A Guide To Social Media Marketing For Real Estate In 2024

Social media marketing for real estate acts as an excellent resource for people looking to buy a house and has a significant influence on every step of a buyer's decision-making journey.

There were times when yard signs and newspaper ads were enough to flip houses. However, with the rapid advancement in technology, buyers these days are much more aware and are actively looking for properties online.

It's unlikely for buyers to put down the deposit by just looking at some Facebook posts or tweets. But having a rock-solid social media strategy for real estate can get you amazing results.

In this blog post, we'll take a look at:

Why do real estate businesses need to be on social media?
How to craft a social media strategy for real estate?
What is the importance of social media management for real estate?
Social Media Management Tool For Real Estate Marketing

You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.

Click here to download detailed infographic on six steps to craft a social media strategy for real estate.

Jump directly to our key takeaways section to get a quick view of the best tips on social media marketing for real estate.

It won't be an understatement to say that social media has revolutionized the real estate business.

"77% of realtors actively use social media for real estate"

Social media has turned out to be one of the best possible ways for realtors to connect with potential buyers and grow their business online. Some of the key benefits of using social media for real estate are:

Cost-Effective Reach
Targetted Advertising
Brand Reinforcement
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Instant Engagement

Real Estate Case Study That Shows The Power Of Social Media

San Francisco based real estate group, The Costa Group, witnessed an increase in engagement on Instagram by 496%. With the help of a massive redesigning of The Costa Group's Instagram feed by Studio Lavi, the real estate business witnessed an 8,000% increase in their followers and an increase of 496% in engagement.

By developing an organic targeting strategy via Instagram's direct messaging, The Costa Group closed more than $750,000 worth of real estate deals. Here's how you can create an effective social media strategy for your real estate business.

These days, it's hard to stand out and get your message to the potential customer. Thus crafting a social media strategy for real estate that is two-fold and caters to both sellers and buyers is important.

Follow these six steps to craft a social media strategy for your real estate business.

Research Your Customer's Persona
Define Your Social Media Goals
Identify The Best Social Media Networks For Real Estate
Create High Quality Content
Pick A Target Audience And Advertise Smartly
Analyze, Optimize, And Repeat

1. Research Your Customer's Persona

Create separate personas for both buyers and sellers since they have distinct preferences for how they would like to buy or sell a property.

The key is to start broad and then generalize a lot.

Start by gathering information for your persona creation and identify their age, income, lifestyle, etc. Give your persona a personality and segment the customers into 3-4 core personas. Define their needs and goals and learn their problems and challenges that can act as a dealbreaker when flipping a house.

Questions like these can help you define your buyer persona:

How much are they generally spending?
How much home-owning experience do they have?
What internet channels they spend the most time on?

Ask questions similar to these to define your seller persona:

Are they moving to a new city?
Are they looking to buy a bigger property?
Are they aware of the asking price their home will sell for?

SMART goals help you stay motivated by giving you the ability to track your progress.

Let's say you want to increase your GCI (gross commission income) by $550,000 from social media. Here's how you can breakdown your target into SMART goals and achieve this milestone.

Specific: Every social media real estate business goal you set should be clear, simple, and precise.

For ex: Increase $550,000 in GCI by focusing on a relationship-based strategy and close 50 deals at an average price of $400,000 with an average commission of 2.75%.

Measurable: Set social media goals that have metrics and KPI's. Track the number of appointments completed, contracts signed, deals closed, commissions received and income sourced.

Attainable: Set goals that are challenging enough to push you to your limits, but also are practical enough to accomplish.

Relevant: Setting goals that matter to the current state of your business efforts is important.

Time-Bound: While setting a goal of increasing your GCI by $550,000 is ambitious, giving it a deadline to accomplish it in a month, six months or a year will help shape the activities you will do today.

Each social media network requires an investment of time and money. Identifying the best social media networks for your business ensures that you are channeling your efforts towards maximizing the R.O.I.

Facebook for real estate

Facebook works best for connecting with current and potential clients and can be the overall best platform for your real estate business.

With Facebook's built-in business tools, real estate businesses can publish listing-related updates, directly book appointments, and even communicate with customers and curate reviews at a single place.

a. Set up a Facebook page

Avoid using a personal Facebook profile for real estate marketing. Set up a business profile that looks professional, and use features like contests and analytics to grow your profile.

Follow these tips to stay ahead with your real estate Facebook page.

Cover photos - Update your cover photo frequently and use it to highlight the new properties you have for sale.
Create tabs- Add a tab to your Facebook page that highlights the latest listings.
Respond to Comments - Respond to comments posted on your page, good or bad, and do so actively. This tells your current and potential clients that you are actively engaging and paying attention.

b. Facebook groups for real estate

Find real estate Facebook groups that pertain to your local area of interest. Join such groups and establish yourself as an area expert by answering user queries, sharing news and advice, and connecting with other group members.

You can even start your own real estate group on Facebook like "First-Time Home Buyers in Lousiana" or "Home Sellers in Fresno, California" and attract interested users.

c. Facebook Marketplace for real estate

Facebook has recently expanded the real estate listings section on its Marketplace in an attempt to take on Craigslist, eBay, etc.

"Marketplace is a popular place for people to look for a home to rent." - Bowen Pan, product manager at Facebook.

Benefits of using Facebook Marketplace for real estate:

A consolidated location for property listings
Direct and immediate communication from potential clients
Include links to your website for the listing

Instagram for real estate

Instagram can be used to share captivating and high-quality visuals for your listings.

"Instagram stories are actively used by realtors to share updates related to new properties and open houses"

With the network's user-friendly features like hashtags and 15-second story updates, Instagram can also be used to bring in more leads.

Follow these tips to use Instagram for real estate.

Make yourself discoverable - Set up a business account, optimize your bio, and include your website link and contact information such as your office phone number, email, and address.
Real Estate Hashtags - One of the best ways to get found on Instagram is to use popular real estate Instagram hashtags. For ex: #Homeforsale, #Broker, #Househunting, etc.
Direct Messaging - Use Instagram D.M.s to follow-up with new leads and potential customers.

YouTube for real estate

Publishing high-quality videos on YouTube can give you an edge in the real estate market. Set up your real estate channel on YouTube to showcase properties. Talk about the neighborhoods in which your properties are located and give prospects a real sense of the area.

With over 500 thousand subscribers on YouTube, New York-based realtor Ryan Serhant is a fantastic example of how to do real estate social media marketing on YouTube.

From posting his daily routine to videos of luxury apartments, Ryan has crafted a valuable space on YouTube that regularly brings huge benefits for him and his business.

Trulia

Real estate businesses in the U.S. can use Trulia to connect with new buyers and sellers. While Trulia isn't strictly a social media platform and more of a listing site, the Trulia voices section allows you to have interaction with community members comprising of the potential customer.

Establish yourself as an authority on Trulia Voices by answering people's questions about the home buying process and build trust within the community.

Zillow

Zillow is a leading real estate and rental marketplace, sharing similarities with Trulia. Zillow's Discussions forum is another place where you can boost your brand's awareness and authority by answering buyer questions and providing support.

Building up authority and trust for your real estate business on Trulia and Zillow can help strengthen your brand's reputation and bring in more leads and clients regularly.

4. Create High Quality Content

With the level of saturation in real estate, it's essential to stand out on social media and give people something that improves your credibility and brand values. But make sure to comply with fiduciary rights and avoid publishing any content that goes against it.

Written content

The majority of real estate businesses stick to just advertisements and listings, but the catch is that no one wants to scroll past a deluge of ads. Instead:

Share your brand's story and tell people why you are passionate about real estate
Explain how you got started in the industry and let people know who works in your company
Share customer stories describing the problems they faced and the challenges they overcame
Describe locations and the list of services and facilities in each geographical area
Ask people questions and give your expert answers in a F.A.Q. Page

Create personalized content for customer persona that you defined earlier, and whether you create social media posts, articles, ebooks, or even newsletters, always consider how it fulfills the needs of a specific persona.

Stand out visually

Properties or listings with professional real estate photos are more likely to be viewed on social media than properties that have no pictures or have poor quality photos.

Here are some tips to stand out visually:

Hire a professional photographer to post high-quality photos of properties
Share staff photos, pictures of events, and show people your brand values
Put out slideshows that are perfect for how-to content, market information, and serves as quick guides for buyers

Video content

An exciting and engaging video of the homes and properties that you're selling will pique buyers' interest and make them more likely to reach out to your real estate business.

Take a look at this listing video from the New York-based high-end real estate brokerage firm Bespoke Real Estate that gives a detailed overview of the property.

Here are some tips for creating video content for your real estate businesses:

Create videos of the neighborhoods to give prospects a real sense of the area
Use drones to highlights property features and neighborhoods
Provide scenic, compelling photos and videos for your listing
Use different angles to highlight the USP of the properties

5. Pick A Target Audience And Advertise Smartly

Take advantage of the paid social media marketing for real estate to counter the decline in organic reach.

Here are some tips for creating stunning ads that will help you bring in more leads.

Use the location, demographics, interests, and behavioral targeting options
Use carousel ads to show multiple properties (or even multiple rooms of a single property)
Be transparent in your ad copy to build customer trust
Plan ahead to up your ad budget during peak times
Use testimonials and reviews to instill confidence in your services

Here is an example of a real estate ad by Boston Proper Real Estate, that is quite simple to look at but yet has detailed information about everything a buyer would be interested in.

6. Analyze, Optimize, And Repeat

After you've worked hard enough on creating listings, setting up your Facebook and Instagram pages, and have been running ads, now is the time to understand what's working for your real estate business.

All the efforts and resources you've put on marketing your real estate business on social media mean little without data to back it all up.

Therefore, it is crucial to measure your progress on social media and then tweak social media strategy accordingly for better results.

Set KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure the results of your social media strategy.

Increase website traffic
Raise follower count
Generate more contact form submissions
Produce more property inquiries or sales
Improve engagement rates

Use a social analytics tool like Statusbrew that helps you to understand exactly what's working and what's not working for your real estate business using 180+ metrics. With Statusbrew, you can even share customized reports with external and internal collaborators & take your marketing efforts to new heights.

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Social media is a culmination of moving bits and pieces, and more often than not, a considerable amount of your social media efforts can go in vain.

Social media management for your real estate business allows you to save time and generate & measure the R.O.I.

Having a social media management tool in place that helps you keep a tab on things that matter the most for your business.

Here are some of the benefits of using a social media management tool for real estate.

Manage multiple social accounts
Ensures you never miss something important
Organize conversations
Schedule posts ahead of time
Monitor keywords for leads and valuable information
Analyze your results
Gives you more time for real-time engagement
Makes uniformity and consistency easier

Real estate businesses looking to grow online can use a social media management tool like Statusbrew.

With Statusbrew's Publish feature, teams can create and publish listings for different social media platforms at a single place.
Use inbuilt Audience Targeting feature to select specific user sets who will be able to see your posts and use the Boost Post feature to improve your reach on Facebook.
Manage all the inbound messages (mentions, comments, reviews, etc.) with ease in our Engage inbox. Filter the conversations from different sources and set conversation priorities accordingly. Run ad campaigns and set moderation rules to hide & delete Facebook ad comments automatically.
Keep a repository of all your high-quality property photos and videos at a single place in our Asset Manager and eliminate the pain of searching through multiple folders for a single picture every time.
Create customized reports for everything you need to track - from sent message performance to audience changes, to engagement, add your branding and present them as you want.

Try Statusbrew for yourself, or book a free demo with us to understand how Statusbrew can work for your real estate business.

Try For Free!

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways that you can go through to get started with social media marketing for real estate.

Benefits of using social media for real estate are instant engagement, targeted advertising, and brand reinforcement.
Crafting a social media strategy that is two-fold and caters to both sellers and buyers is important.
Research your customer's persona to understand your prospective customers and tailor content accordingly.
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals for your real estate business.
Set up a Facebook page, join local real estate Facebook groups, and use Facebook Marketplace for your real estate business.
Make yourself discoverable on Instagram by optimizing your bio and using popular real estate hashtags in your posts.
Set up your real estate channel on YouTube and give your prospects a real sense of the properties and surrounding area.
Stand out on social media by creating high-quality content that improves your credibility and brand values.
Take advantage of the paid social media marketing and advertise smartly to your target audience.
Measure your progress on social media and tweak your social media strategy accordingly for better results.
Use a social media management tool like Statusbrew to eliminate the everyday hassles of social media and channel your efforts to keep a tab of things that matter the most for your real estate business.