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Real Estate Agent’s Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing

by ROB BRUCE

In the last decade, social media networks have more than tripled their entire user base. In 2010, there were 970 million users of various social media platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc. By the end of 2020, that number had risen to 3.81 billion. Right now, there are 3.96 billion social media users worldwide - roughly 50% of the global population. Real estate companies, like most companies, have started to take advantage of social media platforms to reach out to customers.

Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing has no uniform strategy that every business can use. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to social media marketing. All of the strategies and decisions are taken depending on the objective in mind. There are scores of amazing social media platforms - and there are scores of great strategies you can commit to. To do so, you need to understand your target audience.

Social media marketing is not an easy task, especially considering the immense competition globalization has brought upon the world. The task is a successful one only when businesses start with clear and achievable objectives in mind. It is also very important to come up with creative and compelling content. Lastly, it is extremely important to pick the right social media platforms so that your brand can reach the target demographic. This is how a robust social media campaign works.

How Real Estate Agents Can Benefits By Leveraging Social Media Platforms

Social media, once utilized properly, can be a godsend for businesses. Client-facing businesses such as real estate companies can reach out and connect with a large demographic by using the power of social media. Your brand can now present itself to the world and interact with the billions of potential customers well within your reach. Here are some of the benefits your real estate business will enjoy if it uses the power of social media -

  • Marketers can use social media platforms to engage with and reach out to their audience. By engaging with your audience, you can build a lovely rapport with them and establish trust. It is an amazing way to curate a relationship with your audience over time.
  • Engaging with potential customers over social media will also help to inculcate a sense of brand loyalty. You can also keep your followers posted with updates, videos, blogs, humorous posts, etc.
  • Social media can get integrated with other marketing channels seamlessly. One example is Facebook, which can get integrated easily with Instagram and WhatsApp. You can run seamless ads that pay off very well with very little effort expended.
  • Lastly, social media is an amazing way to ensure lead generation. Apart from traditional marketing methods, brands today are using the power of social media to push their products and services. Generating traffic will result in some amazing leads.

Organic vs. Paid Social Media Marketing For Real Estate Agents

There are two types of social media marketing - organic and paid. Paid social media usually comes with a larger budget, whereas organic social media is more cost-effective and flexible. Let’s take an in-depth look at the differences between them.

Organic Social Media Marketing

In this kind of social media marketing, brands use the free features of social media platforms. They share posts, images, post stories, videos, etc., in an attempt to engage with their audience base. It is the best practice for small and independent businesses that have a shoestring budget. In this type of marketing, all businesses raise a community and then attempt to redirect them to the business website.

Paid Social Media Marketing

Contrasting deeply with organic social is paid social media marketing, where businesses pay the social networking platforms to promote their posts. This is a platform where businesses invest to ensure that paid and targeted ad campaigns reach the ideal buyer. Targeted ad campaigns are run with the help of search engine cookies and other tactics. Ads can also be sent to users depending on location.

Real Estate Agent's Social Media Tool Kit

  • Facebook Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Instagram Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Facebook Ads
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • LinkedIn Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Youtube Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Social Media
    Marketing Guide
Free

Get Facebook Content
one year - FREE!

Keeping your Facebook presence fresh and professional can be overwhelming. Let Boostable.media handle that for you.

  • 64 categories of content to choose from
  • Full edit / save functionality
  • Automate house listings from the MLS to your Facebook wall
  • Lead generation post types are included, free

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The Various Types of Social Media Marketing Campaigns For Real Estate Agents

There are various strategy options out there available for businesses when it comes to social media marketing. Depending on what their end goals are, the right strategy needs to be picked. However, the primary goal of every strategy is to ensure that conversations started with customers last over time and convert into leads. Here are the best social media marketing strategies out there -

Prospecting Campaign

Like prospecting for gold, a prospecting campaign is where brands reach out and try to interact with people unfamiliar with their product or service. This kind of social media marketing campaign is accomplished by engaging content that makes people stop and want to learn more. Here are some prospecting campaign tips -

  • You need to do in-depth research to identify which demographic you want to target. The best and most efficient way to do this is through keyword research. You can use the most important keywords as hashtags in your post descriptions.
  • Make sure that the content you come up with is relevant. Approaching new prospects with a hard pitch can be disastrous. Make sure that your conversations with people through social media are light, casual, informative, and very appealing.
  • You also need to show interest in your prospects and interact with them. Engage with their DMs, respond to their comments, and present your brand properly. This will help your portrayal and perception as a brand that provides holistic solutions.
  • It would help if you also were a real estate brand that is consistent in its brand identity. All marketing gurus will tell you that you need to develop a unique brand “voice,” something sincere, authentic, and full of value.
  • Lastly, you need to be responsive to their activity on social media. As mentioned earlier, you need to reply to their DMs, react to their comments, reply to their comments, and the whole 9-yards.

Retargeting Campaign

Unlike a prospecting campaign, a retargeting campaign is where the brand reaches out to users who have interacted with the brand but didn’t go the distance. A retargeting campaign aims to weed out users who have expressed interest in the past but didn’t make a purchase. Then, you have to approach these users and see if you can persuade them to take an interest. Here are some customers that you should pick for retargeting -

  • They have visited your social media profiles and websites sometime in the past.
  • They have clicked on links on your social media posts previously.
  • They have started conversations with you on social media, which didn’t lead to a sale.
  • They have added items to their shopping cart, but they ultimately never checked out.
  • They follow your social media pages and interact with them regularly.
  • They’re subscribed to marketing emails/newsletters.

Here is some advice and some useful pointers that will help you to structure your website and formulate a robust retargeting strategy ASAP -

  • Firstly, you need to tweak the code of your website and place a small pixel on it. This kind of pixel used expressly for retargeting campaigns is known as a “tracking pixel.”
  • Every time a visitor comes to your website, their web browser will download the pixel, and a cookie will be dropped into it.
  • Whenever these visitors browse online and use similar keywords, they will see targeted ads based on your products/services. If they click on it, they will be redirected to the website of your real estate business.

Conversion Campaign

A wonderful way to convert a window shopper into a paying customer is to get them to engage with your brand. You can do so by using the “conversion” campaign strategy to take users and convert them into paying customers. Apart from paying customers, they can also be converted into some other role, such as -

  • They download a white paper, case study, or informational booklet.
  • They join an email list and subscribe to regular updates from you.
  • They complete a form or a survey regarding your products and services.
  • They chat with your brand representative online.

A conversion campaign is very important since it will allow you to collect business-critical information such as email addresses and phone numbers. You can also collect a lot of other data, which will be instrumental in your targeting strategies. You’ll be able to portray your real estate brand to the world as trustable, familiar, and worth engaging with.

Real Estate Agent's Social Media Tool Kit

  • Facebook Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Instagram Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Facebook Ads
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • LinkedIn Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Youtube Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Social Media
    Marketing Guide
Free

Get Facebook Content
one year - FREE!

Keeping your Facebook presence fresh and professional can be overwhelming. Let Boostable.media handle that for you.

  • 64 categories of content to choose from
  • Full edit / save functionality
  • Automate house listings from the MLS to your Facebook wall
  • Lead generation post types are included, free

Signup in 5 Clicks!
Become the agent everyone Loves!

How to Start Creating Your Own Social Media Marketing Strategy To Promote Real Estate Business

Before you take a running leap into the world of social media and audience engagement, it is very important to have a proper strategy in place. To do this, you have to invest time, money, and effort to understand your audience properly. Here are some of the advantages you’ll enjoy by establishing a formal social media strategy -

  • You can come up with solid content that will be posted on your real estate brand’s social media handles. Having a strategy will allow you to develop high-quality content - ranging from videos to graphics to plain text.
  • You can use the strategy to define the tone and style of the content. This is very important, especially if you want to develop a unique “brand voice” for your real estate company.
  • Using a strategy will also help you understand the topics that your audience will care about. For example, the right strategy will help you figure out the exact videos and stories that will keep your audience engaged and wanting more.
  • Lastly, a strategy will also help you to understand how your target audience consumes content. This way, you can pander to their needs and create personalized and targeted ad campaigns.

Picking The Right Social Media Platform To Market What Real Estate Agents Do

The average internet user spends almost 2.5 hours (144 minutes) every day using social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp messenger, and Instagram. Picking the right social media platform to spread your brand’s presence will give it an amazing boost. You will see that most of the leading social media platforms have business-friendly features. Business accounts come with a host of amazing features - such as access to insights and analytics. In the second quarter of 2020, Facebook had more than 9 million active advertisement users - making it their single biggest source of revenue. Your brand needs to pick social media platforms and go about creating a user profile.

Here, you will take a look at some of the major benefits that a business profile on a social media platform gives you -

  • Keen and in-depth insights into the behavior of your audience.
  • Keen and in-depth insights into the overall demographic of your target audience
  • You can leverage these insights and optimize your strategy and content so that you can reach out to the largest group of people.
  • 83% of digital marketing strategies incorporate a robust social media marketing strategy. A business account and its features will help you to design your own.
  • You can also figure out your optimum marketing expenditure and develop the specific return on investment you want.
  • Figure out a way to turn website visits into conversions.

Here are the different social media platforms you can choose -

#1 Facebook

With more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook happens to be the most-visited platform globally. Facebook has 1.785 billion daily active users, which means that more than 66.09% of the monthly user base logs into the platform every day. Behind Google and YouTube, Facebook is the third-most visited website in the world. Your business and real estate ad campaigns can reach a population of almost 2 billion people monthly.

Facebook is also an amazing tool for social media ad campaigns because it is very business-friendly. It is full of features that allow businesses to optimize their strategy, glean insights, and expect a pretty great ROI. Using the Facebook platform as a playing field, even the smallest independent business can give an established multinational corporation a run for their money. Here are some of the tools that Facebook will offer -

  • Facebook Insights: Business accounts on Facebook receive in-depth insights into the performance and reach of their posts. You can easily view how your target audience has responded to the marketing you've been posting. You can also glean a lot of helpful insights and data from the Facebook post data file.
  • Facebook Video: Facebook video is an amazing way for brands to launch holistic ad campaigns. Surveys have shown that 71% of consumers find Facebook video ads highly relevant and interesting. Almost half (47%) of the Facebook user base has responded that they enjoy watching video ad content on the platform.
  • Facebook Ads: According to Facebook's recent investor report, the platform derives most of its revenue from advertising. This is one of the best platforms for advertising, and your real estate brand can reach an estimated 2.14 billion people. Integrating Facebook ads with other channels is a very easy task.
  • Facebook Groups: The group features are very interesting because they allow like-minded people to get together and discuss certain topics. Your business can make a nicely moderated Facebook group where interested clients can join and address doubts. It's also a great way to communicate with potential clients.

#2 Instagram

Another member of the Facebook family is Instagram, one of the most popular social networking platforms in the world. "Insta" is meant for sharing photos and videos - and can now be used to make short video content called "reels" as well. It's a hugely popular social media platform, with more than 1 billion active monthly users. A survey revealed that 25% of all smartphone users use the Instagram app pretty actively.

Did you know that Instagram is also an amazing choice for businesses and advertisers? In 2020, almost 30% of Facebook's entire ad revenue was due to this platform alone. Instagram has 2 million advertisers on it, and each can reach an estimated 928.50 million people with their ads. The business profiles on Instagram have access to many amazing tools, which help them design a personalized social media marketing strategy. Here are some of the Instagram tools -

  • Instagram Insights: Instagram has its platform analytics tool that will give you access to insights from all the posts, stories, reels, and videos that you post. With a median engagement rate of 1.60%, Instagram and its holistic business tools make it the best social media platform for businesses.
  • Instagram Lead Ads: Instead of annoying in-your-face ads, these ads are posts that pop up in the Instagram feeds of people who would be interested in your product. This is a very discreet and effective retargeting method - since the platform uses cookies and analytics for this.
  • Instagram Stories: Instagram's most popular feature is its "stories" - images, videos, text posts, Q&A blocks, etc., that stay for 24 hours only. 62% of consumers get interested in a brand after viewing their Instagram stories, which will probably tell you how amazing this marketing tool is.
  • Instagram Reels: Lastly, Instagram has introduced a reel short video concept inspired by TikTok's short videos. A reel is great for creative brands who want to attract clients and impress them with showbiz and pizazz. Large brands get more than a million views per reel.

#3 Twitter

With more than 187 million monetizable daily active users, Twitter is a solid choice of platform for a social media marketer. It is also one of the most trusted social media platforms since 59% of people get their news from Twitter. With their 280 character limit, a Twitter account can be a great way for your real estate business to reach out to clients and engage in conversations. Here are some of the best Twitter social media tools -

  • Tweets: Tweets can be used by businesses for a variety of reasons. They can be promotional, educational, informational, humorous, and more. 82% of B2B marketers used Twitter and Tweets to release promotional/educational organic marketing content in 2020-21.
  • Twitter Hashtags: Hashtags are an amazing way for businesses to do keyword research on social media. If you create niche hashtags and keywords in your area, you can easily reach a large demographic. You can analyze hashtag performance too!
  • Customer Engagement: Twitter also happens to be an amazing platform for basic customer engagement. Business accounts on Twitter can just log on and address client doubts, questions, etc. You can also make announcements about your business on your Twitter.

#4 YouTube

YouTube is the best choice of social media platform if you are interested in publishing useful video content. It is one of the most preferred platforms for social media marketers - since it's the second most-visited website in the world. Also, it will interest you to know that 18% of users use YouTube to keep up with all of their favorite brands and businesses.

YouTube also allows the advertiser to choose different kinds of ads for their platform. One of the most effective ads is the pre-roll skippable ads that come on the screen just before a video starts. A recent survey discovered that 29% of marketers think that these ads score the most engagements. By 2022, YouTube estimates that it will have 210 million users from the US alone. Here are some of the most effective ways to assess YouTube performance -

  • Google Analytics is an amazing tool that can be used to measure conversions from your ads. Since Google owns YouTube, you can monitor all your ad campaign performances. You can also track where people come from before they land on your website.
  • You can also assess the watch behavior of your viewers - such as views, upvotes, downvotes, comments, etc. This is powerful analytics data that you can use to evaluate the performance of all the published videos.

YouTube is also an amazing lead generator for social media marketing. The video cards feature on YouTube is one of the best ways for you to link to other videos, outbound links, and other places. After a customer watches a video, they can directly travel to your website and purchase or cause conversions. You can also use YouTube to figure out who is watching your videos and playlists.

#5 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social media platform, and it is oriented towards professionals and students who want to interact at a professional level. With the rise in student internships, it is slowly becoming one of the world's most popular social media platforms. It has 660 million users, with more than 50% of this number being active daily. LinkedIn is also one of the only platforms majorly used by most of the Fortune 500 companies out there. It's the best platform used by companies/individuals when they're looking for leads or employees.

LinkedIn advertisements can be used to reach more than 727 million people all over the world. Your real estate brand can use LinkedIn to collaborate, share best practices, and market effectively. You can also use LinkedIn to run prospecting campaigns and generate some new leads. Here are some LinkedIn mechanisms -

  • Sales Navigator: LinkedIn has an integrated sales intelligence platform called sales navigator. You can use it for lead generation, business development, and building brand awareness. You can set this up in under an hour, and you will get lots of insights from this predictive platform.
  • LinkedIn Elevate & Pages: Elevate is closing, and by the end of 2021, LinkedIn will have integrated it into an app called Pages. The objective of LinkedIn Elevate and Pages is to find a way for employees and prospective clients to find high-quality content online.

#6 SnapChat

With more than 293 million active users today, Snapchat is one of the main targets of businesses. However, in recent times, Snapchat has declined in terms of usage. In 2019, the growth rate of this social media platform dropped to single digits for the first time since its launch. Despite the viral face filters and other content, Snapchat hasn't been doing so well lately. However, your brand can still use Snapchat's "My Story" and geo-filters to locate a target demographic. Snapchat also introduced ads known as 3V, or Vertical Video Views, that integrate seamlessly into the app itself.

#7 Pinterest

Pinterest has more than 450 million monthly active users, and it's one of the best image-sharing social media platforms in the world. It is mostly used by creators and designers looking for inspiration and platforms to showcase their work. Here are some of the innovative ways in which you can use Pinterest to promote your brand -

  • You can use your brand's main Pinterest homepage as a landing page for all email ad campaigns. You can also use it as a landing page for any art presentations that you may give somewhere.
  • You can also use Pinterest's "Promoted Pins" feature to run targeted campaigns for users based on the keywords they usually search for.
  • 50% of US-based Pinterest users do their shopping on the platform. Use the "Buyable Pins" feature, which allows customers to buy products from within the app itself.
  • Pinterest allows users to search for content, which is why your brand can use it to generate awareness for your brand's products and services. You can also post all kinds of content, which can be shared on other platforms parallelly.

Some Other Social Media Platforms

  1. Reddit: 52 million users are active on the Reddit app and website from all over the world. While it isn't as mainstream as Facebook or Instagram, Reddit social media marketing can be very effective. This forum lets you interact with your target demographic by hosting Ask Me Anythings (AMAs), initiating discussions, etc.
  2. Quora: Quora is a website that utilizes a question-and-answer format. Users can post questions and ask for answers from other users. It is a fantastic source of information. You can run prospecting campaigns on Quora by posting lots of informational content that will add value to your clientele.

Real Estate Agent's Social Media Tool Kit

  • Facebook Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Instagram Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Facebook Ads
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • LinkedIn Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Youtube Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Social Media
    Marketing Guide
Free

Get Facebook Content
one year - FREE!

Keeping your Facebook presence fresh and professional can be overwhelming. Let Boostable.media handle that for you.

  • 64 categories of content to choose from
  • Full edit / save functionality
  • Automate house listings from the MLS to your Facebook wall
  • Lead generation post types are included, free

Signup in 5 Clicks!
Become the agent everyone Loves!

How Can Real Estate Agents Use Data Analytics With Social Media Platform Algorithms

Many social media marketers have applied data analytics to understand how social media algorithms work. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter all use sophisticated algorithms to determine which content their users want to see at the top of their feed. These algorithms are a fiercely guarded secret, and you can't know the details about them. However, one can "hack" the algorithm with the help of analytics.

For example, here's how the Instagram algorithm works -

  • Interest: The types of posts that users are interested in, depending on their user history.
  • Recency: Recent posts will gain more traction than old ones.
  • Relationship: Posts that people engage with by commenting, sharing, and/or liking are the ones that get the most traction.

Here is how Facebook's closely guarded algorithm works -

  • Content that receives the maximum engagement in the form of likes, reactions, shares, comments, etc., is given more importance by the algorithm.
  • Facebook Live Video receives a lot of importance. 82% of Facebook users prefer live videos over text posts from brands.
  • Users who engage with other users actively will have their published content given more importance.

Similar but not identical algorithms are used by other social media platforms as well. The common link is that all social media platforms emphasize content that invites users to engage and interact with it. It is also important to ensure that 80% of your content is native to the platform and not outbound links to other sites.

Creating Content To Uplift Your Social Media Marketing Goals

Suppose you've determined the type of social media campaign, strategy and platform you want to use for the efficient execution of your marketing plan. In that case, you'll have to prepare the correct content creation for getting everything into action. Social media content that runs effectively helps provide value to the users in every stage of the buyer's journey.

If you want your content to be unique, appealing and better than the never-ending amount of content in social media, you have to make it:

  • Informative
  • Shareable
  • Relevant
  • Entertaining
  • Useful

There are several types of content choices available similar to the choices of social media platforms. Some of the contents that work best for the real estate ventures for their marketing campaigns are as follows:

  • Infographics
  • Case Studies
  • Ebooks
  • Thought Leadership Articles
  • Slideshows
  • White Papers
  • Podcasts
  • Blog Posts
  • Quizzes And Surveys

The photos and videos content plays a vital role in the marketing aspect of real estate businesses. The real estate agents can take help from these images to tell their version of stories as well as provide recorded documentation of special events as proof or display to their clients. When compared to the conventional method of text-driven content, photo and video content helps marketers in better ways. Some of the ways are as follows:

  • It helps marketers to provide testimonials of their services or products without hassle. These testimonials come from company principals, paid spokespeople, and fellow clients.
  • It helps markets to target the emotions of the users and appeal strongly to them. A photo or a video delivers the heart of the message, which text-driven content may not.
  • Photo or video content helps markets to develop intimacy with their users. Humanizing a brand through visual effects is still one of the most effective ways of marketing.
  • It helps marketers to create demo versions of their products and services. This will, in turn, help real estate agents to approach their clients with a demo version of the property before any field visit.
  • It helps to engage with the users via quizzes. These visual content quizzes and contests or user-submitted images and videos are a great way of marketing.

Knowing The Aspect of Timing To Post Marketing Content For Real Estate

There is no perfect timing in a week or month when you will feel it's best to post the image, text or video-driven text. Some apparent reasons bind marketers to respond immediately to the comments, queries or concerns on posts as that's the best way to win the trust of their users.

You must focus on consistency in the timing of your social media plans and strategy. Users will get accustomed to noticing your content if they get posted at a particular time of the day.

However, the coordination of those posts is essential to bring the users on a convenient journey.

  • For instance: Most marketers tend to follow the standard rule of '4-1-1.' Here, the marketers provide a single piece of content that is directly solution-based, like a demo for every four posts related to education or entertainment.

This pattern or rule helps the marketer to convey the feeling of over marketing to the users when they scroll through their feeds on social media.

You have to ensure that the contents are rolled out in such a manner that they trigger the engagement rate of the users in social media. Your content must engage the users so that their expectations rise to see the next post.

If you become successful in engaging and enhancing the user experience through your content, you can consider that you've established a connection that is dynamic, unique and sustainable.

Conclusion

We hope that this guide for Real Estate Agents to boost their social media marketing is helpful and enjoyable. Social media can be the most effective and powerful tool to develop your personal brand, generate seller leads and homebuyers for your real estate business.

If you have not adopted the use of social media as a crucial segment of your marketing plan, then a proper guide or Real Estate Agent's Social Media Toolkit will help you. You can get the best guides and access the tools as well as strategies required for the successful execution of your social media marketing campaign for the real estate business.

Real Estate Agent's Social Media Tool Kit

  • Facebook Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Instagram Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Facebook Ads
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • LinkedIn Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Youtube Marketing
    Realtors Marketing Guide
  • Social Media
    Marketing Guide
Free

Get Facebook Content
one year - FREE!

Keeping your Facebook presence fresh and professional can be overwhelming. Let Boostable.media handle that for you.

  • 64 categories of content to choose from
  • Full edit / save functionality
  • Automate house listings from the MLS to your Facebook wall
  • Lead generation post types are included, free

Signup in 5 Clicks!
Become the agent everyone Loves!
RobBruceAvatar
About the Author
ROB BRUCE

Rob Bruce is the Founder and CEO of Boostable.media, the fastest growing social media marketing platform for real estate agent's and brokers. Rob is also founder of sister brand Houses.forsale, a house listing site and lead generation platform for real estate agents.His expertise in social media comes from years of experience serving in senior roles at organizations like Expedia.com, Hotels.com, HotelHotline, and Sabre Holdings.