Social media is often viewed as a time-waster. People with nothing better to do posting about what they’re eating or the hairy spider in the bathroom. While it’s true your feed may be filled with a lot of silly and fairly useless stuff, consider this: your feed is full of people.
No matter how busy their day, people who use social media will take the time to view their feed. Several times a day. What are you doing to reach them? If you get your friends and family to follow you and your company page, remember that most people allow their friends to view what they like and share.
It’s easy to start protesting now: “But I don’t have time!” Make time to make social media work for you. Post while you’re in the car waiting for a client. Post something at lunch or dinner. Can you spare 15 minutes a day to increase your sphere of influence? Here are the basics of growing your social media presence:
According to Statistica, Facebook had 1.55 billion users as of January 2016. Surely there’s a few hundred people you can connect to in your area. The key to Facebook is to post something at least daily. The Redefy blog posts 3x a week. Share that. Start liking industry giants like the National Association of Realtors and design sites like HGTV. Share those posts. When you share, remember to write your own lead-in and possibly tie in-in a plug to your business. Consider a hashtag like #flatfeefullservice at the end of your social media posts. Don’t forget to share Redefy’s blog posts on your personal pages.
Tag a few different companies or media outlets (never two newspapers or two radio stations – they don’t want competition). Tagging makes sure that they see it and they also view it as free advertising. They might even share the post. To tag, type the “@” symbol and the name. Facebook will give you options to choose from. If you tag, comment, like and share enough posts, eventually those companies/media outlets will follow you. If you also have Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. occasionally post about it to your followers so they can follow you there as well.
It’s your 144 character social media advertisement. To date, Twitter says it has 320 million monthly active users. Twitter is a quick way to get posts out. Again, you get followers by following, liking and retweeting others. Try to find some real estate bloggers and retweet their stuff. When you retweet, say a little something and then put a RT (retweet) before the title/link of their post. If you have to shorten their title, use MT (modified tweet). Again, use hashtags like #flatfeerealestate.
Photographers on Twitter are super picky – give credit! When you write an original post, tag a couple people. They’re more likely to retweet your stuff if you mention them. If you upload a photo, you can tag up to 10 people under “Who’s in this photo”. Those people will get a notification that you tagged them. Curiosity will make them look.
Instagram has more monthly social media users than Twitter. It’s really useful for quick photo posts. Say you just put a sign in a yard. Snap a pic and write a quick blurb. It’s also great for events you attend – live news is a great way to show you’re active in your community. Like Twitter and Facebook, you can tag anyone who is on Instagram that you follow.
As a professional, you’re probably already on LinkedIn. It’s not considered “social media” per se, but it’s still a great way to connect with other professionals who might need your services. Share updates of Redefy’s news posts to keep your connections informed of industry happenings. Create posts (not updates) of new properties – posts send notifications to your followers.
Google+
Google is the search engine giant, snatching up the largest market share. Google+ is their “social media” site. It’s pretty easy to set up and use. It’s doubtful anyone actually reads Google+ posts but its benefit for your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a key motivator to use it. Don’t waste time writing Google+ posts – use automation (see below) to send your feeds to Google+.
Snapchat
The Snapchat app is a temporary Instagram. But unlike Instagram, you’re not broadcasting to the world. It’s a private conversation tool that’s super popular with Millennials. This isn’t actually a social media tool, but it’s a great way to connect with tech-savvy buyers. You take a quick pic and write something. It’s basically a still photo text. What’s nice is that the posts only last for a few minutes. So maybe you’re having a conversation with a client. They’re looking at a house they just drove by. You can Snapchat back and forth about the property without clogging up your text messaging.
Automation
The secret to making all this work without spending hours each day is to automate. The free version of the If This Then That site and corresponding “IF” app (Android or iOS) set up “recipes” for all kinds of tasks. IF you post to Instagram, THEN it posts automatically to Twitter. IF the National Association of Realtors tweets something, THEN you automatically retweet it. You get the idea. Whatever you do, don’t set up IF to post from Facebook to Twitter AND Twitter to Facebook. You will create a terrible endless loop. Only set up automation one way.
Another great option is Buffer. Buffer allows you to import feeds like the Redefy blog, which you can then schedule to post on a variety of social media sites. You can also write your own posts and schedule them to go out (Buffer even suggests when to post for optimal viewing). Unlike IF, you can automate posts to Google+. The free version should cover all your needs as an individual agent.
If you’re just getting started, go with what you know. If you’re a Facebook user, start there and build a following. Let IF automate your posts to Twitter. Once you have a following on Facebook, start building your Twitter following (change your IF recipe to start sending tweets to Facebook, instead of Facebook to Twitter).
