The complete guide to social media for real estate
Overview
Searching for a home to buy is now an online activity. If you’re in the real estate industry you already know this. If you’re reading this blog post, you’re probably looking for guidance about how your real estate company can make the most of social media.
According to a recent study from the National Association of Realtors, social media has become an integral part of attracting real estate clients and closing deals. “The world we live in today is a digital one, and searching for a home is no different,” the study points out.
Social media has become one of the best-performing ways to produce high-quality real estate leads, beating out other digital marketing tools such as email marketing, blog posts, and website views as a more effective way of generating business.
Seventy-seven percent of estate agents now use social media as a marketing and lead generation tool. When it comes to making your real estate company more visible online, it's all about driving as much value as possible from the digital touchpoints shared between you, your clients, and your potential customers.
Here’s how you can make sure you’re headed down the right track when it comes to social media for real estate.
Why you should use social media for real estate
Buying a home is one of the biggest and most stressful experiences of in a person’s life. For buyers, it’s stressful to know what’s a good deal, let alone the anxiety that comes alongside handing over a large sum of money and signing a binding contract.
Home real estate purchases are emotionally-driven, so buyers need someone they trust to guide them through the harrowing process. And since so much real estate research and shopping now starts online, your real estate brand’s online brand should be:
- Genuine
- Approachable
- No-nonsense
Real estate company Purple Bricks has mastered this tone. The company’s value proposition is to cut out the realtor to make buying and selling homes as straight-forward and accessible as possible.
Through their online brand, Purple Bricks helps elevate some of the pain points that homebuyers feel, including:
- Why should I trust an online company?
- How do I get in touch if I need help?
- Why is this company better than offline real estate agents?
The company's genuine, approachable, and no-nonsense online brand has been core to their success on social media platforms. These attributes reflect how they communicate with their customers.
In addition to carrying a friendly tone, the brand’s social media account also posts case studies and testimonials to gain the trust of its audience. These details are especially important as home buyers and sellers feel the fate of their future is in your hands.
How to use social media for real estate
You real estate company’s online brand needs to be more than just talk and good vibes. The social media presence also has to be functional as a way to communicate with buyers and sellers. If you’re just talking about your own brand, and neglect to answer queries, then you’re going to annoy clients and erode their hard-earned trust.
As a rule of thumb, if you’re going to have a presence on channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Google, then you should be prepared to answer questions on that same platform within about a day. When planning your social media strategy, you need to consider how much time you realistically can spend managing these accounts. If you’ve only got time for one channel, choose to spend all your efforts on that channel, and forgo the others until you have enough time or staff to respond to inquiries in a timely manner.
We recommend focusing on the following platforms in this order:
- X (previously known asTwitter)
- TikTok (While still a new platform for most people, relators are getting creative on the platform by doing house tours)
- Everywhere else
Think of your social following on any of these platforms as your community. You need to manage this community well in order to keep the members’ individual trust. Reply with informative and accurate answers to genuine questions and queries people have about buying a home.
Show your followers that you are there to help them and are not just out to make money off of their big decision. Although your online conversations are likely to be brief, keep the tone positive and try to avoid overly-transactional information sharing.
Don’t be shy about adding a bit of personality while keeping professional. Making a good first impression is an important first stage of the buying journey. Customers are more likely to remember the first impression and come back to leave a review.
Remember that you're selling more than just a house
In real estate, people have more than just their dream house in mind. Whether it’s a retired couple looking to downsize and move to the country, new parents looking for the best public school district, or young professionals looking for the location that suits their social life and budget the best, location matters.
Social media gives you a great platform to engage, promote and draw the attention to what’s special and attractive about a given locale. This helps build a sense of community and positions your brand as a champion of the neighborhood or area.
On X, make sure you are following relevant local accounts who publish updates of local events with images. Re-share these posts and your followers will be able to imagine what it would be like to live in that location. Showing off events also helps demonstrate that you’re involved, care, and know what’s up. Re-share with some additional information that highlights why the post is relevant to your audience.
Understand what demographic you are looking to attract with the property portfolio you currently have and post content relevant to these groups. Content planning tools like Content Scheduler in Express make the actual posting part a breeze. As a quick recap, your real estate social media brand should:
- Help answer people’s queries
- Get people excited about buying a house
- Show off your community credentials
- Include business contact information in the bio
In summary: be sure to represent your community, show you're committed to that community by posting case studies and actively being involved with what's happening in the area, and be prepared to leave an amazing impression on your future clients.