How Real Estate Agents Can Use Social Media

Real Estate Agents and Social Media

When it comes to real estate, you know the saying… it’s all about “location, location, location!”  To me, as a blogger and social media enthusiasts, that is just music to my ears.  The phrase “location, location, location” has the implication of a “local market” – which is where real estate thrives.  And social media is a platform where a real estate agent can become very well known in the local market space – if leveraged effectively.

Thinking “Local”

I’ve worked with quite a few real estate agents in the past with their online marketing and social media efforts.  And I’m always amazed at how all of them, almost without exception, wanted to start sharing content about the “overall” real estate market.

The agents felt that by sharing national level real estate news and information, they would be marketing to a much larger audience.  There’s only 2 problems with this thinking:

1)  National level real estate news and information is typically produced on highly authoritative websites, which means your brand new website has virtually zero chance of being found.

2)  If you’re a real estate agent in Tampa, Florida can you really help someone in Colorado who needs a home in Denver?

Now turn your focus to your local market for moment.  Think about how many local news stories, new developments, new land use laws, or local real estate news and statistics there are.

As a real estate agent, if you share local news and information, you are much more likely to connect to someone in your specific marketplace who actually will hire you to be their agent.

But how do you leverage social media to generate and share this local news and information?

Blogging, Twitter, and Facebook Fan Pages

I share with my clients a 3 tiered system that fully leverages social media, and ensures that you are gaining high quality exposure to clients who are searching for you.

My 3 tiered system includes:  Blogging, Twitter, and a Facebook Fan Page

Blogging

It all starts with a blog.  I recommend you build a high quality real estate blog using the WordPress platform – like this one we’ve recently completed for a real estate agent in Massachusettes:

A WordPress blog is a highly optimized platform that will allow you to easily generate content, and also gives you high levels of exposure in Google search results.

Having a blog will allow you to generate local news and information, and through your content, you will attract a local market base of people.

These people, as they read more of your content, will begin to remember you and the fact that you’re a real estate agent in their local city.  And your brand name will stick in their minds when they need a real estate agent.

Best case scenario, they visit your blog several times  a week to get the latest and greatest information about what’s happening in the local market place.  This begins the process of brand building for your real estate business and in turn, will get other people talking about you (word of mouth marketing).

Twitter

Twitter is a great place to generate content quickly because you only have 140 character spaces to utilize.

But Twitter is a great place for you to syndicate your content to a growing online audience.

Not granted, your Followers on Twitter are more than likely NOT from your local town, but you’re building your brand with this audience nonetheless.

And again, the brand recognition (your name, your business, etc…) will be talked about by others.  And / or the next time a friend or a family member needs to buy a home in your area, your name will come to people’s mind and your phone will ring!

Twitter is also a great way to broadcast message the content you generate on your blog.

In fact, you can automate this process so that each time you generate a new blog posting, the article automatically gets sent to Twitter – all without you having to do anything but publish your blog article.

Facebook Fan Page

A Facebook Fan Page is almost as important as your blog.  I believe that a Facebook Fan Page is more valuable than any list building platform you currently use, including any email list building programs you are using.

I consider a Facebook Fan Page a lead generation source.

Facebook Fan Pages are “voluntary” – meaning, nobody forces anyone to become a fan and follow you on Facebook.

This makes a Facebook Fan Page a 100% opt-in platform.  And getting people to voluntarily opt-in to receive updates from you makes your fans a high quality audience of prospects.

So sharing all of your news and information from your blog via your Facebook Fan Page is a great way to reach the Facebook audience.

And because Facebook allows for easy sharing of content, and viral marketing exposure when people comment on your updates, your brand name can grow very quickly and with very little management effort on your end.