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So you have decided that social media is your next frontier for expanding your business and generating a new source of leads. Congrats! Now that you have chosen to move forward, the next question is where to do it.
If you have little to no experience in the world of social media then it can easily seem overwhelming. There are now dozens of platforms to choose from with more seeming to pop up everyday. Here are a few examples of some of the largest:
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
LinkedIn
Snapchat
Tik Tok
Tumblr
Reddit
Pinterest
As you can see, you clearly have a lot of options for building your brand online. At this point it is important to ask yourself this question: Where do you see yourself getting the biggest return on your time?
With over 190 million active monthly U.S. users , Facebook has the largest user base of any of the above platforms. It is one of the mostly widely used and recognized, and is relatively user friendly to get started with. The main reason that I recommend real estate agents get started on Facebook, however, is the primary demographic of Facebook users. The largest share of American users (79%) is between the ages of 30 and 49 with 18 to 29-year-olds close behind. This is especially important in your field because this tends to line up with the majority of the homebuying population. Most other platforms skew towards a younger user base of people who either aren’t able to afford homes or aren’t yet interested in becoming a homeowner.
Facebook also has an additional benefit: it owns Instagram. Because of this unique relationship between the platforms, you can crosspost on Facebook and Instagram at the same time to double your reach while spending the same amount of time. While I don’t recommend simply duplicating your Facebook timeline on Instagram (at the end of the day these are separate platforms with different features that warrant a degree of differentiation), it can be useful to have the ability to share content from time to time. Another feature of this relationship between the platforms is that you can monitor your interactions, messages, ads, and more from both platforms in one unified place. This further streamlines your social media and can make your marketing efforts more efficient.
Once you have a solid presence on Facebook and Instagram, you have a good foundation in the world of social media and you have options if you choose to expand from there. If you are looking to build a network of professionals to work with or are looking to do some hiring down the road, LinkedIn is a great choice. You can establish yourself as an expert on the market by commenting on recent economic changes or updates to the real estate industry, as well as network with real estate related professionals such as lenders, investors, etc. Facebook tends to be a more casual platform where you may be more likely to interact with you clients, but LinkedIn provides a more work-centric atmosphere to diversify into.
If you are interested in producing long-form video content that lets you really go into detail on things like local neighborhoods, home renovation tips, or other things of that nature then YouTube is a great choice. I like YouTube for real estate in particular because it tends to be more “evergreen content”. This is content that you can make once and it will still be there if someone looks you up a year from now. This is also possible through other platforms like Facebook, however those platforms tend to be focused on what you have posted recently. When customers look you up there, they see the top of your timeline and all of your posts get dripped into their feed as you post them. YouTube allows you to have more of a library of content that tends to have longer term appeal and viewership.
Hopefully you now have a greater understanding of the roles different social media platforms can play in your business’ marketing efforts. If you are looking for someone to work with to create content for them feel free to reach out to us here at Pixels and Paper to see what we can do to help build your brand!