Social media can be one of the most powerful tools you have to build your brand and business, but without a social media strategy that works, it will quickly become a digital dead end. Don’t waste your time by making the mistake of jumping into social media without a plan. Know how to benefit from social media so that you consistently experience valuable results.
A successful social media presence is all about quality – not quantity. Creating an effective, and engaging social media presence takes time and experience. If you aren’t going to hire someone to run your social media strategy, follow these four fundamental tips below to build an effective and consistent presence.
- Start with a strategy
Before you build, plan. Clearly define what your goals are for social media to build a strategy that enhances your current brand and is consistent with your core business values. Don’t sign up for every platform, only focus on the ones that make sense for your brand and the content you will be delivering. For example, if you are more visual and have seen your clientele engage with your visual storytelling, Instagram and Facebook might be the best choices for your business. If you have a blog and follow real estate thought leaders, Facebook and Twitter could be the best networks for you to invest in. Regardless of which ones you choose, you need to commit to creating content that your followers will find valuable and is inline with your professional brand.
- Create great content
Too many people fall into the trap of posting content for the sake of posting something. Posting content that isn’t relevant, consistent with your brand, or useful to your followers is one of the fastest ways to tank your online presence. Creating and delivering great content is the most important element to building a successful social media presence. Content that is engaging and shareable will drive word-of-mouth marketing and can be the make or break influencing factor that converts followers to clients.
Start by following 10 real estate industry thought leaders and look at what type of content they are delivering and how.
Check out:
- Scott McGillivray @smcgillivray,
- Laura Monroe @lauramonroe, or
- Katie Lance @katielance
The most successful social media brands are human and are authentic to the business behind the accounts. Think about your own areas of expertise and what types of questions or problems your clients face. Blogging is one of the ways to create great content that you can share on social media. With each post, aim to capture leads by motivating your followers to take action, by downloading your eBook, join you mailing list or subscribe to your newsletter – all can be managed in your real estate CRM. IXACT Contact agent websites include built-in blog functionality, making it quick and easy for you to start blogging. And if you’re too stretched for time to write, IXACT provides bi-weekly blog posts to supplement your own posts.
- Engage with your community
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make when they are new to social media is to overlook the fact that social media is a two-way communication channel. This means that not only do you need to commit to delivering great content, you also need to spend time listening to your online communities and responding to their reactions, questions and content. Listening online is one of the best investments you can make because these digital conversations reveal a lot about the real estate needs and concerns your clients have, and these conversations can become great content for you to respond to. IXACT Contact’s ‘Social Intelligence’ feature gives you immediate access to all your contacts’ social media pages – making it easy to engage with them via social media right from within your CRM.
- Turn followers into clients
Start experiencing the benefits of social media today!
Start your FREE 5 week free trial of IXACT Contact now.
