Social media has evolved from a fun forum to a powerful, brand-building tool for real estate. It has its own rules and its own best practices. But when real estate professionals consider their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram strategy, there are conflicting visions of those best practices.
And there are even more varieties of tools to help with every aspect of executing successful social campaigns that engage your social sphere and drive results.
The recipe for a successful social strategy
For social media, the key word is balance. You need to share a mixture of the content that will serve your network and your business. Your social media channels need to showcase you as a real estate professional, a local expert, a trusted advisor, and an authentic, approachable person — all in one.
Here are some ground rules for the right types of content to share.
Personal. What’s happening in your world? In your family? Perhaps you have hobbies you are passionate about or activities you’re involved with. Share photos and videos to highlight who you are and what you care about. You don’t have to open up your personal life to the entire world, but offer enough to help your sphere feel they know you and trust you.
Industry. Showcase your expertise by taking national industry trends and making them simple to understand. Highlight what homeowners need to know based on market signals they may not know to look for. Digest reports and pull out the takeaways that everyday buyers and sellers can use.
Local. Be a champion for your community in your social networks. Elevate local organizations, schools, restaurants, and businesses. Attend town meetings, read city council minutes, follow local journalists. Combine with personal posts to deepen your brand and fill in the color of who you are and what matters to you.
Property Listings. Last, but not least, use social media to promote your listings. Do not abuse the privilege of sharing what’s on the market with your sphere of influence. They will quickly tune you out. Mix and match how you share your listings, with in-person live video, beautiful photography, or engaging 3D tours.
Of course, not all of this content has to originate from your own social channels. Leverage other channels that provide the content, sharing, liking and re-tweeting content from other brokerages, local influencers,
One tool to rule them all
Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate (BHGRE®) is a lifestyle brand. And no channel suits lifestyle more than social media.
That’s why BHGRE created their own dashboard that empowers affiliated brokers and agents to leverage social media effectively and authentically. Agents can use the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Social Tool to access, manage, share, customize, and schedule their own content.
The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate network can leverage the brand’s engaging lifestyle, thought leadership and real estate content along with their own local, personal and business content. Scheduling posts in advance ensures a regular cadence of engagement and frees the agent to be more nimble and responsive day to day.
Debbie Scanish is Director of Business Operations at BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS REAL ESTATE CYPRESS. She has seen the value of the Social Tool first hand.
“The Social Tool allows us to easily access quality content from not only BHGRE sources, but from the Meredith publications as well. In addition, we can set up local sources that we monitor and post from without having to scour the Internet for hours,” she said.
“And because we can see several outlets at one time, we can set up a variety of content over our various platforms to post throughout the week. We can see how each post performs so that we can adjust content, time or volume to suit our audience. Posting new listings is a breeze, too, linking directly back to our website. We are thrilled with this new tool, to say the least!”
The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Social Tool allows users to:
- Easily access to original brand content including BHGRE blogs, content from Meredith Corporation brands, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate leadership, fellow franchisees posts and other exceptional companies that together, keep brokers and agents in the know of industry trends.
- Schedule posts in advance on Facebook Business Pages and Twitter.
- Highlight listings in organic social feeds by quickly accessing listing data, customizing the listing post through personal branding, and sharing on social platforms.
- Efficiently access the BHGRE image library to create original, on-brand posts.
- Email links to articles and comment directly on posts in the convenience of the BHGRE Social Tool’s dashboard.
- Add custom feed sources to reflect their local area and personal brand.
Often, successfully creating and acting on an engaging social media strategy takes valuable time and focus away from the business of real estate. The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Social Tool is specially designed to streamline agents social activity, all while providing value and authentic engagement with their sphere.