Realtor social media sites are excellent marketing weapons. And I do mean excellent! They’re popping up all over the web these days. What Realtor social media sites allow you to do is connect with your prospects on a deeper level and start building those relationships that turn into clients even quicker. And I’m not talking about those dating sites!
Frankly, I’m not really into the personal social aspect of these Realtor social media sites like many people are. I can’t sit on Facebook all day and chat with friends while Tweeting about watching the Simpsons on TV. It’s just not me. But MANY people do that. They love being social with their friends in that way and you need to be there and get in the mix.
On a business level, in terms of connecting with other professionals, I love Realtor social media sites! I just don’t use them like an 11 year old teenage girl and you don’t need to either.
The big Realtor social media sites out there (in my opinion) are, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, Localism, Zillow and YouTube (just to name a few). They’re all fantastic to take advantage of if you want to build relationships with more prospects.
Some of these sites are specific to real estate. Others are more general but can be used for gaining real estate clients. Realtor social media is all about building relationships; hence the “social” part.
There are many reasons why these social media sites are useful; I’ll cover 5 of the big ones…
1) All of your prospects are on them. Well, almost all of them. The majority of your prospects are probably on Facebook or Twitter or a couple of the other sites. For you not to be there and visible to them is like not going to your high school prom; you’ll be the only one not there and nobody will remember you. I don’t think that’ll get you much business.
2) Realtor social media sites can help drive your search engine rankings higher. It plays a role, although not hugely significant, into your overall search engine optimization (SEO). You can link your Facebook and Twitter page with your blog and visa versa. You can submit an article to Squidoo that has a link to your Facebook page, which has a link back to your website, back to your blog and so on and so forth.
That’s what search engines, like Google, want to see. They want to see your info, websites, blogs and profiles blasted all over the web linking back and forth with each other and other popular websites.
Plus, you want prospects to get all the info you have. You don’t want them only seeing your Facebook page and missing your blog, for example. Give them a chance to get to know you more. You’re leaving money on the table if you don’t!
3) Your prospects will have the opportunity to stumble across your profile and “follow you” when they’re searching on a certain topic on these Realtor social media sites. They can add you as a friend on Facebook, they can follow you on Twitter, they can subscribe to your YouTube channel, they can follow your blog on ActiveRain, etc.
If a prospect is searching for “Seattle real estate agent” and your page comes up, they’re likely to follow you if your information is relevant, informative and fun. Prospects can then get to know you and you can build that vitally important relationship with them. That’s the essence of these Realtor social media sites!
4) When you’re designing a marketing/advertising piece, being able to mention your Facebook or Twitter page, for example, helps your brand immensely. It’s similar to “co-branding” where you’re glued to another highly recognized company and logo. People recognize that and associate you with that highly recognized brand. Even if it’s an unconscious thought in the prospect’s mind, it’s still a huge benefit for you. Take advantage.
5) And this one is my favorite, it’s the best. When you have these “followers” and “friends” from various real estate social media sites, you can send them messages and communicate with them actively. You don’t need to sit back and hope they go to your blog or pray that they read a certain article you wrote. You can actually send them a message or post a message letting them know about it.
Of course, they aren’t obligated to read it but you have the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUpLYDgL6C0 opportunity to actively communicate and build these relationships. It’s great! Just don’t start spamming everyone with sales pitches. That won’t go over very well.
So get your profile on these sites I’ve mentioned, along with a bunch of others, and let prospects start to find you and your website. You may not personally go on these sites at all but many of your prospects do, which is why you need to be there.
For ideas and examples of what you can put on these sites about yourself, just look at Facebook and Twitter and see what others are doing. Don’t go and outright copy anyone else but get ideas and tweak them to suit your brand and personality.
But don’t go hardcore and have nothing but marketing and sales pitches all over these sites. Just give people information they want and that tell them about you; how wonderful and intelligent you are. You need to set yourself apart, not look like the other 20 gazillion agents out there trying to sell every second to every person!
Wait, did I mention that these Realtor social media sites are all about building relationships? Just making sure you’re paying attention.
You’ll notice that YouTube is a bit different from most of the other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. That’s obviously because it’s all about video media, which is exactly what so many prospects prefer vs. text and pictures.
So with YouTube, you’ll want to create some informative videos and get them posted. I’d recommend using Animoto and/or Jing or Camtasia to create your video.
Jing and Camtasia allow you to capture video on your desktop, exactly like you see in our video tutorials. So if you want to put together a power point presentation, for example, either of those vendors would be great. You could even take a desktop video with Jing and then use that in your Animoto video, mainly because Animoto can really spice up your video in a cool way.
Make sure you add some relevant keywords to your YouTube real estate social media posts videos. This way, when people are searching on YouTube, your video can be pulled up and viewed when someone is searching for “Your town real estate“, as an example.
You’ll be able to put a blurb about yourself underneath the video so make sure you include your website or blog. If it’s just your video they see and there’s no link in it or in your “about you” blurb, it’ll be pointless marketing for you. You want prospects to know more about you; everything they can find out. Well, maybe not everything but you want them to click through to your website or blog, for sure.
So that’s marketing with social media sites. What it all boils down to is putting your “web DNA” out there for all your prospects to find when they’re searching. The more of “you” that’s out there, especially on popular sites, the more traffic you’ll generate to your pages, website, blog and the more deals you’ll eventually close as a result. Just don’t start giving out your social security number, that won’t help you at all.
Now go build some relationships and have fun!
Josh F. Sanders is a Real Estate Broker and the Founder of Shiloh Street University in Seattle, WA, an online marketing school designed specifically for Realtors and agents.
SSU’s purpose is to “Create Wealthy Agents through World-Class Marketing” by providing step-by-step video marketing tutorials, lead-generation lessons, tips, articles, recommended marketing vendors and much more.