There’s no denying that social networking has been a focal point for success within the residential real estate industry. We’ve discussed before the importance of building brand awareness within real estate , and given the fact that 90% of Americans go online to shop for property, it’s worth utilizing social media to meet potential clients within this popular space. Other agents are certainly using social media to do so, as 87% of marketers rank more exposure for their businesses as the primary benefit of their social media efforts.
Using social media insights allows you to measure the success of your efforts, giving you the tools to optimize your social media strategy. The question you need to answer is – are you trying to get engagement or cast impressions.
While the answer essentially depends on your goals, each has their pros and cons.
90% of Americans go online to shop for property
Impressions vs. Engagement
Digital impressions refer to how many times your post, tweet, or other content is served up to your target audience. Impressions don’t take clicks into account.
Engagement, refers to shares, retweets, likes, comments, and clicks. It’s the measurable interaction with your online content. The better your content is, the more likely your audience will engage with it.
Additionally, the more impressions you have, the higher the visibility of your content across people’s feeds and timelines. Greater visibility means more opportunities for your content to be shared across networks and that means more potential clients for your real estate business.
It’s a simple snowball effect.
When we consider that, according to Wordstream, 51% of Instagram users access the social media platform every day, and 35% look at it several times a day, just imagine how many new prospective buyers and sellers you could reach.
So, just how do you increase your engagement within your very own social media network? We answer that question by breaking down the top 5 ways to achieve this.
Increase Social Media Engagement
Use Videos
Wordstream reports that 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every single day. Likewise, Twitter reports that over 80% of its users watch videos every day.
It’s safe to say that your audience consumes more videos than any other kind of content. In fact, there’s extensive statistical proof that videos are the future queen of content. To create and share social videos to boost your engagement, try these tips:
Tag People
If you’re looking to engage with existing and potential followers alike, make sure you tag them. According to Simply Measured – Posts tagged with another user (56%) or location (79%) have significantly higher engagement rates. So when it comes to curating your content, this can help present you as an authority figure within the real estate realm, and boost your engagement rates. It shows you’ve got your finger firmly on the pulse. Here’s what to do:
- Reference buzzworthy topics and tag other thought leaders in the industry
- Thank the people you reference when you publish your own videos and posts and link back to their content
The point here is that social media revolves around people. Tag your friends, fans, followers, and anyone else who inspires you to build an engaged, interested community. This is especially important in light of the new changes implemented by Facebook in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica issue. In the interest of protecting privacy, Facebook has shifted to a more organic, less advertiser-friendly space. Building an engaged community using this organic approach is now essential to achieving social media success.
Get Visual
Wordstream reports that 98% of posts on LinkedIn that have images receive more comments than posts without images and return a 200% higher engagement rate.
Social media and visual content go hand-in-hand. Using graphics or images has some serious benefits for boosting your engagement.
There are plenty of creative options for adding images to your posts, too, such as: Additionally, taking advantage of stock photo sites will go a long way to improving the look of your content. Whether you’re creating a Facebook event for your next open house, or creating buzzworthy content for your real estate blog – professional stock photos are a great touch. There are many sites that offer these visuals for free or only require that you credit the creator of the photo. Some great resources for free stock photos are:
These are just a few examples, yet there are a myriad of free stock photo resources you can use to spice up the visuals of your content. Here are a few of our faves:
Let Your Personality Shine
Your audience wants to see the actual person behind the real estate business. So, share some personal information, like your favorite pastime or your favorite home designs, for example. You could even share recommendations on blog posts you find informative (and don’t forget to tag the author!).
The Rule of Thirds
Social media rules dictate that a third of your content should promote your business, a third should share ideas and stories from industry leaders, and a third should be based on personal interactions. A strategy coined by the social media experts at Hootsuite, this methodology speaks of the balance needed to achieve true success.
Can you see how this ties into the above points? If you follow the rule of thirds, you’ll successfully execute in tagging industry thought leaders, allowing your personality to shine, and including videos and images to promote your business or listings.
Building stronger social media engagement is a full-time job, but once you establish a happy medium between self-generated content, curated content, and engaging your network, it gets a whole lot easier.
Drive Engagement, Drive Your Business
Social media is amazing for gaining traction. It’s all about your fans and followers and getting to know your network while they get to know you.
Use the tips we’ve discussed in this post to drive more business to your real estate business.