The social media strategy that works for Real Estate Investors is way more than just what you post inside of social media. You need to address all the parts of what makes social media work. Focusing solely on what to post would be like focusing only on the envelope when you’re doing direct mail.
Social media has a lot of moving parts too! You need to have a complete system that helps you find the right audience, send them the right messages, and, of course, have a process to move them into your funnel so you can provide an offer. There are five building blocks to a social media strategy that will produce results and bring you leads.
1. Mindset
No matter if you’re a doctor, a lawyer, entrepreneur, everyone has two jobs. They’re chosen profession and lead generation.
~Gary Keller
The mindset shift that you need to make is to stop thinking of yourself as a rehabber or investor that does marketing. Instead, embrace the fact that you’re actually a marketer who does real estate. Your primary job is lead generation because without marketing, you don’t have leads. Without leads, your business doesn’t move, it doesn’t grow, and it doesn’t happen. Essentially, you are invisible. Your time is wasted unless your marketing creates an impact.
2. Systems & Tools
The Right Platforms
The whole social media system starts with being on the platforms where our audience is. There’s nothing wrong with TikTok or Snapchat, but we must ask, is that where our ideal demographic is? Are the people who need to sell their houses on those platforms? Maybe.
Our audience is definitely on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. Those are the platforms where you should focus the lion’s share of your efforts.
Canva
In a very short time, Canva has become the most popular social media graphics tool out there. It is incredibly easy to use and gives you free images, graphic elements, and premade sizes for most of the platforms. If you struggle to find professional images, if you don’t want to learn difficult programs like Photoshop, then you’re going to love the simplicity and efficiency of Canva.
A Post Scheduler
There are many to choose from. Hootsuite Facebook Planner, which is completely free, and then Social Champ, which is the one that I use, and I love it. Now, a big part of having a successful social presence is being seen regularly, and that means posting consistently. Schedulers take the work out of having to remember when to post because you schedule everything ahead of time.
3. Engaging Content
Content is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to your social media strategy. This is where your business starts being visible and starts getting noticed. If you don’t post, then you’re not going to be seen. You’re not going to be noticed, and you need the right mix of posts in your schedule to maximize your returns on the effort and time that you’re putting into creating them.
There are four types of posts that you need to publish.
1. Personal Branding
These posts should be written in a way that highlights what makes you (as a person) and your business unique. Think in terms of what benefits your company delivers.
2. Conversational Posts
Ask thought-provoking questions, opinions, or make a poll. All of these are great ways to get your audience to comment on your posts. The important thing about real estate, and you’ve probably heard it said, if not by me than by somebody else, is that real estate is a relationship business. Therefore, a lot of what you are doing on social media should be focused on building relationships with the people that are following you or that you are
3. Nurturing Posts
These posts provide useful information that your audience is going to find helpful, relatable, and interesting. Think of nurturing posts kind of like the glue of your social media account. It is what is going to make people want to come back to see what else you’re posting.
4. Conversion Posts
These have a very direct call to action. These are for motivated sellers in a distressed situation. They should speak directly to sellers and offer your business as an easy solution for them to sell their house.
All four of these post types work together to build your brand, establish your credibility and create the community. And of course, attract the right audience. Because they work together you can’t pick and choose which one of these you want to post. You need all of them
REI Social is a complete social media system for real estate investors. The Content Club utilizes all four of these post types to help you build your real estate business. It takes a lot of the work and the thinking and the planning out of being able to have a consistent presence. Content Club members get a complete month of ready-to-use posts (with pre-written captions and graphics). Just customize and then drop them into your scheduler.
4. Sales Funnel
Now, we just need a way to move your sellers from the social platforms and into a conversation. The sales funnel can be elaborate with squeeze pages and forms, but I prefer to keep things simple with a 2-step process:
1. Have a call to action for your lead to send you a direct message or chat.
2. Engage in that conversation, and quickly move them to a phone call.
The less friction that you put in the way between your social media posts and the conversation, the better your results will be.
Social media is half of the equation, it’s the lead generation machine. You also need the other half, which is the sales funnel to make your social media strategy work.
5. Consistency
The last brick in our strategy is consistency. Social platforms reward it. The more often or the more regularly that you are posting, the more people will see your posts.
It’s one of the things that I love about Instagram, but it can also work against us is that it’s not gated like Facebook. Facebook will only show your post to about 1%, (sometimes fewer) of people who follow your business page. On Instagram, it’s wide open. People can go to your Instagram feed and they can easily scroll to see everything that you have ever posted that day or even a year ago. By posting regularly, it keeps your posts in front of them and it keeps your audience engaged.
Putting it All Together
1. The right mindset. Embrace marketing. You need it if you want to have a business at all.
2. You need to invest in some tools to increase your return on your time like Canva and a post scheduler.
3. Next is content creation. You need to post all four types of content. REI Social’s Content Club can help with that.
4. Make sure that you have a sales funnel set up of some kind that allows you to easily move people from social media into a conversation and then have a way to follow up with them.
Social media works, but only if you have the right strategy and all the pieces in place.
Listen to the Livestream
Creating a Powerful Social Media Strategy
This post was adapted from the Livestream I produce weekly. If you’re interested in listening to the recording, join the Facebook Group! The group is only for real estate investors interested in leveraging social media to grow their business. Inside you’ll get access to resources and education that will help you get in front of more motivated sellers!