As a real estate agent you are an expert marketer offline.
You make great connections with creative marketing brochures. You take time to invite interested buyers and host them during open houses. Now, you just need to figure out how to channel those expert marketing skills and develop your own online real estate.
Social media is a great way to promote your listings, but you’ll have to go beyond that to make connections and generate leads. Here are three tips that will help you create conversations online to help make transactions offline.
1. Tell Your Story and Be Authentic
Be human in your interactions online. Don’t use sleazy used-car salesman pitches in your online voice. Be real, talk with expertise and knowledge, and make an effort to truly care about the messages you are sending.
As a real estate agent, you lead quite an active lifestyle. You are always on the go and you meet new people everyday. Tell that story to show everyone just how real you are.
Show your Instagram followers your favorite coffee shop. Tell your Facebook likers how much you like cats. Tweet about how many times you’ve had to drive around the city.
These are all interesting facts about YOU that will help attract clients who want to work with a person and not a selling machine.
2. Make an Impact
It’s easy to describe every home you sell as, “one-of-a-kind, gorgeous, the best deal you’ll EVER find.” Don’t fall back on that sleazy used-car sales pitch. Instead, describe what’s unique about a certain home. Then, post a photo that backs it up.
Show your followers the incredible view from the upstairs balcony. Describe the sunset that reflects off the nearby lake. There are so many details beyond the number of bedrooms and bathrooms that can help people find the right home.
*A side-note on photos: Professional photography goes a long way when marketing homes. You want the home to make a good impression and photos are essential on social media. If you can’t afford a professional photographer, then learn how to take photos with correct lighting and framing. A lot can be done with a phone.
3. Follow Up
You already have a novel of client names, mailing addresses and emails that you have hoarded hopefully in some type of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. The same way you set up drip email marketing campaigns for those clients, you’ll want to interact with clients on social media.
Take the time to be part of their online communication. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Be there for them when they need real estate advice. Comment on how you also enjoy the coffee shop on Main Street.
Managing your online relationships with clients often takes as much time as managing your offline relationships with clients. Although this is time consuming, it’s where your clients are. If you don’t make the leap to be where they are, then they may not look to you when they need to find a new home.
What online marketing strategies do you currently have? How do you think they could improve?
To learn more about MobiMedia’s real estate services email kfinnegan@mobisquad.com.