As 2014 starts to wind down, social media has already proven valuable for businesses across every industry. Savvy real estate agents are starting to realize that the ROI of social media is real and worthy of their time and resources.
In 2012, my wife and I formed TAP Social Media. We are a small boutique Philadelphia based social marketing agency. We've help a few local and national clients build their brands online across multiple platforms. Local real estate agent Jen Colahan McIlhenny contacted us about creating a unique online experience for her real estate business.
We helped her create a micro brand called Real Estate Around Philly. While other agents across the country were treating social media like a print newspaper ad, we took a different approach.
McIlhenny wanted to stand out above her competitors by providing value to the greater Philadelphia area. This started with creating the home base of her website called RealEstateAroundPhilly.com.
Of course the site houses her teams current listings for those looking to buy or rent homes. However, more importantly it has a blog, which offers tips and advice about the real estate industry, DIY projects, insight on local towns and more to help guide people through the somewhat complex process of buying or selling a home.
The contact form of the website has proven very successful bringing in several leads for people both interested in buying and selling homes in the greater Philadelphia area.
Since the creation of the website we have also developed a Real Estate Around Philly Facebook page and a Twitter Page.
Social marketing for realtors comes with a unique set of challenges. We have learned a few valuable lessons along the way. Here are some of the challenges we noticed in the real estate industry for social marketing.
1. Real estate agents don't always have long-term marketing on their minds.
Real estate agents are very busy people. Jen actually helped us buy our first and we have witnessed first hand how busy she is and how real estate is not a 9-5 Monday through Friday profession. Offers and paperwork come in at all hours of the day and week and in real estate they require quick turn around. Understandable, for these folks marketing tends to take a back seat to everything else. But at the end of the day realtors understand the value of playing the long game in business more than people in other industries.
2. People are not always in the market for homes.
In real estate your target audience may not need to buy or sell their home for decades to come. But real estate is a long-term business. Great agents like McIlhenny realize that they not only want a client's business today, they want that same client 10, 20, 30, or 40 years from now. They also want to do the best job possible to get the business of all of that client's friends and family.
3. Real estate agents are not used to the soft sale.
Social media is a soft sale process for any business. People are strong detectors of when they are being sold to and you cannot hit them over the head constantly with sales pitches. It simply doesn't work and turns people off. Like many business owners real estate agents need to be trained on the art of providing value as a gateway to conversation with potential clients.
4. The real estate industry has high and low seasons.
Real estate is an industry that absolutely has high and low selling seasons depending on your location in the country. It is important to understand this cycle and work it into your social marketing strategy. If it is a time of year when you have not as many homes on the market you will want to ramp up your extra efforts of providing the value of tips and advice for your audience.
5. Many agents aren't used to creating content.
Most real estate agents are great people persons and salespeople. However, they are not necessarily great marketers or content creators. This is why the real estate industry is one of the most promising growth areas for people in social marketing. If you take on a realtor as a client, work with one that is open to your strategy and will work with you to provide their valuable insight to their field.
6. Home sales have a high price point.
Compared to selling retail products like t-shirts, soap, or anything else, selling homes is a transaction that comes with a very high price tag. In real estate you goal should never be to try to sell someone with one blog post, Facebook status or tweet. You need to craft and tell an ongoing story that is consumed by your audience for years. This takes extreme patience to execute correctly. Smart agents like McIlhenny and her team realize that it's the social marketing team's job to start the conversation and the agent's job to close a sale later.
7. Create a strong referral network.
Real estate is by nature a referral industry. Since the beginning of home sales, people have been asking, whom did you use and were you happy with them. Social media thrives for a referral business. However, it doesn't happen overnight and takes years to build a strong network of loyal customers. The goal here is to provide great content to people so that they don't even realize they are consuming it from a real estate agent. Then, when they need to make a real estate transaction, your brand is the first one that they think about contacting.
8. Don't count the likes.
In social media it is tempting to count the likes and compare your brand to mass consumer products. This is a deflating process to put your self through. Getting someone to like a local real estate page is much harder than getting someone to like a soft drink or running shoe. Focus on telling a long-term story, while realizing that every year someone in your base following will know someone in the market to buy or sell a home.