The importance of social media marketing in the real estate industry has been growing exponentially over the past decade, but the Coronavirus pandemic took it to a whole new level. In 2021 it is unthinkable for real estate agents to not be active on social media if they want to remain competitive and continue buying and selling properties. Even if you are not in good terms with technology and digital marketing, social media doesn’t have to intimidate you. With these 8 top – yet simple – tips you will be able to establish your presence on social media to continue growing your business.

Create Accounts on a Few Different Social Media Platforms

First and foremost, you need to start off by creating a number of different social media accounts. Each social media network comes with its own advantages and disadvantages, which makes it important to be present on a few platforms. In this way, you will be able to catch the attention of the widest possible audience and reach out to the highest possible number of home buyers and sellers.

In terms of specific social media sites, Facebook is an absolute must for a realtor who’s aiming to market his/her business digitally. With 2.8 billion active users per month, Facebook is by far the largest and the most popular social media platform. Virtually any of your past, present, and future real estate clients – or someone close to them – has a Facebook profile.

Another social media network that is really great for real estate is Instagram. Instagram is all about the power of visual content including photos and short videos, and this makes it an ideal platform for showcasing your real estate listings.

Although some say that Twitter marketing is dead in 2021, this is as far from the truth as possible. Indeed, marketing your real estate business on Twitter is not only easy and straightforward but also very productive. All you need is a beautiful photo of one of your properties for sale and 280 characters of text, and you are ready to tweet about your listing to reach out to a wide audience. Importantly, just as Instagram, Twitter allows you to mark your location which makes it particularly useful for agents when targeting clients in a specific real estate market.

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Don’t Forget About LinkedIn

As a real estate agent aspiring to establish his/her reputation on social media, you cannot afford to skip creating an account on LinkedIn. This site is a bit different from other social media networks. Its power lies in the fact that it unites professionals from many different industries and niches who come together to connect and collaborate.

LinkedIn is the right place to demonstrate your real estate experience and expertise and to establish your professionalism. You can be sure that the vast majority of future clients will check out your profile on LinkedIn before they get in touch with you. They will look not only at your experience and skills but also at your endorsements and recommendations.

That’s why you should put some extra efforts into building a solid LinkedIn profile. It’s important to ask past and present clients as well as other realtors from your brokerage to endorse your skills and to give you recommendations. These efforts are guaranteed to pay off as you generate real estate leads on social media.

Employ the Power of Real Estate Photos

With the millions of new social media posts each day, you have to focus on particularly attractive visuals in order to grab the attention of potential leads as they scroll through their news feed. Beautiful photos are the bread and butter of social media marketing, and you are in luck as an agent who’s buying and selling properties.

You already have professional photos of the gorgeous homes that you’re selling, so social media is the right place to publicize them. Make sure that each of your posts is accompanied by one or more real estate photos.

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Share Videos

Another type of visual content that is particularly important in social media marketing for real estate agents and brokers is videos. With the quickly evolving virtual reality, you must already have mesmerizing videos of the exterior of your real estate listings as well as virtual tours of the interior.

Being inundated with content all the time, many social media users are more interested in videos than in images in 2021. That’s why it’s important to share this type of content as well.

Schedule Posts Regularly

If you want to establish a solid presence on social media and tp be able to compete with other realtors in the local market, you will have to share content on a regular basis. A random social media post whenever you have time will not suffice. You will need to post at least a few times a day in order to build a followership and to start converting real estate leads into clients.

As a busy agent, you might be worrying about the time you will need to spend online to post on social media. With the help of the myriad of social media management tools, this should not be a concern. Getting access to a social media scheduler will allow you to schedule your weekly or even monthly social media posts at once so that you can use the rest of your time to buy and sell real estate.

Use the Right Hashtags for Real Estate

Another crucial tip in social media marketing is using the best hashtags for your industry. Luckily, the real estate industry offers dozens of relevant hashtags to focus on home buyers, home sellers, and on any market which comes to mind.

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While hashtags are important on all platforms, they are an absolute must on Twitter and Instagram. They will help your tweets or posts reach out to the target audience to generate new leads. Hashtags are how social media users will be able to find your posts.

Post Local Content

As you already know, real estate is very much a people’s business. Clients need to trust you and to trust your knowledge and expertise in order to buy or sell their home with you. One of the best ways to demonstrate your expertise is to talk about the local housing market and recent trends within it, and social media comprises an excellent tribune for this.

Thus, you should alternate between posting your listings and sharing general facts about your city and your neighborhood. People who are looking to buy a home in the area will very much enjoy learning more about the specific neighborhood. Moreover, they will love to work with an agent who proves to be a local expert.

Boost Engagement

Last but not least, social media is all about being social. As an agent, you must have outstanding people skills, and you should take advantage of this fact when working on your social media marketing plan.

It is not enough to just post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the rest of the social media platforms out there. You have to go the extra mile and interact with your audience. For example, make sure that you respond to comments and messages right away. Moreover, post content which stimulates interaction and engagement, such as surveys and even contests. Your future clients will love to know that you have a personality beyond your real estate career and that you are there for your customers.

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Social media has become an indispensable part of the digital marketing strategy of every real estate agent who wants to succeed and outperform the competition. With these 8 top tips, you will be a step ahead of the other realtors in the area and will be able to generate leads like never before.

Written by Zach Saadeh for www.RealtyTimes.com Copyright © 2021 Realty Times All Rights Reserved. Zach Saadeh is the CEO and Co-Founder of Studiorific, a social media management platform that helps you streamline your marketing processes from a single platform. Turn hours of scheduling posts into 15 minutes.