10 Reasons Why Real Estate Social Media Matters

Great real estate social media is now a necessity!

For estate agents, who now undertake a large part of their business online, real estate social media channels have become a digital shop front acting as a gateway to their website. Estate agents are part of a massively competitive industry so brand awareness and recognition is crucial. Here are 10 top reasons why you need great social media.

1. Your real estate customers are on social media

With over 3 billion internet users worldwide, and over 2 billion active on social media, there’s no doubt that the vast majority of your customer base will be connected. The main social platforms are giant household names, offering businesses a unique way to be in touch with their customers. A social media presence for businesses is now a necessity.

2. Social media strengthens brand loyalty

Even way back in 2013, 67% of customers were using social media for the purposes of customer service. Engaging with your audience is far more likely to lead to greater customer loyalty and advocacy, particularly if your estate agent competitors aren’t doing the same. The connection between effective social media management and engagement and brand loyalty are well documented – ignore it at your peril.

3. Social media can amplify your content

Social media is an ideal platform to build your estate agent brand through content. Whether it’s through videos, photos, articles or blogs you need to tailor content to fit in with your audience and brand (not forgetting your brand voice).

Relevancy, frequency and recency of content all make a difference

So many estate agents just post listings. Don’t do this. Being different and standing out is a good thing. You are competing with all the other estate agents in your local area and your social presence will contribute significantly to whether you get an email or call or your competitor does.

4. Social media helps create relationships

Social media is a conversation NOT monologue! If you make the effort to turn it into a rich, fulfilling conversation you can create a relationship that builds trust. This is an element often lacking in potential customers’ relationships with estate agents!

Traditional advertising just can’t do this. Your Facebook page isn’t somewhere you just sell. It’s where you can build a community, offer help, start a relationship. If you show some personality as a brand, customers will enjoy interacting with you without feeling they are being spammed about sales. In this way social media builds trust. In addition, a recent study showed that up to 81% of people are influenced by a brand’s posting on social media before purchasing.

5. Social media helps you understand your customers

Social media provides incredible amounts of data about your customers. Each and every day users post more than 4.5 billion Likes on Facebook, 95 million posts to Instagram, 500 million Tweets, Paying attention to this data can give you useful information about your customers, and engaging with and listening to those customers can let you make more informed business and marketing decisions. Estate agents can use lookalike audiences to target people interested in moving to a new house; they can follow hashtags and geotags on Instagram which will connect them with those interested in a particular area; they can join Twitter chats on Twitter which will bring them to the attention of those in their local area.

6. Paid social media helps you reach key decision makers

Social media is an excellent way to reach key decision makers and identify new business opportunities. Facebook Ads (in particular) are an effective way to strategically zero in on users by a whole range of variables – gender, age, location, interests, behaviour (and more). Organic posting on social media platforms is necessary but so too is dedicating budget to run paid Ads and Post Boosts. This approach will get you much deeper and broader exposure than organic alone.

7. Social media drives traffic to your website

Social media, with its huge (easily segmentable) audience, can be a great way to direct traffic to your estate agency website. There’s nowhere else you’ll find so many potential customers in one place. Social media can also assist you in monitoring your competitors – social listening via Hootsuite or another platform is when you monitor specific keywords or mentions, perhaps a rival estate agent, and you can then improve or amend your services according to your findings.

8. Social media helps you improve your real estate website search rankings

Google rewards you with a higher search results ranking when more traffic comes to your site, and then stays there. Using popular social media platforms to post relevant real estate content encourages more people to visit your website, improving your SEO.

Remember content is king. Include things like regular blogs on relevant property issues which your potential customers will find helpful. Make it relevant to your location and operating area as well.

9. Social media influencers can make a real difference

Influencers are like the TV stations of social media, but without the hefty advertising price tag. Sure, some huge bloggers may charge a fairly high price to work with you, but there are plenty of smaller tier ones (up to 10k followers) that can help you spread your message. Building a number of strong influencer relationships can really help you to amplify your brand. Whichever way you cut-it we’re all influenced by what others say and post online, so use it to your advantage!

10. Social media feedback & recommendations increases brand trust and credibility

Real estate social media should be a conversation with your customers, who inevitably will be talking to their friends and family to tell them about their house-buying or house-selling experiences, good or bad. Feedback should be welcomed and acted upon (particularly if it’s negative). The online world means you can’t hide! A well-handled complaint becomes a positive if dealt with well.

Don’t miss the opportunity to connect with your customers in a way that isn’t possible on any other media. Social proof builds trust and in the property world, people are looking for trusted brands.

How can GDR help?

Everyone knows that real estate social media is incredibly important for marketing success, but not everyone has the skills to handle it themselves. GDR Media Group knows how to create, implement, and manage a superb social media strategy to promote your business and drive your sales up! We can:

– Engage audiences with a creative and compelling brand story and message
– Increase reach, traffic, and engagement
– Track analytics and return on investment

We’d love to help!