While you and most other real estate agents dismiss, ignore and talk down about Snapchat, the social network keeps growing, and its advertising options keep improving.
That’s not to mention the success that I am having on the platform, as well as many other real estate agents.
Despite all the “Snapchat sucks” and “Snapchat is worthless” articles you’ll find out there, my personal experience has been quite the opposite. But I digress.
Within the real estate industry, it’s widely accepted that Facebook ads work very well and are a great way to advertise and market a business.
But could Snapchat soon become an equally awesome marketing option for agents? Yeah, it sure sounds like it.
Soon you can run highly targeted Snapchat ads
Facebook is widely known as having the best, most robust ad targeting options available, more than even Google offers through AdWords or YouTube ads.
But hey, it’s also data that we freely and openly give!
Regardless, Facebook ads let you drill down and show an ad to one particular person, if you choose.
No other social network has been able to successfully offer such specific targeting based on behavior and personal preferences — until now.
Before this advertising product update, real estate professionals were limited to using custom geofilters to advertise their brand on Snapchat, but that’s a topic for another day.
Behavioral ad targeting is coming to Snapchat
Snapchat has always had some pretty detailed data on its more than 150 million daily active users. To quickly put that user base in perspective, Snapchat surpassed Twitter in active users earlier this year.
So every time a Snapchat user watches a snap on a certain topic in Discover, Snapchat improves the profile it’s building on that user’s behavior and interests.
Snapchat also knows how long we watch certain snaps, and it makes note of it. All of this data, when put together, creates a profile of the users’ interests and behavior, which can then be used by brands when determining who they want to show their ads.
How you can use Snapchat ads to close more deals
Similar to the way we use Facebook ads to target certain demographics with our real estate ads, we will soon be able to do the same via Snapchat ads.
But because the Snapchat demographics are mostly millennials (for now) this means that a ton of first-time homebuyers (and soon-to-be first-time sellers) are already spending a ton of time on the platform. Perfect.
So how do you show ads to them?
Well, just like Facebook, once you have the perfect ad created, you can specifically target people of a specific age, who live in a specific part of town, who like golf, just had another child and watch the Wall Street Journal’s Discover channel regularly.
Sounds to me like a potential buyer who probably has a decent job and income and has an increased need for a larger home. On second thought, nevermind. I must be crazy, right?
Haven’t you read the anti-Snapchat articles? No way this “crazy Snapchat thing” could ever be used for real estate — right?
Dustin Brohm is a Realtor and the founder of SearchSaltLake.com. Connect with him on Facebook and Google Plus.