Social media marketing is growing exponentially everyday, especially within the real estate industry. Most agents/brokers are on the major platforms and channels. By now, they have created strong social media marketing strategies. They are setting goals, tracking results, engaging with their followers, all with the hopes of seeing a great boost in real estate leads. These gurus are on top of their game, but what they may not know is what to avoid on social media.
Below are some typical social media marketing mistakes agents and brokers tend to make and tips for avoiding them.
1. Posting too much about your business
You walk a fine line when it comes to using social media for business. You want to make sure you have the right balance. Talking boastfully about your business will not get you more followers and may even scare some away. With that being said, there is nothing wrong with expressing pride in deals you have closed. The key to balance is also expressing appreciation for your clients and their business.
Another part of the balance equation is showing the human side of you. Show your personality here and there. Feel free to occasionally share photos or videos of you with personnel, clients, or even family and friends. This will help your audience feel more connected to you and not just your business persona.
2. Publishing content frequently or infrequently
Trial and error is your best bet when trying to figure out the best days and times to post your content to social media. When you first set up your strategy, play around with the content you schedule for the first couple of months. This will give you a clear picture of what content is working for you and on which platform. When it comes to the best times to post to each platform, there are some general rules for each channel. Do a google search for the best posting times for real estate agent/brokers, and you will find a bunch of useful information.
The other component to achieving success with your social media marketing is to make sure you are posting regularly. Make note not to over post on any one channel, but also be certain not to post too infrequently that you never make it onto the radar of your followers.
3. Not Posting Enough of your own content
Curating content from bloggers, publications or real estate professionals can really be a timesaver. As a real estate agent/broker, trying to find the time to devote to content marketing is tough. Shareable content from third parties is a great find and the work has been done for you. With that being said, your primary social media content should still be your own.
4. Your are not using images and videos in your social media posts
Using visual elements like images and videos in your social media marketing has proven to boost engagement rates exponentially. Even if you do not consider yourself tech-savvy, there are so many user friendly tools to help you edit photos or create graphics and videos with ease. Instagram, Vine and Magisto are just a couple of free, easy to use apps you can get started with right away.
5. Not consistently engaging with Followers
As you get into your groove and start posting valuable content on a regular basis, you will certainly start to receive positive comments. To keep up consistent engagement with your followers, comments are important to respond to soon after they are made This can lead to referrals as well as feedback on ways to better improve the content you are putting out.
Engaging with your followers is one of the best ways to connect one-to-one and find potential leads. Even if you are not seeing many leads coming from your social media accounts, that does not mean your followers are not sharing good things about you and in turn helping your marketing efforts.
I think the first step is to build a big audience. In facebook for example I needed to boost many of my post at first, now they are getting some organic traffic.