Social Media Marketing for Real Estate Agents
© 2010, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.
What is social media marketing, and how can it help you grow your real estate business? Those are the questions I'd like to focus on with this blog post. By the time you're done reading this quick primer, you'll be ready to plunge into the world of social media marketing.
A social media website is one that allows visitors to contribute content in some way, and to interact with other visitors. YouTube is a good example of a social media website, because it meets both parts of this definition. Visitors can add videos to YouTube, and they can also interact with other members by leaving comments and other notes.
Here are some websites that meet the definition of social media in some way:
Video Sharing Websites
A lot of real estate agents have learned the benefits of posting educational videos online. It's a great way to enhance your website with additional media, and it can also increase traffic to your site. Here are some websites where you can publish such videos:
Networking Websites
Online networking is a great way to grow your real estate business. Forget about MySpace -- that's networking for teens. Here are some business-oriented websites worth checking out:
Social News Websites
If you have company news that fits into one of the categories featured on these websites, you may want to use them to spread the word. A word of caution though -- if it's not newsworthy, don't bother submitting it to these sites.
Many agents who use social media as part of their real estate marketing strategies go about it all wrong. They blunder their way into it, as if they're crashing a dinner party or some other social gathering. When it comes to social media marketing, you need to learn before you leap.
As with any other community, you must learn the "customs" before you plunge into a social media website. For starters, I recommend doing some research to see how other real estate agents are using these sites -- not to copy their ideas or follow the herd, but just to get the lay of the land. This will help you generate ideas on how best to use social media in your own marketing program.
I would also warn you against a common trap for first-time social media marketers, and that's getting stuck in a time-wasting cycle of minutia. I've met more than one real estate agent who complained about sitting at the computer all day, without getting anything out of it.
If you adopt a certain strategy for social media marketing, and it doesn't produce some kind of benefit -- ditch it and move on to something else. Give it an honest effort, but don't be afraid to walk away from it. For example, there's no point updating your Twitter page ten times a day if it doesn't contribute to your business in some way.
With so many different social media sites, you might feel a bit overwhelmed. And trust me ... I've only scratched the surface with the list provided above. So where do you start? Which websites are suitable for real estate marketing purposes? Well, like I said earlier, you'll have to do some research to get started. Once you figure out how these sites work, you'll know which ones might be worth using.
YouTube is a good place for agents to get their feet wet with social media. Here are some tips for using YouTube for real estate marketing purposes:
I hope you've enjoyed this guide to social media as a real estate marketing tool. At the very least, I hope it gives you some usable ideas to implement. Good luck.
Social Media Defined
A social media website is one that allows visitors to contribute content in some way, and to interact with other visitors. YouTube is a good example of a social media website, because it meets both parts of this definition. Visitors can add videos to YouTube, and they can also interact with other members by leaving comments and other notes.
Here are some websites that meet the definition of social media in some way:
Video Sharing Websites
A lot of real estate agents have learned the benefits of posting educational videos online. It's a great way to enhance your website with additional media, and it can also increase traffic to your site. Here are some websites where you can publish such videos:
Networking Websites
Online networking is a great way to grow your real estate business. Forget about MySpace -- that's networking for teens. Here are some business-oriented websites worth checking out:
Social News Websites
If you have company news that fits into one of the categories featured on these websites, you may want to use them to spread the word. A word of caution though -- if it's not newsworthy, don't bother submitting it to these sites.
Tips for Using Social Websites
Many agents who use social media as part of their real estate marketing strategies go about it all wrong. They blunder their way into it, as if they're crashing a dinner party or some other social gathering. When it comes to social media marketing, you need to learn before you leap.
As with any other community, you must learn the "customs" before you plunge into a social media website. For starters, I recommend doing some research to see how other real estate agents are using these sites -- not to copy their ideas or follow the herd, but just to get the lay of the land. This will help you generate ideas on how best to use social media in your own marketing program.
I would also warn you against a common trap for first-time social media marketers, and that's getting stuck in a time-wasting cycle of minutia. I've met more than one real estate agent who complained about sitting at the computer all day, without getting anything out of it.
If you adopt a certain strategy for social media marketing, and it doesn't produce some kind of benefit -- ditch it and move on to something else. Give it an honest effort, but don't be afraid to walk away from it. For example, there's no point updating your Twitter page ten times a day if it doesn't contribute to your business in some way.
Real Estate Marketing Applications
With so many different social media sites, you might feel a bit overwhelmed. And trust me ... I've only scratched the surface with the list provided above. So where do you start? Which websites are suitable for real estate marketing purposes? Well, like I said earlier, you'll have to do some research to get started. Once you figure out how these sites work, you'll know which ones might be worth using.
YouTube is a good place for agents to get their feet wet with social media. Here are some tips for using YouTube for real estate marketing purposes:
- YouTube is a great way to add video content to your real estate website. For one thing, you can actually host the videos on YouTube's domain, which prevents you from using up your own website storage space.
- By adding a keyword-rich description and title to your YouTube videos, there's a good chance they will pop up in relevant Google searches. Google sometimes intersperses videos within their regular search results, in addition to their video search. So it's a great way to increase your online exposure, when done right.
- There are many ways to use videos for real estate marketing purposes. For example, you might create a video update on the state of the real estate market in your city or town. Such as: "San Diego Real Estate Update 2009." You could publish such a video through the sites listed earlier, and it would give you some extra exposure and website traffic. You could even embed the video into your own website or blog, just by copying / pasting the code provided by YouTube.
- If you participate in other social networking sites, such as LinkedIn.com, you could promote your video there as well. Anyone who lives in your area would be interested in such a real estate update.
- Why not create a video section of your website? It will really make the site come alive, and it lets people get to know much better than plain-old text content.
- Remember, you only get out of it what you put into it. Don't publish any videos online until you've done a few practice runs with the production process. I look back at my early videos and cringe. I did not know what I was doing. :-) You'll get better as you go along, so you should make some practice videos before going live across the Internet.
I hope you've enjoyed this guide to social media as a real estate marketing tool. At the very least, I hope it gives you some usable ideas to implement. Good luck.
Labels: Internet Marketing
posted by Brandon at
5:21 PM
