Improve Your Real Estate Social Media Marketing Strategy Today

With a well planned real estate social media marketing strategy your digital real estate efforts will begin to pay off.

This post is part three of a four- part series covering real estate social media marketing.

Part 1 covered mistakes agents and realtors make with their social media.
Part 2 Learn about Facebook lists. What are they and why they are a must for your real estate social media marketing to be a success.

By implementing the tips shared in this series you will have the basis for a successful real estate social media strategy. Be sure to check out both articles if you have not done so.

Mistake # 3

Not having a real estate social media marketing plan

Many real estate agents fail to plan their social media or digital marketing strategy. I covered how most agents plan their social media in a previous blog post.

Don’t be like most agents. If you want to attract real estate leads via Facebook, or other social media platforms, you need a marketing strategy and a content plan. Without either you are throwing money away through lost opportunity.

Even the most basic of real estate marketing plans should include a content strategy. Your real estate social media marketing strategy needs to include the who, what, when, why and how of your content. What is your message and who is it for?

You can get an in-depth overview here from the Content Marketing Institute.

A content plan works hand in hand with a content strategy and is a way for you to keep track of the content that you are going to post on social media as well as on your blog or real estate website.

An on- the- fly approach to social media will generally lead to disappointment. You will fail to gain the attention of the people that you are trying to reach. Your message won’t be powerful or consistent. The ROI for your time verses outcome won’t be worth it.

As an agent you have enough to do. Make sure that the time that you spend on social media is well spent and productive

After you’ve worked on your content strategy it will be easier, and more enjoyable, to put together your content plan.

Facebook offers opportunities for social media savvy real estate agents and realtors. When done correctly, Facebook Ads for real estate can be remarkably successful in generating quality leads and the ROI is extremely cost effective.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First up, you need a plan. For the record, don’t throw your money at a real estate social media campaign until you have nailed your messaging and are consistent in your approach.

Real estate social media posts

Worried that you won’t be able to come up with enough social media posts for your real estate business? I shared some ideas in my post about creating content for your website and social media. Check it out, I’m sure the ideas will start flowing.

After you have created your social media strategy or content plan, you can then go on and create your marketing plan. Having a plan is essential for consistency in content creation.

A social media marketing plan is a place where you track what you are going to post about and when. There are many social media content planners available online. I am currently putting together the best ones that I’ve found for an upcoming blog post.

With the volume of tools and resources just a mouse click away you will be producing better quality content in super quick time.

Here is an overview of tools and resources that will help you with your real estate digital marketing efforts.

Must-have tools and resources

Embrace free (& paid) social media scheduling tools

A content schedule – did you know that you can schedule your social media posts with Facebook’s scheduling option. This free social media scheduling tool means that you can create several months’ worth of content at a time.

By batching your work this way you can prepare your social media posts up to six months in advance. Imagine the feeling of achievement you would feel. A major to-do ticked of your list in a day. Free up your headspace to focus on the more important parts of being a real estate agent.

Alternatively you can use a third party scheduling tool like Buffer, OneUpApp or Hootsuite. Prices vary and there are free trials available.

Scheduling in Facebook is only available for Pages. You cannot schedule a post to your personal profile. Unless you use the OneUpApp. See note below.

Note: Only OneUp lets you schedule posts to your personal profile. They have found a work -a -round which involves them sending you a notification prior to the post being shared on your profile. It’s not perfect but it works and at the time of writing it is the only way to schedule a post to Facebook profile at this time.

Capture your ideas

A way to capture ideas – I capture my ideas in Trello. You can find out about Trello here and watch a video about Trello here. Or just search Trello for social media on YouTube.

Trello is a content management system that is amazing for keeping track of any manner of projects. In a nutshell their dashboard is very user friendly and has the appearance of post it notes (which Trello call cards) on a board.

On each card you can add reminders, checklists, notes, attachments, due dates. You can invite others to work with you which is great if you are part of a team or have an assistant etc. My description doesn’t do justice to the amazing capabilities of Trello so check out the video to see for yourself.

Use quality images

A resource of images – you need a source of good quality images. Your images should include branded images, location shots of your local area and popular tourist spots within your farm or patch.

A good source of free images is Canva. There is a free option and a paid subscription. What I love about Canva is that you can edit the images and templates to suit.

Add your logo, brand with your corporate colours, the options are unlimited. You can upload your own images and brand them also.

Insert some personality into your marketing. Canva have a huge range of templates and if you haven’t checked out Canva before I guarantee you’ll be amazed at what you can do!

The first thing that I suggest you type into the search bar is real estate. The option will blow your creative mind with opportunities.

Other sites where you can source free and royalty free images include Pixabay, Unsplash and BigStock Photo. Big Stock is a little more expensive than some of the others, but they do offer a free trial.

Keep in mind when comparing costs that with the more expensive options there is less chance of you finding your images on another agents website. With the 100% free option there is obviously more people using those images.

Deposit Photos lets you subscribe monthly or purchase images as needed.

Some options are free. Other photographers allow usage of their images in return for a mention, link etc. There are also free trials available. There’s sure to be an option that works for you and your budget.

In a future post I will be compiling an extensive list of amazing resources and tools for real estate agents. To be notified of when it is live on my blog, you can subscribe here.

Mix it up a little

A variety of content – I mentioned in part 1 and 2 of 5 reasons your real estate social media is broken that your listings, sales and self-promotion should only account for 20% or less of your real estate social media posts.

Include a mixture of industry news, polls, quotes, images, questions, local content, and infographics. Think about offering checklists and eBooks in exchange for email addresses. This is a win-win for your followers and you.

Share real estate related memes or share humorous Facebook posts from pages such as The Lighter Side of Real Estate.

I hope that these ideas have expanded your mind about what is possible for your real estate social media strategy.

Part 4 in this series on real estate social media, will be out soon. I’ll cover what real estate agents must know about Facebook statistics and share some examples of good and bad Facebook posts.