The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Marketing: Social Media & Digital Marketing 2022
Marketing Tips Social Media Marketing
With interest rates rising and the economy on course for a recession, it’s more important than ever that agents implement a reliable lead-generating real estate marketing strategy.
The biggest challenge during these changing times will be the shrinking pool of available clients. Compared to recent times when borrowing was cheap and demand was high, competition will be high for clients so having a steady pool of warm leads will be essential for successful real estate agents. And there is no more cost-effective way to secure that stream of leads than through a digital marketing plan that includes social media, content marketing, and a lead-capturing website.
After recent market highs, most real estate agents are not going to be prepared for what’s coming. But the good news is that this is the chance for savvy real estate agents to set themselves apart from the crowd by defining their brand and making their value clear.
Strategic Digital Marketing for Real Estate Agents
Did you know that 73% of home buyers only interviewed one real estate agent during their home search? That’s why it’s essential to build your brand visibility and get in front of buyers as quickly as possible.
To thrive as a real estate agent in this changing market, in this article we’ll be highlighting the elements you need for a successful digital marketing campaign:
- Get your brand in front of existing and potential customers; strategically, tactfully, and often.
- Engage your target audience; know them, understand them, and make a real connection with them.
- Give your audience the chance to get to know you while you get to know them.
- Build trusting relationships by understanding customers’ likes, hopes, and needs.
- Leverage digital marketing relationships to capture more leads, generate referrals, and engage repeat customers.
- Achieve strong brand awareness to not just survive but thrive in this changing real estate market.
With the right strategic real estate marketing, you can generate leads no matter the economy to grow and scale your real estate business. As expert digital marketers with extensive experience working with high-performing real estate agents, we’re sharing some of our top marketing tips for real estate agents. Read on!
Real Estate Messaging: Define your Personal Brand & Value Proposition
To eliminate the guesswork in your digital marketing, you need to be crystal clear about your brand and messaging. To put it bluntly, who are you and why should potential prospects care? What makes you so special and good at your job that someone should choose to work with you?
Arguably your real estate value proposition is the most important element of your overall marketing message. Why? Because your value proposition makes the benefits of working with you immediately obvious so that prospects feel confident choosing to do business with you rather than with one of your competitors.
This messaging is essential for establishing your niche and setting yourself apart from the crowd. You need to be distinctive with your messaging about who you are, who you provide services to, and how you bring value to that service.
In explaining your value, your core message needs to express the usefulness, worth, and importance of your real estate services in the minds of your customers. How does your service fulfill your customers’ needs and match their specific customer preferences? Your value proposition expresses the benefit you offer that makes clients feel happy and fulfilled.
Everywhere that you “show up”, which we’ll be defining below, you need to express your worth so that you’re attractive to customers. But here’s the catch; your marketing needs finesse so that instead of coming across as salesy you’re instead building trust with your prospects so they feel confident choosing to do business with you.
Whether it’s in writing or in a video, your message needs to convey your brand and value proposition. By solidifying your core message and the optimal language that defines your value, you’ll be able to streamline your brand essence across all of your digital marketing efforts.
Turn Your Real Estate Website Into a Lead Magnet
We hate to break it to you but your website from 2010 isn’t impressing anyone. If your website isn’t showing you positive conversion results then it’s doing you a disservice.
Your website shouldn’t just look good. It needs to function at a high-performance level 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to attract traffic and actively capture leads.
Most real estate agents are relying on a basic brochure-style website, simply introducing themselves and their services. That’s a pretty good start, especially if it includes your well-crafted value proposition as part of your core messaging, but it doesn’t take the process nearly far enough.
You need to remember that once someone has landed on your website, they’re essentially a warm lead. Remember, they haven’t ended up there by accident. Either they were searching actively on Google to find a real estate agent, they’ve arrived at your site via a link on social media or somewhere else on the web related to their interests, or they’ve been referred to you. Once they’re on your site, you can not afford to let them get away. But most real estate websites do nothing to effectively capture that warm prospect.
Now is your chance to make them an irresistible offer in order to collect their contact details. What immediate value can you offer them?
- Hot insider tips related to your local area
- Home staging advice to help homes sell over asking price
- Trade secrets to negotiating the best real estate rates
- etc.
Promise value to your prospective leads so that they want to provide their information to you.
When a user sees the value in your offer, they’ll be spurred to submit their name and email address in exchange for accessing the information. Almost immediately after entering their email, they should receive an email with the promised information attached. This can be set up with automation. But now, you also have their contact information so you can follow up with them to make a more personal introduction and inquire about their real estate plans.
Attract More Website Visitors with SEO
With a beautifully crafted website acting as a high-converting lead magnet, the more targeted traffic you attract to your website, the more you’ll be able to increase your sales leads. And one of the very best ways to do that is with locally-focused search engine optimization. You want to ensure that every person in your local area who is searching in Google for real estate information is directed to your website first.
Remember, if you’re not appearing on the first page of Google for local searches related to real estate, you’re losing leads to your competition. 75% of searchers never look beyond the first page of Google results. The first page wins, and you need to show up in those searches.
There are a lot of behind-the-scenes technical approaches to optimizing your website that are best left in the hands of SEO professionals. Trusted SEO services like those we offer here at Barker Social are a great choice for improving your Google rankings, however, there are some steps you can take on your own.
We highly recommend that you claim your local listing with Google My Business. Create a personalized profile by adding photos of yourself and the properties you work with. Always ensure that your listing is live, accurate, and up to date. This will help local clients find your business much more easily.
It’s also possible to effectively slip into local Google searches by creating targeted content marketing in the form of locally optimized blog posts.
Build Trust & Drive Traffic with an Active Local Real Estate Blog
An active local real estate blog is a chance for you to produce content that’s full of keyword strings that Google will pick up to help drive traffic to your website. Updating your website frequently through your value-added blog posts and local news updates not only keeps your target audience engaged and excited to visit your website, but Google will also love you and rank you higher in their searches.
The trick to an effective locally-focused real estate blog is to remember that it’s not a sales page. The goal should be to build trusting relationships by providing valuable information that engages your audience and establishes your expertise. However, while your website visitors are on your website to read your excellent local content, you’ll also be able to entice them with your lead magnet.
When you create the right value-added content, your real estate services will practically sell themselves. The point of your locally-focused blog posts and news articles is to relate to your specific knowledge in a way that’s useful, engaging, educational, or entertaining for your target audience. By doing so, you’ll appeal to your niche readers in a way that establishes familiarity and trust.
Here are some examples of real estate blog ideas:
- Local XCityX Real Estate Trends 2022
- Home Appraisal in XCityX – What’s the Process?
- Looking for the Best Real Estate Agent in XCityX? # Things to Consider
- Everything You Need to Know About Home Inspection in XCityX
- Neighbourhood Feature: XNeighbourhoodNameX in XCityX
- etc.
What’s more, the blog posts also provide great content to share on social media to build credibility with your followers and stay active on each platform.
Show Up & Shine on Social Media
Social media continues to open a myriad of opportunities for real estate agents to get in front of local audiences, build trusting relationships, and capture more leads. This all may seem overwhelming if you’re just starting but when you look at social media as promising potential opportunities rather than as some type of obligation, you’ll be amazed by how doors can open.
The work you put in to understand the various social media sites will be far outweighed by the benefits to your real estate business. It’s ultimately up to you how far you’d like to take your social media presence. We recommend having at least a basic presence on a few channels while focussing more deeply on 1-2 specific channels.
Instagram is a visual platform and presents the perfect showcase for the beautiful properties – and real people – that you work with. Bright and attractive photography is important but don’t neglect video. The importance of vertical video is on the rise so be sure to share walk-throughs of properties in vertical formats to share as Reels. Don’t be shy to put yourself in front of the camera as well to share your insights.
Familiarize yourself with popular local hashtags to use on your Reels and regular posts. Follow and use local hashtags and actively engage with other locals who are also actively using those hashtags. Also, be sure to include location tagging in your posts.
Use Instagram Stories to share some of your behind-the-scenes interactions with properties and people; not just with your clients but also with local businesses that you can tag to help shake up local exposure. When you tag a local business in a Story, they’ll be more likely to add it to their own Stories, helping to increase your local exposure. You can also syndicate your Instagram Stories to Facebook.
The organic Facebook algorithm has become challenging for small local business pages to reach people in the regular news feed but don’t let that deter you. People will still actively seek out your business page, which continues to act as a type of portfolio for your real estate business presence
As a real estate agent, your personal network is also extremely important on Facebook. Be sure to avoid seeming spammy with your “friends” network with content that feels like a sales pitch. Instead, share the properties you’re excited about in natural and very personable ways. Those friends can turn into your strongest word-of-mouth referral base.
Local Facebook groups offer terrific networking opportunities. Join all sorts of local interest groups, from small business to neighbourhood community groups. Participate naturally in conversations so that people get to know you as a member of the community. It’s amazing what you can accomplish without ever “selling” your services. Focus on value and community participation. By being present in those local groups you’ll find natural openings to gently mention your services.
TikTok
TikTok is opening incredible opportunities for local visibility. For example, one local real estate agent has been slipping into my St. Catharines local feed by reviewing all of the pizza places across the Niagara Region. Though his posts have almost nothing to do with real estate, they allow him to show that he’s a fun-loving, very personable guy who loves the local community. This gives people the chance to get to know him and they’ll surely remember him when it comes time for them to make a real estate decision.
YouTube
Remember, YouTube is operated by Google and acts as its own type of search engine. By creating longer form video content than would be appropriate on Instagram, TikTok, or even Facebook, you can tag your content for maximum local viewing.
This is your chance to share gorgeous high-resolution videos and to emphasize your value proposition through your personable video presence. You’ll also be able to embed your YouTube videos on your website.
In addition to showing listings on YouTube, consider taking a similar approach to videos as with blog posts, emphasizing popular search terms and themes to educate your readers. This will help you show up in searches and dominate in an under-utilized video context.
LinkedIn offers great opportunities to network with local professionals and business owners. Your personal account will be more important than a business page on LinkedIn; build your connections and share valuable content related to your local area.
LinkedIn is a great platform for sharing stories, anecdotes, and insights. Strike a balance between professional and “letting your guard down” to gain attention and share your value proposition.
While Twitter is not the top performer for most real estate agents, it still offers excellent opportunities to engage with the local community. Get to know your local hashtags so that your posts appear in local searches. Most importantly, actively engage with local posts. Depending on the activities taking place in your community, it could be a winner for making your presence known.
Understanding the Social Media Algorithms
Remember that it’s not enough to simply post on social media. If you want the algorithms to work for you then your content can’t be one-sided. You need a mix of original, valuable content that people want to engage with, not just with a “like” but by participating with comments and shares. Ask questions to elicit responses. The more comments you get, the better your content will perform with the algorithms.
Worker Smarter, Not Harder with Paid Advertising
With the strategic and clever use of paid advertising, you can make sure to never let a warm lead slip away again.
Whether your website visitors originally found you through Google searches, were driven to your website via social media, or arrived there as referrals, you can ensure that each and every one of those visitors receives follow up ads. This is a cost-effective way to ensure that every one of those warm leads receives reinforcement of your value proposition.
The key is to make sure you’ve set up pixel tracking so we can retarget potential customers with a fluid campaign that takes them through your lead magnet to get to know your expertise, learn about your brand value, and establish trust to help them make their real estate decisions.
2022 Marketing Success
While all of these digital marketing channels can provide extremely powerful tools, fully taking advantage of all the possibilities may take more time and effort than you have time for. That’s why many real estate agents choose to outsource their social media marketing needs to a trusted digital marketing agency like our team here at Barker Social.
We have extensive experience working with real estate agents and provide you with expert knowledge. Let us handle all your real estate marketing needs to maximize your online performance. The results speak for themselves and are well worth the costs when you look at your return on investment. Click here to learn all about our real estate marketing services.
