5 Tips for Building a Successful Real Estate Social Media Marketing Program

Elizabeth Hines

7 years ago

Social media marketing in real estate isn’t just about earning followers; it’s about building relationships.

Social media is an excellent tool for real estate marketers, developers, and property managers for many reasons. You can communicate with residents/tenants, build brand awareness, gain market intelligence, and even identify prospective tenants or buyers.

Particularly if the latter is your focus, it’s easy to celebrate every follower you earn as a marketing success. But it’s important to remember that a social media follower doesn’t necessarily equal a buyer/tenant. After all, participating in social media is not only about earning a large following; it’s about building relationships with those people.

An article published in Entrepreneur says it best: “Content equals marketing; conversation equals a relationship.” Using social media to converse with people and form relationships is what will ultimately drive sales and increase retention.

This is particularly important as younger generations gain buying power. That’s because research shows millennials, in particular, increasingly prefer communicating with brands via social media rather than via phone or email. As you are probably well aware, they aren’t afraid to take to social networks to report a problem or complaint. Your property needs to be using social networking as a conversation platform in order to form meaningful business relationships with these prospects.

So you can’t just distribute content via your social media accounts and expect the followers to start rolling in — and then for those followers to turn into buyers or tenants. Here are some tips for building relationships through real estate social media marketing.

5 ways to build relationships through real estate social media marketing

1) Be the person representing a brand.

Represent your company, but be a real person to whom your prospects or residents/tenants can relate. Do not appear as a brand who is a person; show up as a person who has a brand.

2) Be a real person.

Be personable and real. Open yourself up to conversations that show a bit of the real you. Nothing builds a relationship better than making a genuine connection. In other words, be a real person, not a personality.

3) Show who you are.

In addition to sharing information related to your property, don’t be afraid to sprinkle in a bit of what matters to you in your posts. Photos of bring-your-child-to-work day, pets who regularly visit the office, or even your extra-large coffee during a particularly busy week tell a story that your followers can relate to. These kinds of things are excellent starting points for conversation!

4) Show that you care.

To build a relationship of trust, people need to feel that you care about what is important to them. Go beyond just liking, retweeting, or leaving an encouraging message on your followers’ posts. Actually put yourself out there and respond, invite dialog, and demonstrate that they are someone you value.

5) Be a regular.

Show up on a regular basis to interact with your audience and answer questions. And make sure to respond quickly when someone reaches out to you. Don’t underestimate the power of being there when a customer needs you or has a problem to report.

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