Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Real estate marketing is a tough nut to crack, as the expression goes, but Snapchat could be your secret weapon. After all, a large part of connecting with prospective clients is being where the clients are, and lots of them are on Snapchat. Many of Snapchat’s users are men and women of prime real estate buying age, or will be within a few years. The majority of users are age 18-34. If you want to reach Millennials who want to buy homes, you want to be on Snapchat.
Snapchat is a mobile phone app that allows users to take a photo and then mark it up with virtual stickers and text. Users can then send that photo to any friend who’s also using the app. Snaps, as they’re called, are viewable for a set period of time (like 10 seconds) before they disappear. It is possible for the recipient to screenshot the snap, and if that’s the case, the sender is notified. The attraction of Snapchat for real estate marketing is that this quick view may be just enough to attract the attention of your prospective client.
Create visual interest and reinforce branding with Snapchat’s geofilters.On-Demand branded geofilters boost real estate agents’ visibility and brand recognition. With a geofilter, users can send a snap out into the world with a company or business name already on it; imagine it as an overlay effect.
When setting up a geofilter using Snapchat’s tools and templates, users have the opportunity to set up a geofence - or outlining on a map exactly where a particular geofilter will be applied to snaps. This ensures that only folks in a specified area will receive the snap.
Geofilters can be date- and time-specific, in addition to geographically specific so that you can use them as a powerful marketing tool. Realtors can promote new listings, just sold properties, and even virtual open houses. It’s well worth it to try using geofilters several times; play with dates, times, geofences, and how long a geofilter is good for to see how changing parameters can nudge your Snapchat interactions up or down.
If you think that 10 seconds of attention just isn't enough, users can send your snaps to a Snapchat Story. This is an Informal collection of selected snaps and videos that's viewable for 24 hours. This kind of marketing through the app is Ideal for pre-open house promotions. Walk through a property, take photos and video footage, and simply add content to a Snapchat Story. Snapchat stories can be set to just your friends or public viewing.
The statistics that Snapchat collects and shares with users about how many folks view user content can be really useful for marketing purposes. This data helps real estate professionals gain insight into who’s following them through this social media venue, and how those folks are interacting with user-generated content like snaps, Snapchat Stories, and geofilters. Careful analysis can lead to new avenues of outreach, a change in Snapchat and other social media marketing strategies, and connections with new prospective clients.
One of the challenges of social media marketing is that in many cases, folks are viewing content from a variety of sources on one screen. For example, in a Facebook or Twitter feed, there are multiple content producers appearing together. Not so with Snapchat! Users of the app will see nothing but a single user’s content on their screen at one time. This method of story-sharing minimizes distractions and keeps users’ attention focused on the content in front of them.
Photo Credit: MIH83 via pixabay
