As a real estate agent, your social media should be like a healthy, balanced diet. Start with plenty of property related content, posts about new listings, and other useful information for buyers or sellers.
Next, add in some celebration of successful sales and a few feel-good posts about the new homeowners or happy vendors. Finally, give your audience some insight into your working day and top it off with a few personal posts.
Before you get started
Get to know your audience. Spend half an hour reviewing your audience on different platforms and adjust your content to suit. What are your fans posting? Who else are they following?
Don’t set it up your profile unless you’re really going to make the effort to run it effectively.
Having a sparsely populated account will do nothing to reinforce your point of difference as an agent. If you’re not willing to commit to regular posting, or you’re not convinced that it will pay off, try starting with one channel. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, or something else - choose the platform that you believe your target market engages with most.
General social media maintenance
Update your profile and cover photos regularly. Check all your descriptions and handles are consistent across different platforms. Reply to messages and comments as quickly and genuinely as you can.
Keep your social media feed in great shape with these 12 social media post ideas for real estate agents.
1) Just listed
Include an excerpt from your property advert. Add weight to your 'just listed' posts with some insight into the benefits of living there and hints on who would be the ideal buyer.
Over the course of the sale, you can create several posts about the same listing.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. For example, you could pick out 3-5 key features outlined in a property ad you made using Blerb and create a social media post on each.
Incorporate video. it doesn't have to be perfect, just make it professional.
Mix up the media with short video clips that highlight core benefits of living in the area or showcase the property from different angles.
To save time, consider using a social media management tool like Buffer or HootSuite.
2) Local news
Whether it’s community events, fun runs, local news, or even temporary road closure, post about things happening in the area you service. This will help demonstrate your knowledge of the area and show that you care about the people living there.
If you specialise in a particular suburb, highlight notable landmarks of the area or special spots that show why it's the place to be. You could even find an old photo of the city or suburb to show how it’s changed over the years.
3) Celebrate your wins
There are many ways to celebrate a successful sale. Congratulate the buyers and give readers some insight into how you got there.
4) Team member profiles
They say it takes a village to raise a child, maybe it’s the same with selling houses. Who are the people that keep your office running? Give credit to all the people that contribute to your business; your team of agents, your office manager, the people behind the products you use to get the job done, your local barista who knows your order, or anyone else that keeps things humming along.
Add value to your posts
When you’re highlighting an agent, whether they’re an old hand or new to the team, include what type of buyer/seller’ they work with most. Ask them to give one tip they have for home buyers or sellers, so you can provide some value beyond just “Look at me!”.
5) Training shots
Meeting with a mentor? Attending a seminar? Finishing a course? Document your training and share what you’ve learnt. This shows potential client’s that you’re committed to upskilling.
6) Open homes
Open homes are great fuel for an active agent’s social media. You can post before, during, and after an open home to drum up more attendees and pique the interest of those who couldn’t make it on the day.
Include a walk through video or sneak peak of the home.
Try creating some intrigue. You could even run a poll on your story and encourage people to guess which stand-out feature the listing holds.
7) #lifeofarealtor
While we don’t really use the term realtor in New Zealand, you can always adapt this sentiment to suit your local market.
Share snippets of a meeting with your team, action videos from an auction, walk throughs at an open home, or a point of view shot as you open the french doors to the garden beyond.
Post pictures or short clips from your working week. Take the opportunity to demystify real estate or debunk myths about what you get up to.
8) Market trends
Housing market trends can be quite an emotional topic. Changes in the housing market often get a fair amount of news time and can often be misunderstood or cause panic in people that are looking to buy or sell their home.
Ease your customers worries by translating current market trends and property reports from industry jargon into language that your clients can understand.
9) Customer feedback
Always ask for feedback, whether it’s good or bad. This not only helps you improve as an agent (and individual) it can also provide great content for social posts. You can highlight positive feedback on your social media pages, or even outline how you and the vendor overcame a difficult part of the process.
10) Your top home buying and selling tips
Share your tips for new vendors or first home buyers. Be yourself. Don’t try to reproduce someone else's feed. In saying that, if you see something you like, there’s no harm in sharing that post and giving credit to the agent. Find fellow real estate professionals whose content you admire and create a unique feed that sits well alongside them.
11) Repost genius from elsewhere
This is a totally viable tactic that takes almost no effort at all. If you’ve read a great article, or been to an inspiring seminar - help spread the word. Repost it or provide a recap with your key takeaways. Maybe there’s one point you think they missed?
12) Post comments on content you admire
Make use of that mindless time spent scrolling. Yes, we all do it. Has it really been an hour since I opened up ‘the gram’? Next time you’re killing time on social media, set an intention to find 5-10 pieces of valuable real estate content.
A great way to find relevant content (particularly on Instagram and Twitter) is by searching for posts that include hashtags that are specific to your niche or area.
Find posts that are interesting, helpful, or funny then repost, share on your story, or leave a genuine comment on why you like it.
Until next time,
Happy listing!
