Hey Real Estate Agents, You're Doing It Wrong!
Real estate agents have bad social media habits. Every real estate agent or agency is the same. They create an account on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or some other social network then start spamming addresses they have for sale. This can't honestly be working, so why do you do it? The most common answer, "I don't know. I saw other people doing it so I thought it must work." Ouch.
Loosing the Social Media War
No one gets on Facebook or Twitter to shop. People are on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to socialize with friends, play games, and have fun. If you want your business to succeed in social media you need to find a way to make it fun or people will ignore you. Social media is for being social; it is not an ad in the classifieds.
Imagine if you were at a coffee shop having a drink with friends and a stranger walked up and tried to sell you something. You would probably dismiss them then try to ignore them so that they didn't talk to you again. Interrupting someone's social time with a hard pitch doesn't work well, but that's what most real estate agents are doing on social networks.
You will fail on social network websites if all you do is advertise. That doesn't mean that you can't use social networks for business or that businesses don't benefit from social sites. Social media is a powerful marketing tool, but you have to use it correctly or you're wasting your time.
Home Buyers and Social Media - Understanding Your Audience
The average home buyer is only interested in buying homes once every few years. Your posts (homes for rent / sale) instantly become boring to us once we've found a place to live. If your posts are boring to us and don't benefit us then we will remove you as a connection, block you, flag you as spam, or ignore you.
Finding new customers is harder than keeping existing customers. If you want to keep us as contacts and get referrals from us then you need to appeal to us even when we aren't looking for a place to live. Real estate agents are too self serving in social media. That is why you have such a hard time making and keeping good social media contacts, which makes it harder for you to build new connections and get referrals.
Social Media Battle Tactics for Real Estate Agents
Real estate agents need to do three things differently with social media.
Don't only post the properties you have for sale or rent. Make house hunting more fun. STOP TYPING IN ALL CAPS AND USING EXTRA PUNCTUATION.!.! IT'S AMATURE!!!!!!!!!!!!
1) Stop only posting your classified ads. Instead post things that are beneficial to home owners and people that are thinking about buying a home. Anything valuable that you can offer as a social contact before and after we buy a home from you will work. If you are valuable to us then we won't delete you, we'll read your posts occasionally, we're more likely to recommend you, and you have a better chance of still being on our contact lists the next time we move.
Examples of good post topics...
CITY NAME announces plans to extend the freeway. Learn how to fix a slow drain - short DIY home repair video on YouTube. Just how much do energy efficient light bulbs save on your electric bill? CITY NAME will be opening a recycling center next month. How often do you need to change the air filters in your home? The grand opening of the new Home Depot on STREET CORNER is this weekend. STUDENT from LOCAL SCHOOL is nationally recognized for his science project.
The examples above are not only useful and interesting to us, they also sell the community. If I'm sold on the community then selling me a house in the community is a lot easier. Post about things that we care about, not just what you care about. You can still post the homes that you have for sale, but mix it up to bring some life to your social media.
2) Make house hunting more fun. You can use social media for direct marketing, but you have to make it fun to be effective. Here's a freebee...
Post a riddle on your social networks and leave clues at each of the houses you have in a certain area. The first person to reply to your post with the correct answer to the riddle gets their application fee waived. In order to solve the riddle we will need to gather clues from each of your houses in that area. If we already planned on house hunting the day your contest starts which houses do you think we will be visiting first, yours or your competitors? This is just one example of how to get people to focus on your houses when they go house hunting while making your social media fun.
Use the same social media to promote the contest in advance. If no one replies to your riddle contest then that tells you loud and clear... You might have lots of friends, fans, and followers, but they're all ignoring you.
3) READING HEADLINES OR SENTENCES IN ALL CAPS IS ANNOYING. Typing in all caps or adding unnecessary punctuation will not get people to listen to you. People are actually less likely to read something online if they know its blatant advertising and all caps SCREAMS poor advertising.
Recap - How Real Estate Agents Should Use Social Media
Social media is for being social; it is not an ad in the classifieds. You will fail in social media if all you do is advertise. If all you post on social media is your listings then you are wasting your time. Post things we (home owners) care about, not just what you care about. Make your marketing fun for us.
The most interesting, important, and fun information is on the front page, not in the classifieds.
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Acclaimed web consultant and social media expert David Kirkland covers the social media tactics and strategies of real estate agents in this Nerd Warehouse exclusive guest post. Originally posted at: http://twitter.nerdwarehouse.com/
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