More and more Realtors and real estate companies are finally getting on the social media bandwagon before it completely leaves town. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and other user content driven platforms have been providing new opportunities to get your message out and reach new audiences for some time now; it’s good to see the real estate industry finally getting up to speed…well, sort of.
Sadly the same things that make social networking great – cheap/free, easy to use with no coding knowledge required, or graphic design skills, or costly printing – can also allow the average user to cleanly shoot themselves directly in the foot. Too often Realtors and other companies are using social media marketing without having an understanding of the best practices in using those platforms.
The result is a flood of marketing communication that falls short of it’s goals, doesn’t even reach it’s target market, or even worse, ends up causing the Realtor or brokerage to lose valuable leads.
The Cost of Social Media Misuse
Many people fall prey to the thinking that more is better. This is not always the case with social marketing. Neither is social marketing the silver bullet for all your marketing challenges - by having the familiar facebook, twitter, and other icons on your site (and even having accounts connected on those sites) will not magically make your traffic soar or have your phone ringing off the hook. Any time a Realtor or real estate company is the victim to any of these misconceptions the usual results is a lot of fap without much flap.
The negative implications that follow may include the following:
- Wasting marketing, business, technical resources, or funds on low-value communication activities instead of on high-value ones.
- Creating “noise” and causing target audiences to completely tune out.
- Damaging your brand to any future marketing that may have actually gained results.
On average most Americans are exposed to between 600 and 3,000 advertising messages every day – perhaps the best reason that MORE advertising doesn’t necessarily equal EFFECTIVE advertising.
So what’s key? Not More Communication, but More Effective Communication!
Chances are your target audience doesn’t want any more advertising in front of them than they are already getting. Which makes it your job to not offer direct advertising but rather informational communication - you can’t just sell the sizzle anymore, if the client base is actually HUNGRY for steak. At the very least you should put more time and effort into creating quality communications that are well designed, attractive, or even humorous in order to keep your audience interested in what you have to say.
Things to Note and Consider for More Impact
You should first create an effective marketing communications strategy by first choosing which social media platforms provide you with the largest potential client base, as well as the most features, to help you fulfill your communication objectives. By choosing platforms and ingredients strategically,with an eye to how they will complement one another, you will create much better results than using them simply because they have become available. There is nothing wrong with being on every social portal out there because very often they create good backlinks, but choose wisely where and how often you publish your content on those portals.
Less Can Be MORE
Jumping on the latest, greatest social bandwagon without first considering who your audience is and what platform is best for reaching them is the leading cause of ineffective Realtor marketing communications. Social media being often cheap and easy to use is it’s biggest danger; even marketers who should know better are led astray by wanting to get on all available sites without consider if they will be more of a benefit than a waste of time.
And Then? And Then? AND THEN?
Another important thing to consider is the “funny commercial” scenario. You see a commercial on TV the first time and it’s hilarious, you laugh, even maybe tell your friends. You see it the second time, still funny, but not a gut-buster like it was at first. The next time it comes on during the same hour…well…you start loving your DVR. The internet doesn’t have a DVR option; if you are constantly putting out the same content, on 12 different social sites, how many times is someone going to look at it before they are wishing they had a fast forward button?
Offering audiences too many choices for communicating with them, or repetitive messages, can create noise and confusion for you as well as the customer. Did they write you on Facebook or should you be looking for those leads from your blog? While using multiple social forums is good for reaching larger audiences it is important not to be a repeating parrot, or to spread yourself too thin. At the very least make sure you have the point of contact and capture from those portals directed to a single location or limited number of locations – like your Realtor website.
A couple of great methods for boosting the things you are doing on social sites are Realtor eFlyers and lead capture web sites.
eFlyers / Newsletters: Ideal for consolidating information into one location. You can summarize important information, focus on a particular niche, and provide links to pages on your Realtor website or social page where complete information can be found. Give them just a taste in the email and they will follow the link to your site, thus driving up your traffic.
Realtor Lead Capture Sites: A GREAT way to make use of any extra, empty, or forwarded domain names you have laying around. A blank or forwarded domain does almost nothing for your search engine placement or your lead capturing ability. By having a Realtor lead capture website you have the ability to market these stand alone sites based on a specific topic (Foreclosure Homes List, Free Market Analysis etc) to reach a targetted market. They also function as one more backlink to your main website or social profile and best of all they capture leads you can turn into sales.
Ready to Get Started?
Tour Real Estate Inc is the premier Realtor Website and Realtor Marketing provider online today. More than just websites, we offer a wide range of online Realtor marketing and technology to help you move more real estate. Wanting to make more out of your digital presence? Contact TourRE today to find out how we can help you strengthen your online marketing strategy and sell more real estate!
Did you know you can create your own attractive photo tours for your real estate listings through your TourRE Toolbox – for FREE ?
There was a time when anyone who was anyone could be found in the Yellow pages. If you had a business and you weren’t in the big yellow book you might as well have not even in been in business – after all if they can’t find your company in the golden pages of knowledge how would they ever find you or even know you were in business!?
