LinkedIn is designed for business, unlike social media platforms. LinkedIn is a great place to generate real estate leads.
Many real estate agents seem to ignore LinkedIn and focus on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
There are more active users on these platforms, but people use them to unwind, rant, and socialize, not to think about buying or selling a home.
On the other hand, people use LinkedIn when they’re in business mode. Some people might even use it to help find an agent to sell their home, as a professional white pages. There is a good chance, if they come across you elsewhere, that they will also check you out on LinkedIn before doing business with you. People used LinkedIn for due diligence, if you will.
Your LinkedIn presence should demonstrate you knowledge and expertise to compell the why somebody should use you as their agent. Why you’re the best Realtor in town. Having a great profile page is the first step in generating LinkedIn Real Estate Leads.
How To Generate LinkedIn Real Estate Leads:
How Real Estate Agents Can Use LinkedIn to Easily Contact High Net Worth People
One of the most frustrating things about trying to break into luxury real estate is not having the Rolodex that some agents start with. After all, no matter how talented you are, the agent down the hall who has a dozen millionaires in their sphere has a natural advantage. They already have a foot in the door to get that all-important, first high net worth client.
All you need to do is start connecting with people in their sphere, then add the high net worth person you want to pitch. Or, even better, sign up for a LinkedIn Premium or Business account, which gets you five or 10 InMails (LinkedIn’s paid messaging feature) per month, respectively, along with unlimited people searches, competitor data, industry news, analytics, and more.
Sure, it’s not a free way to generate LinkedIn Real Estate Leads, but just remember your message will be one among four or five, instead of one among four or five hundred if you had sent an email instead.
Target by Professional, Instead of Personal, Relationships to Generate LinkedIn Real Estate Leads
While it’s true that some buyers or sellers like working with people who share the same interests, many don’t care who your favorite baseball team is. Instead, they want to relate with you on a professional level.
For example, successful people tend to donate to their alma maters, and also value working with alumni. This is why joining alumni associations can be a great networking tool. Of course, you can also join alumni associations on LinkedIn.
So now instead of seeing that you both prefer rose over white wine, they will see that you went to the same university. For many people, this is a more powerful connection.
LinkedIn’s Lower Signal-to-Noise Ratio Means Your Content Stands Out More
One of the biggest problems with using social media to generate leads is that it’s too damn popular to get eyeballs on your content. Blog posts, Instagram Stories, and videos all take time, effort, and sometimes money to make. Getting zero engagement on big social media platforms makes them almost worthless.
That might seem like an oxymoron, but spend even a few days trying to get engagement on your Facebook page for content you worked hard on and you’ll see what we mean.
There’s just too many people vying for attention for anything but a fire hose of content to get any engagement at all. Of course, that backfires too because your friends and sphere will very quickly grow tired of your constant posting. The algorithm will learn that people dislike your content, and you’re back to square one.
Since there are fewer people trying to impress the same audience and you don’t have to compete with cute puppies and kittens, LinkedIn can get you a much higher engagement rate than other social media platforms.
If you’ve been slaving away on Facebook or Instagram for the past few months, you know just how rare this kind of engagement is on those platforms.
LinkedIn WANTS You to Connect With People and Geenerate LinkedIn Real Estate Leads
Maybe the best reason LinkedIn is so great for real estate agents is that the app is designed for you to connect with relevant people. Think about it. LinkedIn can only thrive as a platform if people can connect to professionals who will help them advance their career. That means they are actively trying to set you up with buyers and sellers or others who can refer you to them.
Dating sites live or die based on the same strategy. If you get dates, the site does well. If you don’t, it will fail.
LinkedIn can see who you’re reaching out to via email or even who is visiting your website. It will then sometimes offer that person as a potential connection on the platform.
You Can Cut Through the Noise Even Faster With Hashtags & Engagement
One of the most important things to understand about competing in large groups is that success almost always follows a mathematical model called the Pareto principle: the idea that in many large networks, the vast majority of the action is done by a very small number of people. For example, 15% of Twitter users are responsible for 95% of all tweets.
In most businesses, you’ll find that 20% of your outreach efforts produce 80% of your revenue. The more you look, the more you’ll find examples of the Pareto principle in the world.
As you might imagine, the same is true for LinkedIn. The vast majority of people on LinkedIn NEVER post anything and never reach out to anyone except to connect. I know I never have.
That means that if you do regularly post content and use hashtags and a mix of content, you will be much more likely to have your content seen by people on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Premium Offers Key Advantages for Agents
One of the most frustrating things about LinkedIn is that they may tell you how many people viewed your profile, but not WHO visited your profile. Since they’re not exactly a charity, they only let you see who’s checking you out if you sign up for LinkedIn Premium.
Find Out Who Is Viewing Your Profile
Of course, knowing who is looking at your profile is pretty important when you’re looking for a job, but can be equally important when trying to drum up leads on the platform. For example, if you notice a homeowner you just gave a listing presentation to check out your profile, that could be a cue to send them a quick follow-up email.
InMail Messages
While knowing who is looking at your profile is important information worth paying for, the only way you can message people who are not in your network is by signing up for Premium. It’s not cheap either. You only get 15 InMails per month when you sign up for their “Business” tier for a little under $50 per month. For a little under $60 per month, you only get 20 InMail messages.
Other Opportunities: Buying Ads & Sponsored Posts
Of course, if you’re pressed for time or don’t want to learn yet another social media platform, LinkedIn also offers a ton of paid promotion options that you can use to reach leads. Just be aware that since LinkedIn is a business-to-business (B2B) channel, advertising on LinkedIn is not cheap.
Nevertheless, even though there are still some real estate lead generation strategies out there, the price of good leads has been on the rise for years now. Gone are the days of generating dirt-cheap leads from Facebook ads. There’s just too much competition.
On LinkedIn, you can build audiences and create sponsored content, messaging ads, or text ads for lead generation, site visits, or what LinkedIn was designed for—recruiting real estate agents.
If you want to try your hand at advertising on LinkedIn, here’s a quick rundown of what they offer:
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content on LinkedIn works pretty much the way it does on Facebook. You write an insightful and timely blog post, then pay LinkedIn to promote it for you. Like on Facebook, there are no set fees for sponsored content. Instead, you bid on placement with other advertisers.
LinkedIn Messaging Ads
Taking another page from Facebook’s Messenger advertising options, LinkedIn also offers advertising in private messages. You can create messaging ads for brand awareness, recruiting or lead generation, and can even spark engagement with conversation ads.
Text Ads
Of course, the bread and butter of LinkedIn’s advertising options are text ads. Unlike sponsored posts that only show up in someone’s feed, text ads appear on the right-hand side of the homepage, giving your ads much more reach.
