How to Spy on Your Competition in Real Estate

You know those agents that tell you how they get SO MUCH business from Facebook?

But, when you ask them HOW they’re getting all this business, they don’t really give an answer?

Yah, I know those agents too. And here’s a tip to SPY on them – and find out exactly what kind of ads they’re running!

How to Get More People to Engage With Your Posts on Social Media

I follow a lot of real estate agents on social media and was struck by how BORED I was seeing the same old boring listings marketed for sale. Obviously, they were different listings from different agents – but the effect was the same. And, if I’m bored, imagine how your audience that doesn’t work in real estate feels! 

So, this is the second installment of our “how not to be boring” series. This video has tips that you can easily incorporate into your listing marketing strategy on social media. It doesn’t cost anything either! (See the first installment here.)

How to Market Your Listings on Social Media

I follow a lot of real estate agents on social media and was struck by how BORED I was seeing the same old boring listings marketed for sale. Obviously, they were different listings from different agents – but the effect was the same. And, if I’m bored, imagine how your audience that doesn’t work in real estate feels! 

So, this is the first installment of our “how not to be boring” series. This video has tips that you can easily incorporate into your listing marketing strategy on social media. It doesn’t cost anything either! 

How to get engagement on your facebook business page

Social media can be rather tricky when you’re using it to grow your real estate business. In this video we’ve got some tips on how you can get more likes, loves, comments and shares by increasing the level of engagement with your posts. AND, scroll down for the Attract a Perfect Client bonus! 

First things first…

I assume that you’re feeding Facebook the types of posts it will actually show to your audience. Right? If so, great!. If not, check this post out.

Some tough love

If you’re not getting engagement on your real estate business page, meaning you’re not getting the likes and loves and comments you want, do you think maybe it’s because you’re posting about YOU and not your AUDIENCE?

Remember this: At the end of the day, people ONLY care about themselves.

So, when you post about a new listing?

NO ONE CARES. 

When you post about how amazing at real estate you are….

NO ONE CARES. 

But, if you post something that your audience might relate to – that’s when the magic happens! 

For example – think about your perfect client… what is something your perfect client might be totally into?

• Are they dog lovers?
• Are they local sports fans?
• Do they brunch every weekend?
• Are they foodies?
• Maybe wine snobs?
• Are they totally into organic food and farmers markets?
• Maybe they just love scoring a deal on anything, but especially at Target.

So, why not post about THOSE things?

You don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, all real estate, all the time.

If you’re not quite sure how to figure this out, you’re in luck. I’ve got a worksheet that will help you nail down your PERFECT AUDIENCE. Scroll down and tell me where to send it and I’ll email it ASAP.

Knowing your audience is half the battle to getting engagement on your Facebook business page.

Ultimately, don’t post about YOU.

Post about THEM and what THEY like – and you’ll see the engagement on your posts increase. 

Once you have their attention, then you can WOW them with your real estate skills. Even then, you’ll want to consider THEIR point of view of the real estate process. 

And then when they need a real estate agent, you’re the FIRST person they’ll call!

Get more organic reach on Facebook using the exact posts that Facebook prefers. (aka FEED Facebook!)

When you feed Facebook what it wants, you’ll be rewarded with more organic reach.

Organic reach: your posts will reach MORE of your audience – for FREE.

In this video I’m going to share the 5 ways to feed Facebook starting with the BEST and most preferred. That leaves the WORST for last.

1. Facebook Live

Facebook’s FAVORITE post is a Facebook live! When you do a Facebook live, Facebook will reward you by notifying your audience that you’re live and giving that post a little extra Facebook love by sharing it with MORE of your audience.

2. Video

If you can’t do a Facebook live, the 2nd favorite post is an uploaded video. Facebook loves video although it loves live video the most.

3. Image

The 3rd most preferred post is one with an image. Something eye catching to get your audiences attention. Image posts do very well with the Facebook algorithm, just not as good as video or FB lives.

4. Text Only

Maybe you don’t have a video or an image. So, you post text only. This type of post doesn’t usually perform well with Facebook – because it’s not feeding Facebook what it wants. ” /> So, it’s not the worst type of post, but it’s close.

5. Link

Finally, if you want to make sure your post goes nowhere fast, feed Facebook a link. Links seem pretty innocent because they’re potentially sharing valuable information with your audience, right?

WRONG.

Facebook hates links because they encourage people to LEAVE FACEBOOK.

Makes sense that their clever algorithm would be programmed to keep people ON Facebook doesn’t it?

But, don’t just take my word for it. Post one of these posts daily for the next 5 days and comment below which one(s) worked the best, and which posts bombed.

USING INSTAGRAM STORIES TO GROW YOUR REAL ESTATE BUSINESS

In Savvy Agent Club, we regularly talk about how to use social media to grow your real estate business. And, we just completed a month of training how to use Instagram Stories. So, it made perfect sense to bring my friend, Shannon Salmon, on to share her best tips and strategies at using Instagram stories to grow your real estate business.

You can follow Shannon on Instagram here.

What I like about her stories is that they’re REAL.

She does stories on her business, her life, being a mom – all the things that together help define this BOSS of a lady.

Check it out!

Top Takeaways:

Using social media (including Stories) for your business doesn’t mean you should be BORING.

Actually, you should do EVERYTHING you can to not be boring. Follow the 80/20 rule by limiting 20% of your content to self promotion.

All real estate – all the time – is an absolute snooze fest.

Put yourself out there. It gets easier.

The first time you go live, it’s nerve wracking. But, you get over it. Just put your content out there. Just rip the band-aid off and DO IT. Plus, if you’re worried about what you look like – use a filter!

Social media is FREE.

Why wouldn’t you take advantage of a resource that helps you get in front of people and doesn’t cost anything?!? But, remember that if you expect to GET engagement, you need to GIVE it. It’s not a one-way road so you should definitely make sure you comment, like, etc on other peoples posts.

If you have an accent – USE IT.

The rest of us that don’t have an accent are totally jealous. And, if you don’t have an accent, it’s OK – you can create your own brand. (Shannon talks about this around 9:00.)

You don’t have to spend hours a day on social media.

Part of the fun of social media is getting to know our friends or the people we’re following better. Give yourself permission to share your life. And, in case you need me to tell you, have some grace to share your perfectly IMPERFECT life. (Honestly, no one is fooled by those with “perfect” lives.) So when you share your life, it’s easy to find the content. If you’re not sure what to share, think about the top 3-4 things that light you up. Real estate is likely 1 of those. Kids, pets, cooking, sports, etc – are other examples of what might light you up.

When you post about things that you really care about, people will notice and appreciate!

Shannon’s favorite apps:

Wordswag – Add words to a picture. Promote your open house or other interesting things about your listings. Create your own quote cards!

PicsArt – This is great for adding logos and headshots to your images.

iMovie – Every week Shannon does a “where is she wednesday” bit and she uses iMovie to film those interviews with local businesses. Easy peasy!

Ripl – Shannon uses this app to create videos to promote her listings or open houses. There are templates that make it easy and fun.

Remote – this isn’t an app, but you can get a remote to start and stop your video without getting your finger in the shot! Try this one on Amazon for less than $9!

My favorite part…

Keep it simple. You do not have to go crazy. No need to hire a social media agency to create a strategy for you. (Actually, if you want some of this stuff done for you – you should check out Savvy Agent Club.) Don’t worry about the number of followers that you have! Stay focused on creating content that rings true to YOU and that your audience engages with. Keep it short, keep it quick, keep it on topic. Keep it simple!

To sum it up

Social media is a long game. If you make ONE post about a house – don’t expect to get a buyer immediately. It takes time to find your groove and grow your following. Pick the social media platform you want to start with. Work on just ONE platform at a time. Two if you absolutely must. Pick ONE thing – and get good at it. Then, you might want to add another platform. It’s all trial and error, so give yourself the opportunity to try, fail, try again and succeed!

Do you follow the 80/20 rule?

I know, you can’t wait to hear about another damn rule! But, the 80/20 rule is possibly one of the most important rules on social media! Here’s how it works:

80% of your posts should be about your audience
20% of your posts can be about YOU, your listings, the services you provide, etc.

So what does your audience WANT to see?

Remember, you’re posting on social media, so you want to be interesting, fun and not salesy. Think about what your audience is interested in.

What do they like/love and/or comment on your page? What do they post about themselves? These are clues to what types of posts/content you could post.

If your page is dead and doesn’t get many likes/loves/comments – then definitely start a TEST and change up your content. It might be hard to post something that’s NOT real estate related but you can do it! Here’s a few ideas to start you out…

• Best local places for swim lessons
• Your favorite place(s) to get pizza (or any other food/beverage for that matter)
• A beautiful street (do not mention anything about YOU or real estate!!) Keep it simple – this is my favorite street in {my_city} because I just love the {trees, flowers, view, whatever reason you love}.
• Farmer’s Market – could be location of your favorites, you could visit one and post some pics of neat things at the market, or ask for a recommendation of THEIR favorite market (asking for recommendations works better once the page has some good engagement, if it’s a dead page – this might fall flat)
• Bike trails – does your town/city/neighborhood have bike trails? If you were on the trail – are there any fun/cool stops one could make?
• Fantastic sales at local stores. Maybe there’s a fantastic sale on ribs at your favorite grocery store (this happened to me just this weekend!) that you can pass along to your audience.

Don’t be afraid to BE you, just don’t BRAG about you.

The people that follow your page know you’re in real estate and they likely know you’re amazing at it. No need to be all real estate, all the time. Give your audience the opportunity to get to know you better while serving them content they’re actually interested in, simply by following this 80/20 rule.

Try lots of different types of posts – some with pictures, some with videos and (gasp) some with Facebook Lives! Ask questions to generate comments – but don’t go overboard because that looks like engagement bait after a while.

Then, after a few weeks evaluate which posts received the most likes/loves/comments and then do MORE of those.

The beauty of the 80% rule is that the more people like/love/comment on your posts – MORE of your posts will show in their newsfeed. Which means there’s a greater chance they’ll actually see one of your 20% posts about a new listing or open house. It’s a win/win because your audience is getting to know you, like you more, and definitely trust you – while being entertained by your posts!

If you’re in Savvy Agent Club, the Conversation Starters are a good option to generate engagement on your page. And, then for the 20% posts, you can always fill in some blanks with an image (or 2 or 3) from the Graphics Library. And, if you’re not in the Club, you can get more info here.

Has anyone sold a house from Facebook Live?

Have you ever wondered if anyone has sold a house from Facebook live? An agent asked me that question the other day and I was stumped for a second. I just couldn’t believe they didn’t know!

It’s like the question – has anyone ever sold a house at an open house?

But, of course, the answer is YES (to both). But, that’s not really the point of a Facebook live. (Or the open house, for that matter.)

So what IS the point?

Using Facebook Live is a cheap and easy way to get your content in front of MORE people for FREE or LOW, LOW cost.

But WHY (it’s not like we don’t have enough to do!)?!?!

Because the more people see your Facebook live(s), the more they have the chance to get to KNOW you, LIKE you, and TRUST you.

Remember the first time you saw a Gary Vee video?

OMG – the 1st Wine Library video! 

You might have thought – this is interesting. And then you saw another one. And another. And now maybe you listen to his podcast or follow him religiously. Or, just know that when you do see a Gary Vee video – it’s worth watching.

Or, when Tom Ferry started the Tom Ferry Show a few years ago… remember the first one you saw?

Episode 1 of the Tom Ferry Show! 

Maybe you already knew Tom and these videos just made you want MORE? Maybe you’d never heard of him but now you subscribe to his email list. Heck, maybe you even pay him for coaching!

These are great examples of how Facebook Lives (and videos in general) let you know, like and trust a business person.

Remember, anyone doing FB lives was once new at it too. No one is expecting you to be a media mogul right outta the gate. But, if you don’t give yourself a chance to get YOUR message out there – YOUR next clients might go somewhere else because they don’t know you’re a choice.

Facebook live also gives you great options to leverage your content (aka videos). Here’s a few examples:

·         Social proof on your FB page – when people are looking at agents, or researching YOU, you’ll have more video social proof aka: knowledge bombs, than the competition.

·         Emails that contain some value. If you answer unasked questions – people who you’re warming up on your list will be like “wow, this agent knows what’s up – it’s like she’s a mind reader!”

·         Recycle your lives to YouTube and now you’ve got a channel. More for email housing – you can embed these in your emails

·         Upload the video to your blog, or embed your FB post to your blog. Now you’re blogging, check one more to do list task complete.

·         RE-TARGET THE SHIT OUT OF THE VIDEO VIEWS – that’s where you move people further into your sales funnel.

So, that’s why everyone says “do Facebook Live” – not because they’re selling houses left and right – but because they’re expanding their audience and leveraging the videos in their business. And, you CAN too!

Real Estate Update:

Fake Engagement is a Terrible Idea

In this video, (from a Facebook live), I implore you to not use this terrible strategy of an engagement pod!

What’s an Engagement Pod?

This post was inspired by a group admin I saw encouraging everyone to engage with each others pages and posts. Now, this strategy might work for local restaurants, mommy pages or DIY pages. But the group was filled with real estate agents and by participating in an engagement pod, you’re not doing your page (or posts) any favors. 

Engagement pods can be found at the PAGE level or at a POST level. Both are bad ideas.

A PAGE engagement pod would be exactly what this group admin was perpetuating. She had a post that encouraged agents to drop a link to their Facebook business page so that other people in the group could go LIKE their page. And of course if you drop a link to your own page the expectation is that you like the links that other agents drop. I’ve seen these pods for Instagram profiles too. 

A POST engagement pod would be where you share a link to a social media post (Facebook or Instagram) and other people in your engagement pod like, love or comment on your post. 

The problem is the people you’re encouraging to engage with your page or post – are NOT your target audience. 

The reason people start engagement pods is to try to game the algorithm. So if you and all of your real estate friends said, “Okay, I’m going to like your page. You like my page. I’m going to like your post. I’m going to comment on your post.” So thinking you’re going to essentially trick algorithm by making it seem like your post is super engaging and they’ll show it to more of your audience. 

The algorithm is smarter than you think.

Facebook’s algorithm is pretty smart. And, Facebook owns Instagram so you KNOW they also use the same smart algorithm. (Or a smart variation specific to Instagram anyway.)

Essentially, the algorithm is going to see that you have real estate agents from several other states liking your page and commenting on a post. Being a smart little algorithm, it’s going to deduce that you WANT to share your content with people JUST LIKE THESE OTHER AGENTS. 

But that’s the WRONG target audience. 

So in theory, you’re getting more likes and more engagement on a post. But, not really because of how the algorithm interprets that engagement. Imagine that Facebook is going to say, “Oh, well, geez, Heather is in Des Moines, Iowa, but all of a sudden these people in seven other states are liking her stuff, so that must be her audience.” 

If real estate agents are your actual audience, then this is a strategy that could work for you. Savvy Agent’s target audience is going to be real estate agents. But, when it comes to selling real estate in my local market, I only want people who live in my area or are thinking about moving to my area.

PLUS, what happens when the engagement pod peters out and everyone has gone their separate ways? Now you have a bunch of real estate agents that like your page – but NEVER engage. And, they don’t engage with you because they’re not your target audience. The things that you’re posting aren’t created for their social media enjoyment, are they? 

But what about agents that sell your listings?

Now I know you might be thinking, “But what if I post a listing on my Facebook business page, and you know Suzie Q the agent that likes my page, she sees the listing and sells it.”

I get that. And if you want real estate agents on your page for that reason because you’re spamming Facebook with your listing, that’s up to you. I don’t recommend it for an effective social media strategy, but, you can totally do that.

Or, you could create a separate page that is just for listings in your town. For example: Homes For Sale in Chicago. Or, Homes For Sale in San Diego. And then post your listings and pimp your friends out to post their listings on that page too, and then the audience truly is real estate agents.

What is your ultimate goal?

Typically, a real estate agent would use their Instagram or Facebook business page to generate leads and connect with their audience. And/or to share social proof! Fake engagement from other real estate agents isn’t going to help you reach your local target audience because you’re confusing the algorithm. And, it’s going to mess your page up. It will ultimately kill all engagement because, honestly, who wants to engage with a bunch of real estate agents?

Imagine that you have a post that seven agents from seven other states are liking and making comments on. Then, Bob from your town sees the post. And he sees the engagement. But he also notices that the people commenting appear to be real estate agents. Bob’s going to think, “Oh well, I guess this is for real estate agents. I’m not going to engage with this because I’m not an agent and I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m talking about.” 

Just say no. 

These are the main reasons why you should not be involved with engagement pods. Don’t give fake engagement! And, don’t encourage other real estate agents to like or comment on your post because it’s not doing you a favor. Don’t get tricked by someone in a group that tells you it’s a good idea. Because it’s not. It’s a bad idea.

Get real engagement

Instead, why don’t you post things that your audience might actually be interested in? Consider the people that you WANT to connect with and what THEY would respond to. What are the questions that they have that you could answer? So maybe by doing a post answering an unasked question, or something fun that’s local, you give yourself the ability to connect with them on their level.

A sign you have a good post is when your true target audience engages with you by liking, loving or commenting on it. It stands to reason that you’re going to have to test a lot of content until you find what your audience will respond to. Then, when you get that post that has good engagement from your page you can run an engagement ad. The Facebook and Instagram algorithms somehow know exactly who to serve that post to, to get additional likes, loves and comments. Then, you can invite those new people to like your page. Slowly but surely you’re going to build an engaged social media following! 

If you’re not sure who your target audience is or what you should be posting to get their engagement, then you should download our free training: Attract the Perfect Client.