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Does social media help you sell or let property?

Christopher Walkey, our resident social media expert, explains it’s not just for teenagers – 28.5 million adults can’t be wrong.

Property Drum
I recently gave a talk in London about social media, leading with the following statement:

“In the UK alone, there were 42.2 million users of social media in 2013 and now 93 per cent of consumers expect a company to have some kind of social media presence.”

001-twitter-facebook-22This statement shows us that social media has established a strong hold on the way people search for and receive news and information and though some agents who read this article may still have reservations about Facebook and Twitter – we simply cannot ignore the figures! We need to stop thinking that social media is simply for the teenagers. Of 31 million registered users on Facebook only 2.5 million are aged between 13 and 17, leaving a large proportion of users who could be your target audience; those who may purchase, rent, sell, let property.

Attracting people to your social media accounts – your profile image

Your profile image is one of the most important parts of your social media presence as it is generally what people see when they first land on your page. Many companies still do not use this space wisely with some altogether sticking to nothing or using what the social media platforms give out as standard. This looks unprofessional and does cheapen your brand in the eye of the public. Your profile is a tremendous opportunity to promote your business such as sold signs, let signs, current property for sale, location images, branch and staff images, promotions, giveaways, and so forth. Remember that these images should also include a call to action if possible and of course can also be regularly changed to suit your current promotions and marketing drive.

Enticing users to connect with you and grabbing their attention

Remember that your social media presence is in fact an extension of your business profile online, so the content you share and the way in which you share it should reflect your brand values. Be authentic with what you upload, it should be what interests you as a ‘company’ and what you find exciting, as this is likely to be what interests your target followers too. Share localised content that will position you as a useful brand to follow for community news, especially relating to what living in your region is like as well as the normal property related news.

Think about collating a library of images and videos to share with your audience too. Depending on which social media platforms your target audience is likely to be on, choose to explore the likes of Pinterest, Instagram,
Vine, Youtube, among others.

Those who are local to you and currently using social media should be part of your daily activities by way of sharing their content, reTweeting and ‘liking’. Check out which businesses locally are on the likes of Twitter and connect and engage in conversations with them. Even national businesses will have individual accounts set up in each town and city so research those who would serve your target audience, for example, you may want to look up for a local wine outlet such as Majestic Wines and see how you can engage with them.

“Can we now tag people in to photos on Twitter?”

Yes, recent changes made by Twitter allows you to tag other users in to up to four photos at once and ten users maximum within one Tweet on the iPhone and Android Apps and will stretch out to all devices within time. This gives your Tweet more power especially when more than the permitted 140 characters permitted are needed!

“Should I pay to promote posts on Facebook?”

I have never paid for any features on social media – from buying followers to sponsored adverts. We have always stuck to naturally growing our connections and interactions. However, I do think these paid for features are well worth a try as you can target your audience with platforms such as LinkedIn, which really enable you to dig deep in to who you want to see your adverts, perhaps with them being specific to certain users job titles. Facebook has certainly favoured those who are paying to advertise with them so you should at least see a return in investment by way of new followers, extra shares and interactions.

“What is a community on Google+ and should I create one for my estate agency?”

Google+ communities are relatively new and as stated by Google themselves: “Google+ Communities allow people with shared interests to talk to each other by starting new conversations around the interests they share”.

So with this in mind it is certainly worthwhile creating a community which can either be directly about your agency; or, why not look at creating a community about property in your location as a whole to widen the conversations and interactions? Capturing a large local target audience within a community will almost certainly create more opportunities for marketing your service than merely having a community created about an estate agency alone with fewer  members.

 

June 2, 2014

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