Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Social media marketing is an important facet of any business, and that includes within the real estate sector as well. Social media is capable of sourcing organic leads when leveraged properly, making it a cost-efficient option for many real estate professionals.
That being said, there's a lot of confusion over how to use social media to your advantage properly. Twitter is one of the most rewarding social media platforms out there when it comes to real estate agents, but it's also often the most misunderstood. Here's how to harness the power of Twitter to market your real estate business effectively.
Twitter is unique in that it's purposefully designed to be consumed in bite-sized pieces. Often referred to as a "microblogging" platform, Twitter - and its famous 140-character limit - awards brevity; successfully using Twitter is all about providing the right amount of information in a format that's easy to understand and comprehend at a single glance.
However, there are ways to augment this when it comes to marketing. Including an image or a link to content elsewhere on the internet is a highly successful tactic for driving engagement with any given Tweet, as it's generally considered that tweets with this additional content have engagement figures around five times higher than simple text-only tweets.
You can send dozens of tweets a day from your real estate agent account, but unless you've got other Twitter users following you, you're effectively shouting into the void. What you need to use Twitter effectively is a strong following; while much has been said for "buying" Twitter followers - long story short, it's not worth it - it's better to build an organic follower list.
A brand new Twitter account needs to build a rapport with other platform users, which is accomplished by interacting with them by following interesting accounts, responding to their tweets, and reposting interesting ones to your own Twitter feed. This begins the process of not just creating a rapport with other Twitter users but building a solid base of followers for your own tweets.
After establishing a foothold in the Twitterverse, it's time to begin actively marketing your real estate business. While it's tempting to simply tweet traditional marketing slogans along with links to your business web page, this is a wasted opportunity and one that won't be terribly effective. Instead, you will need to focus on adding value to the feeds of your followers.
Accomplishing this is not as arduous as one might think. As real estate agencies are all about not just finding people new houses but homes, a focus on local community building is often an excellent way to position your real estate practice. Devoting yourself to tweeting about upcoming community events in your local area reinforces that image of community building. While this doesn't preclude you from linking to or tweeting more directly related content - tips on moving or house-hunting, for example - providing local community information will differentiate you from your competitors in a positive manner.
Understanding how the system works, building an audience in an organic manner, and providing good, useful local content alongside more practical content is undoubtedly a winning Twitter marketing strategy. Remain professional and courteous at all times, showcase your personality, and demonstrating your value as a real estate agent through Twitter is easier than you would ever think possible.
