Social media has taken over most aspects of life, and property hunting is no different. People use social media to browse properties in their area and get an idea of who they’re buying from.
Property investors who have done the work of optimizing their social media have discovered that they can create permanent brands in addition to moving properties. They can become famous for sharing their renovation knowledge, eye for good investment properties, or skill at being a landlord.
Social media has a massive amount of potential. In this guide, you’re going to learn more about that potential and some tips you can use to maximize it. Before that, let’s take a moment to look at what social media marketing is and why it’s useful for moving all kinds of real estate.
What is Social Media Marketing, and Why does it Matter in Real Estate?
Social media marketing is the process of using social media as a platform for promotion. Real estate investors and agents can use it to find buyers and sellers, but it can do far more.
Social media marketing is not just building social media content. It’s using that content to drive your audience toward specific actions. However, many social media strategies also work indirectly.
For example, having a broad audience improves your credibility, even if they aren’t likely to buy or sell properties. Building content that’s fun and engaging exposes you to opportunities to work with huge publishers and influencers who can further increase your reach.
That’s why many of the tips that you’re about to learn are about are
When used correctly, social media helps you build an audience, showcase the best parts of your rental or sale properties, and develop a lasting brand.
5 Tips to Make the Most of Social Media
Having a profile for your business or properties isn’t enough to use social media to its full potential. If you want to do that, there are some powerful practices that you can put to work. Here are five that are likely to have the most powerful and lasting effects:
- Build a presence on all of the largest social media sites
- Take advantage of tags
- Use professional photos of properties and areas
- Showcase testimonials from clients
- Share what you know
Let’s go into each of these in more detail.
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Build a presence on all of the largest social media sites
To take advantage of social media for promotion, you need to be all of the places that people might be looking for homes. Property investors have made excellent use of:
Every one of these networks allows you to post images, videos, and other types of content. Most of the content you create can be posted to all of these networks simultaneously.
While you can move most types of content across all of them, these networks also stand apart from each other in meaningful ways. Here are some of the ways that you can use each one to its full potential.
- Use the Pages feature to create a profile for your business.
- Take advantage of all the ways you can customize your profile to create an attractive page and personality.
- Host contests with prizes to attract new followers.
- You only have limited space in your bio and posts, so let images do the talking.
- Use hashtags to join major conversations that are happening related to your products.
- Use a business profile rather than a personal one to access special features.
- Make use of metrics (available in business profile options) to find out how well your posts are doing, and use those metrics to improve your performance on all the other networks.
- Use Pinterest for Business accounts to access special features like metrics.
- When you create boards, make sure you use your keywords so that they can appear for searches.
- Use both your personal profile and business profile to network with other property investors and related businesses.
- Use the Group feature to find good network opportunities more rapidly.
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Take advantage of tags
Tags are categories that can be applied to your content. Most networks will allow you to apply tags to your content. When you do, your content will show up for searches or categories related to those tags.
It’s essential to take advantage of tags for several reasons.
- They allow users to find your content based on the topic.
- They help you brand yourself and clarify the focus of your content.
- They can help you appear in search engines.
Some massively popular tags are useful to property investors. For example, home flipping has many fans who enjoy looking through pictures of homes being taken from an ugly state to something worthy of being shown off.
Here are some major hashtags that can be put to use.
- #justsold
- #justlisted
- #openhouse
- #milliondollarlisting
- #dreamhouse
- #househunting
- #fixerupper
- #propertyforsale
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Use professional photos of properties and areas.
Most of these networks are focused on images, and for a good reason. Image content is eye-catching and engaging. You’ll need to focus on image content for all of these networks, so your images should be top quality.
There are some principles that you can follow to create excellent photos as an amateur. If you have the equipment and the will to do that, you should try it. However, if you aren’t successful at it after testing, you should consider hiring a professional.
Professional-quality images can have a long shelf life. They can continue to improve your reputation for years after they’ve been added to your site. They can become a lasting part of your brand and provide proof of your properties’ quality long after they’re sold.
Having top-quality pictures of your current properties can help them sell a lot more quickly. Remember to take further advantage of having a photographer around by taking some photos of the areas surrounding any properties you have for sale.
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Showcase testimonials from clients
One of the best ways to manage your reputation by using social media is to use your satisfied buyers and customers’ words.
Potential buyers will frequently look you up before they do business with you. They may review your social media accounts to determine how people are talking about you. If they see good testimonials, it can reassure them that you are successful and focus on significant projects.
When you get friendly words from the people who have worked with you, turn it into content for your social media accounts. Images of happy people in homes can also be used to create the same effect.
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Share what you know
One of the most successful social media tactics for property investors is the one that’s least obvious: sharing what you know.
As a property investor, you may think that sharing tips and insights won’t be of much use. However, that’s the exact way that many property investors have built brands that grew into million-dollar websites, blogs, and educational programs.
You should build content that caters directly to people who are buying content in your area. Still, you need to remember that many of your potential customers may be property investors themselves.
There’s a massive potential audience of people out there who want to do what you do. They make up most of the people who follow property flipping and investing accounts. While property buyers are really helpful to have following your pages, they’ll also probably start ignoring you as soon as you buy.
Your permanent base of followers will provide reassurance to the property buyers who are visiting your pages. When you have a massive amount of followers, it immediately speaks to your authenticity and expertise.
Move more Property by Taking Advantage of Social Media
Using these tips, you can start to use social media networks to their full potential. That will allow you to attract more buyers and sellers for property investments, and to increase your credibility and authority with both.
The long-term possibilities for investing in social media are nearly limitless. Some property investors have been able to build an entirely new income stream out of their work. In some cases, they can make enough to expand their portfolio of properties or even shift into providing education as a service.
