Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
If you're a real estate agent, and a avid fan of Twitter here are a few steps that will assist you in maximizing your online efforts.
#1) Use the 80-20 rule- As a general rule, real estate agents should only tweet about sales and properties 20% of the time. The other 80% should be used to talk about news, information, and tips. By providing your followers with informative tweets, you’ll keep them coming back to your site. News, information, and tips will bring your customers and clients to your web site. And tweets about sales will help you land a deal. Following the 80-20 rule can also help increase your web site’s traffic. Search engines give preference to web sites and social media web pages that have valuable information.
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#2) Have a clear picture- Real estate agents should make sure that they choose high quality and clear pictures for their profile. There’s no question that communicating and pitching sales over the internet can make you lose a personal touch. Having a clear, conservative, picture with high quality reminds your customers and clients that they are dealing with a professional. The background of your Twitter page should be colorful and attractive. Because customers will see your background the moment that they reach your page, you want to catch their attention.
#3) Don’t be negative- Even though you might be tempted to air out all of your dirty laundry on Twitter, you always keep your tweets positive. Don’t complain about vendors/buyers, how long a project is taking, or a house. Staying positive and professional helps you look calm and collected (even when you aren’t). If you are having a bad day or a problem at work, you might want to wait 24 hours before you sign into your account.
#4) Make sure your consistent- Being consistent in business is important because it can eliminate confusion. Real estate agents need to make sure that their online brand is consistent with their offline brand. For example, if you are someone who specializes in condominiums for young adults- you might not want to make your web site look flashy and luxurious. Potential customers could turn away because they think you only have high-end properties. The logo, colors, and slogan should also be consistent.
#5) Make a plan- Having a marketing plan is important for real estate agents. You want to decide what types of properties you are going to deal with and who your target audience is. A target audience is a specific type of demographic, or a group of people who you want to promote your services to. Real estate agents who decide who their target audience is often do better than agents who act like a “one-stop shop”. By marketing your services to a target audience, you’ll appear as an expert. If you fail to follow this tip, you’ll look like a jack of all trades- and a master of none.
Author: Jeanette is from Boston, Ma and has a bachelor’s of science from Framingham State University. She is currently working on her MBA with a concentration in marketing at the University of Massachusetts.
Great tips! Social media is seriously invaluable in almost any industry, and especially ours. While personal blogs are great and nothing will ever beat high quality content, Twitter is a very effective and simple way to really grab people's attention and make sure that you're putting yourself out there.