Generating high-quality social media content for real estate and posting it consistently on the right social networks is critical when it comes to effective marketing and branding. However, creating that content is easier said than done. In this article, I’ll give you 10 powerful strategies to create better real estate social media content to help you meet your marketing and business goals.
Create Platform Specific Social Media Content
Posts with video or images that also contain some narrative. Of all the platforms, Facebook is likely the place where the broadest type of content will work. But your content topics should stick close to community and connection to people. – That’s what works best on Facebook.
Posts on Instagram should be very visual. The most aesthetic of all the social networks, beautiful imagery, and video rules Instagram. If you’ve got an eye for interior design or fine finishes, this is where you should be.
Most popular on the East and West Coasts, Twitter is all about news and events as they’re happening. To be successful on Twitter, your content needs to be timely, actionable, and a part of the conversation.
The most unsocial of all the social networks, Pinterest is a visual search engine where people connect more with topics than with one another. If you want to be successful here, your “pins” have to connect to really solid content off Pinterest (e.g. Your Website), so make sure your blog game is strong.
YouTube
YouTube is the original hub for video on the internet. Successful YouTube content can take many forms, but for Real Estate Agents, offering longer-form (10 minutes or more) content here makes sense, since the other platforms (mainly Instagram and TikTok) are where people are looking for shorter-form videos.
Create Social Media Content With Your Business Goals in Mind
A lot of real estate professionals mistakenly create the social media content that they want to see instead of what supports their business goals, and honestly, it’s an understandable misstep. After all, most of us are using social media in our personal lives to share the things that we like—the experiences we’ve had doing the things that matter to us, simply for the purpose of connecting with our friends and family.
But, that’s not why we create social media for our real estate business.
The purpose of social media for a real estate business is to engage your clients, leads, and prospects in your sales funnel, converting their engagement into a transaction. Yes, it has other purposes too, but at the end of the day, your social media is an extension of your branding and a tool for your marketing.
So, every time you’re in creation mode for social media content, ask yourself, “How will this post get me closer to my professional goals?” If you don’t have an answer, rethink your strategy.
Use Images & Video Wherever Possible. No, Seriously.
The data on this is clear: social media posts with imagery see engagement rates 94% higher than those without.
Video? Nearly nine out 10 social media consumers prefer video content. Studies show that viewers of video content retain an incredible 94% of the information delivered in video format the following day, compared to a paltry 10% of the content of a text-only post.
The bottom line is people want video. It’s easier to consume, and your viewers are more likely to remember what you’ve said after they see it. Frankly, if you’re not willing to put the time in on making imagery and video a cornerstone of your social media strategy, you might want to rethink social altogether.
Leave the Difficult-to-Create Content to a Social Media Content Service
We’ve all got our strengths and weaknesses. For most real estate professionals (those of us without a professional marketing or copywriting background), some social media content will be hard to create well—much less consistently.
If this is you, you should strongly consider using a content creation service like Social Pro, offered as a part of the iMaxCRM. With Social Pro, you get weekly, personalized, high-performing social media content developed specifically for you and your market. All you need to do is plug it into your overall social media marketing strategy.
Check out iMaxCRM today to see if our Real Estate CRM and Social Pro service is right for you.
Recycle Your Content Across Platforms as Little as Possible
If you’re going all-in on a social media strategy that spans multiple networks, you need to avoid recycling the same content in multiple places as much as possible. Here’s why:
If you’ve done the hard work to get your clients, leads, and prospects to follow you on multiple platforms, they’re clearly interested in what you have to offer, and in the value you provide. If you simply repost the same video on three different platforms, you’re not offering more value. In fact, you’re garnering negative brand attention by repeating a stale message over and over.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t create content with a common message or theme, but if you’re going to be active on more than one social media network, create custom content for each one.
Vary Your Content’s Production Quality
We know, it sounds crazy to produce and release content with anything but the highest-possible production quality, but hear us out. If all your social media content is ultra-polished, it can actually create a barrier between you and the people you want to work with. If your social posts make you seem unapproachable or someone your audience can’t personally identify with, they’re less likely to reach out and start conversations with you.
What does this mean for real estate agents putting together their posting strategy? It means that your content should range from highly polished (think property listing videos on Facebook)—to mid-level polish (think TikTok videos all about your favorite restaurants in your hometown)—to low-level polish (think candid, behind-the-scenes photos of your office for Instagram).
If this sounds like a lot to think about, trust us, it is. But that forethought is worth it. Remember, this isn’t a hobby, this is your business—invest in it.
Create Social Media Content Designed to Trigger Emotion
Social media companies like Facebook and Instagram (both owned by Meta) have gone on the record as saying the most successful content on their platforms is content that elicits an emotional response from their users.
Any trained marketer will tell you that this concept squares with what most learn on their first day in Marketing 101: an effective advertisement doesn’t just prompt someone to do something—it first prompts them to feel something.
Real estate agents can take this strategy and apply it to their social media planning by not only game-planning what they want consumers of their content to do after reading / watching (e.g., fill out this form, come to my open house, etc.), but also game plan how a post is intended to make people feel.
We suggest targeting feelings like “motivated,” “empowered,” and “excited.”
Create Social Media Content That Demonstrates Action, Knowledge, or Experience (or all 3!)
Effective real estate marketing content demonstrates one or a combination of the following:
- Action: You are an active agent or broker, successfully conducting business that your prospective buyers and sellers would like to conduct.
- Knowledge: You are an expert in the market your clients are interested in buying or selling in and that market knowledge will enable their success.
- Experience: Your experience as a professional (and a person) will give you the skills you need to solve the problems of your prospective buyers and sellers.
The bottom line is that social media has become a tool of verification. People want to confirm that you are who you say you are, that you know what you say you know, and can do what you say you can do. Use your social media content to give them that social proof.
Create Content That Has a ‘Next Step’
We touched on this in tip #2, but it’s so important that it bears repeating: your real estate social media content needs to have a “next step” in mind.
Whatever type of content you’re creating—a post about a new listing, a success story from a recent client, a shoutout to a local business, and so on—you need to have a next step in mind for people after they consume your content. You should measure your success, in part, based on how many people take that next step.
Likes, comments, and follows are rarely the goal on their own, and when they are, they are in pursuit of building a larger audience so that you can one day convert that audience into active buyers and sellers.
So, make sure you have a game plan for what you want people to do with the information you provide them. Do you want them to fill out a form? Visit a website? Attend an event? Call you or text you? Measure your success based on these outcomes.
Stop Trying to ‘Go Viral’ With Your Social Media Content
“Going viral,” or having your social media content spread across a platform thanks to lots of sharing and engagement, is really hard to do. In fact, it happens so rarely, even for social media influencers with large organic followings, that it shouldn’t be a part of your strategy at all.
Your goal with your real estate social media content should be to create consistent, high-quality posts that offer value to readers every time and have a strategized next step or outcome you can use to measure your success.
Social Media Reality Check: You Shouldn’t Be Active on Every Platform
Don’t be fooled by all the professional content creators out there insisting you simply have to be a TikTok star or an Instagram influencer. The fact of the matter is, you likely don’t have the bandwidth to be successful on every social media platform.
We suggest you start with being active on one social network at a time. Establish yourself there, get a positive return on investment (ROI) going from your efforts, and only then should you consider adding another to your marketing routine.
How do you choose where to start (or what to add)? When considering a social media network, ask yourself the following three questions:
- Are my prospects / clients active here?
- Can I create the content that performs well on this platform?
- Does my schedule allow me to post on this platform with the frequency required for success?
If the answer to these three questions is yes, you’ve found a starting point to begin (or expand to) on social media.
