with your content. The better your content, the more likely they will be to share it with their social media connections. In turn, this will broaden your audience and lead to more followers.

Step #4: Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Before creating content, you need to determine what you want others to share about you and your company. Remember, your goal is build your brand and present yourself as an authority in the industry. Rather than pushing out a ton of low-quality content, you should focus on producing high-quality content, even if that means you can’t post as often. After all, you don’t want your followers to feel as if they are being spammed with pointless content or shameless marketing plugs.

Focusing on quality instead of quantity will increase the engagement you receive from your followers. When your followers are engaged, they are more likely to share your content and recommend your page to their social circle. In short, your social media marketing success is measured by the number of likes, comments, and shares your content receives, not on how many posts you make.

Step #5: Encourage Conversation

As a part of your effort to increase engagement, you should take the time to interact with your friends and followers on social media. This involves responding to their comments, answering questions, and engaging with their content. By doing so, your followers will get to know you on a more personal level and gain trust in you. The more your followers trust you as an authority in the industry, the more likely they will be to think of you when in need of a REALTOR.

As an added bonus, interacting with your followers allows you to better understand their unique needs. With this knowledge, you can tailor your content to reach your audience more effectively. For example, you might learn some of your followers love being tagged in particular types of posts, and you can later implement that. Tagging is also a great way to re-engage followers who haven’t been active on your page recently. Ultimately, you want your followers to view you as the “go-to” REALTOR in their lives. You’ll achieve this by consistently responding to their comments, answering their questions, and addressing their real estate needs.

Step #6: Stay True to Yourself

Lastly, as you create content and interact with your followers, it is crucial to remain authentic and true to yourself. When you create an image on social media, you are setting certain expectations of who you are in real life. Your friends, followers, and clients will soon realize if these two identities are strikingly different. When you can’t live up to your social media identity, you will lose more clients than you gain. Your social media pages should show your personality, provide an accurate representation of who you are, and let clients know what to expect when buying or selling a home with you.