Social Media for Your Business 101

Margaret GrayMarch 15, 20218 mins read

Like it or not, digital marketing and social media have become integral tools for real estate professionals. Millennials, the largest population group in the United States, are beginning to purchase homes. Trulia estimates that in just two years, 80% of millennials will be seeking home ownership.

Millennials and subsequent generations primarily use the internet, relying on it for everything from ordering groceries to booking train tickets to even buying a house. If you want to create a sustainable business model, social media must be a part of your toolkit.

Struggling to figure out how to incorporate social media into your business practices? Don’t fret! You’ve come to the right place. We’ve created our comprehensive social media guide, with advice for both content creation and business development.

It’s a great resource for beginners looking for basic information, as well as established agents seeking new digital marketing tactics. As an industry professional, you understand how to organize a schedule and provide the best experience for your clients. It’s easier than you think to translate these skills into social media.

Organizing Your Business’s Social Media Presence

If you’re a real estate professional who plans ahead and frequently connects with clients, you already have all the skills you need to use social media effectively. Before you even begin posting on your social media platforms, establish your long-term goals.

What are you hoping to gain from using social media? Are you using it as a tool to network with former clients or to advertise your listings? By establishing the purpose of your social media presence, you can better create content for your followers and grow your following.

Why Social Media?

Social media has grown to become one of the many tools that business-owners use to connect with their clients and advertise. One of the main reasons why social media has become so popular is because it is a free way to share your products and services, update your clients with new properties, and collaborate with fellow businesses.

It’s readily available to almost everyone and is a fun way to create a compelling customer experience. It’s also extremely popular with consumers, making it a great way to connect with new clients.

The Key to Social Media Success: Scheduling

For newbies and veterans alike, scheduling social media is one of the best ways to grow your online presence. If you’re serious about growing digitally, it’s recommended to integrate social media into your daily, weekly, and monthly plans.

Connect with fellow businesses and customers in a meaningful way every day. Post photos and content weekly to become an active part of your followers’ feeds.

Create unique, interesting content for your audience at least once a month, or create exclusive social media deals to incentivize your followers to stay updated with your business. While every social media algorithm is different, they all respond well to consistency. Keep your business active online to better content with your clients – past and future.

Find the Best Post Times

Because of the importance of social media to businesses, thorough research has been conducted to determine the best times to post on various social media platforms to ensure your content will be seen by as many people as possible.

Facebook: 9-10am, 12-1pm, 4-5pm
Instagram: 8am, 1pm, 9pm
LinkedIn: 12pm
Pinterest: 8-11pm (9pm peak time)

If possible, post at these times so your content can be shared more widely. These is just a small trick that you may not have known before but can effectively increase how many people view your unique content.

Utilize Analytics

Many social media platforms provide excellent analytic tools for businesses to better understand how their audience is interacting with their content. Depending on the platform, you can see how long users stay on your posts, if they click on links, and how many people share it with their friends. This data can be extremely useful because it helps business owners understand what content their audience resonates with. Facebook provides these tools automatically for any professional using a business page. On Instagram, accounts can be set to business mode, which then provides analytics on every post. These are one of the many tools business owners can utilize to constantly improve their social media.

Tips for Content Creation

If you don’t consider yourself to be a creative person, the content creation aspect of social media may seem daunting. With all the incredible tools available now, the average professional can create highly compelling social media content. This is the fun part of social media! It’s a great opportunity for business owners to connect with their audience and advertise their services in a meaningful way. If you’re a beginner to social media content creation, keep reading to learn the most essential parts of the creative process.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Media!

Using physical representations of the properties you’re selling is the best way to attract clients. Now that we can easily share images, photography is the bare minimum when it comes to real estate listings. Interested buyers expect high-quality photographs that accurately and thoroughly depict the space. If you’re technologically oriented, this is a great opportunity to use various types of media in your marketing plans. Videos are also easy to create and share and video tours of real estate are extremely popular. Virtual reality is also a budding tool, allowing professionals to create a realistic, authentic experience, which has become especially essential during the current COVID-19 pandemic. (More at the end on how to integrate virtual reality into your social media marketing plan.)

Share Valuable Information

As a professional, you can filter industry information to the typical consumer. Display your knowledge of local and national markets by sharing compelling information to your followers. Remember, cater your information to your audience. They are interested in learning more about the local market and seeing properties nearby. Research the market and create infographics for your followers. This type of information usually gets shared far and wide, connecting your business with a whole new group of users. If you’re not a designer, consider sharing valuable information in a blogpost, video, webinar, or podcast. Cater to your personal strengths but find a way to become a valuable social media presence.

Cater to Your Local Audience

If your specialty is the local market you work in, advertise that! Those who are following you are probably interested in the area you specifically work out of, so make sure to cater specifically to this audience. This is the group that will be most loyal to your business and will be most likely to use your services or share your content. Your local market is also a great place to start if you’re not sure what to talk about on your social media.

Importance of Home & Design

There is a huge audience on social media interested in home design and decor. If this is already a part of your brand as a real estate professional, consider incorporating this into your social media presence. If you share beautiful photographs of well-designed and well-decorated homes, you’ll attract a large audience interested in that type of content.

Your properties are more likely to be shared if you have a larger following. Home & Design is an established interest that many cater to on social media already. This can be a great way for professionals to build an audience on social media.

Incorporate Yourself!

Your audience is following you because they’re interested in you! Incorporate your unique experiences and perspective into your social media presence. Write blogs featuring photographs of your favorite properties in the local market.

Post photographs of yourself and colleagues at networking events. Share why you’re passionate about real estate. Your social media, at the end of the day, is about you, so make it personal but professional.

The Future of Digital Media

As more and more people start to buy and sell homes online, many real estate professionals are realizing the importance and significance of digital media. It has revolutionized the real estate industry in the past twenty years, forever changing how people buy and sell homes.

If you aren’t already using social media to promote and manage your business, you should begin so immediately. 94% of millennials shop for real estate online, and as that demographic begins to shop for houses, cater to their preferences by sharing content digitally.

Overwhelmed by digital marketing and looking for some help? Listing3D has got you covered. With our exclusive marketing packages, we use the most up-to-date technology to advertise your work to the biggest and best audience. Our packages include immersive virtual tours (created using 3D cameras), video teasers of the property, a 3D Flyer with a scannable QR code, and a landing webpage with all of your contact information, helping future clients easily contact you. With your talent and our technology, we’ll advertise your listings far and wide to help you sell your properties faster and more efficiently.