Today's most successful real estate investors don’t rely on just one or two marketing approaches to generate interest in their properties and get people to rent or buy them.
Rather, the top-tier investors wisely allocate much of their marketing spend toward several proven online and offline marketing tactics and techniques — including ones on social media.
Facebook, Instagram, and the like may not be your first or second choice when promoting your available units.
However, these platforms have shown they can help agents and investors get more website form submissions, direct phone calls, and — ultimately — foot traffic at open houses.
Word-of-mouth and real-world networking may be your marketing avenues of choice to garner more attention for your investment properties, you’d be smart to put some time and energy on social media to help grow your bottom line.
Let’s examine six specific ways you can use the most popular social networks to aid your real estate investing business — these are some social media marketing activities that could provide some bonus ROI you never thought possible.
1. Build Your Real Estate Social Media Presence
You can’t leverage social media if, you know, you’re not on social media.
Sure, you have your personal accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and maybe even Snapchat. But as general wisdom indicates, it’s always best to keep your personal and professional life separate online.
Even if you don’t have definitive branding for your investor business, creating a mock company name (e.g., Tim Jones Investing, Ellen Smith Homes) is worth it to help establish yourself as a reputable real estate company online.
Once this business name is set up, develop accounts for the aforementioned social networks. You can even use the same avatar photos and some personal info for these pages. But having them branded can provide a big boost to your credibility.
After this is set, add in the other supporting imagery and info associated with your investing venture — your address, phone number, email address, banner images, background history, et cetera — possible clients would want to know about you.
In other words, add in info that’s on your real estate investor website. (You do have an official site for your business … right?)
2. Share Lots of Photos and Videos of Your Properties
For the sake of this piece, let’s assume you’ve leased or sold a fair number of units to date. That means you likely have many photos and videos of said properties you can share online.
Yes, you should share multimedia featuring your currently available properties (more on that in a bit). But you can also benefit from sharing older ones you’ve offloaded in one way or another to act as social proof.
For instance, showing a photo of one of your buyers standing in front of a house you sold them a few months back and smiling while holding the keys to their new residence can show you have satisfied customers.
What’s more, if you have post-sale or -rental tour videos of the homes with your clients — ones in which they ideally wax poetic about your amazing services and professionalism — you can and should share those on social media as well.
As with Realtors, today’s home buyers and renters don’t want to work with individuals or companies that don’t have a proven history of selling and leasing properties.
Nope, they want to work with well-established, highly-reviewed folks who can show a) content clients they’ve worked with and b) wonderful properties they’ve refurbished and sold/rented.
If you don’t have any such photos or videos to share, it’s time to invest in a high-quality DSLR camera … or to at least start using the built-in photography and videography tools and apps on your smartphone (every phone’s got ‘em today, so there’s no excuse to not use them).
3. Don’t Just Be in “Sales Mode” on Social, Though
While it can be easy to fall into “sales mode” while using the biggest social networks to promote your business, it’s best to avoid this trap.
Obviously there’s a big benefit to proving you’re a sound real estate investor with a lengthy history of selling and leasing beautiful homes. But it’s equally important to engage with your audience — prospective buyers and renters — on these platforms.
Let’s say you own a few investment properties in a single town/community. To generate more interest in the area — and, later on, your units — it’s ideal to post shares (and re-share posts) associated with fun things to do nearby.
For example, if you wrote a blog post for your investor website about ten cool summer events to attend in your city, share that post across all of your social media accounts and interact with the people and organizations behind those events.
Chances are if you do this with at least some regularity, you’ll start to gain more recognition from these individuals and brands near you. This can help you in two ways:
- You develop new relationships that could lead to new networking opportunities, which are always great to have in your back pocket when looking for new leads.
- You broaden your brand awareness by injecting yourself into the social “noise” about your community, meaning more clicks and views of your social content.
The TL;DR version is simple: Go for the 50-50 mix of publishing promotional content on social media and engaging with locals in various ways to develop more knowledge of your investment business and properties.
4. Feature Your Listings, Market, and Buyers in “Stories”
“Stories” have become all the rage on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat today.
People love sharing live updates of them eating at the new tapas bar, attending that cool music festival, and biking and walking along scenic routes.
While you may already use Stories on one or more of these social channels to share fun times with friends, you can also use it as a top-notch marketing tool.
The best stories to share are those featuring your properties and clients.
Real-time walkthroughs of your newest units in which you showcase all of the cool features and amenities you’ve added — new backsplash in the kitchen, upgraded back deck patio, built-in speakers in the ceiling — can go a long way for your brand-building.
Moreover, you can interview your clients (and even those attending your open houses and private showings) to humanize yourself and show you love interacting with and assisting people looking for their next/dream home.
5. Set Aside Some Marketing Spend for Social Ads
Aside from daily status updates that make you more relatable and help you get to know those in your area, targeted ads on social media may be worth trying.
Facebook offers the best ROI regarding highly optimized social ads for real estate agents, brokers, and investors.
Facebook for Business continues to provide the social conglomerate with a good chunk of its revenue — and it’s easy to see why so many companies in so many industries use the tool: High lead-to-client/customer conversion rates.
Starting your Business account on the social network takes just a few minutes. It’s figuring out which targeting filters to use that can be tricky.
Thankfully, several tutorials and guides online can give you some guidance for taking advantage of Facebook for Business.
The point is that, while spending a fair amount of money on ads that may not necessarily pan out for you, its history of helping investors makes it worth a try.
One thing to remember when running your first campaign, though, is it takes time for results (aka new leads) to come in. Give it at least a month to see if you can squeeze some ROI from your ads before giving up.
6. Facebook and Instagram Are Great — But So Is LinkedIn
Facebook and Instagram are two of the most widely used social networks today — for both the general public and businesses.
But don’t forget LinkedIn is just as valuable a digital tool for your investing business as those channels.
Some view LinkedIn as only beneficial for job-seekers and employers looking for top talent to hire. The reality, though, is it’s an ideal place for real estate pros to generate leads.
LinkedIn Groups, in particular, is an invaluable resource for investors, as there are countless kinds — especially ones geared toward workers and brands in specific markets.
Find ones that exist in your area and request to join them. Usually, if an admin sees you’re from the area and could contribute to the Group’s convos, they’ll let you in.
Just know that it’s best not to do your brand/unit promotion within these Groups.
Rather, your goal should be to simply build relationships with members and ask those who seem most interested in learning about you/your business to chat with them via email, on the phone, or in person.
Even if the only advantage of using LinkedIn for your business is getting to know hard-working professionals who live and work near you, that’s a win.
After all, you can always connect with these folks on LinkedIn, then “friend” them on other social networks to keep the lines of communication open.
Conclusion: Find What Works and Double-Down
Several social media marketing activities we didn’t mention here could prove fruitful for your investment business: from tweeting pics and vids of your listings a dozen times daily to conducting live-stream Q&As with prospects.
The best thing to do is find the social marketing approaches that seem to work well for your business, then double down on those tactics over time.
Building a search-optimized website, attending local meetups, and networking daily will always be a big part of promoting your brand and getting new prospects interested in your properties.
But remember: If you fail to even try using social media to your advantage, you could miss out on the big bucks.
What are some of the social media marketing methods that have helped you raise awareness of and interest in your investment properties? Share your most successful social tactics with us in the forum!
