Five Tips to Maximizing Your Real Estate Brand on Social Media in 2022

If you’re wanting to be successful in 2022 with your real estate business, then one can’t deny that social media needs to be at the top of your list, and for multiple reasons. Now, we know from experience that there are agents all over the spectrum with this. Some of you have absolutely accepted the fact that social media is here to stay and it is in fact, already producing leads with the effort you’re putting into it.

Others perhaps, realize that it’s a “necessary evil” in order to stay in business, but aren’t certain what steps to take, and are maybe overwhelmed. And we’ll leave out another group that very few can relate to who have been doing real estate for decades, and they just don’t care about social media because they have such a large network of die-hard clients, and they’re looking to retire soon anyway (and then you can capitalize on obtaining their clients with your awesome social media marketing and branding skills).

So are you ready AND wanting to maximize your real estate brand on social media this year? If yes, then you’re in the right place because we’re going to give you five quick tips that you can start to immediately put to use, which we also hopefully inspire you to take the next steps on a successful real estate adventure.

#1 Brand Yourself

Social media is more than just about you…but it’s important to remember that you are the brand! It’s like that saying: “Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others after an experience with you is your trademark.” Branding is crucial to your local market. To clarify, branding is the “why” people hire you, while “marketing” is the vehicle or tool that’s going to help you distribute your story and brand to them. Possibly contrary to today’s real estate logic, you need to find a niche (we also discussed this in our other video Five Best Real Estate Marketing Videos and Tips for 2022 if you want additional details).

The more focused you are, the more you’ll be able to connect to people, the easier it will be to integrate it into your social media, and the more leads you can generally generate. To give you some ideas on what you can create a niche for, here are a few to consider: Geographic areas, neighborhoods, certain types of clients or demographics, different types and/or styles of homes (luxury, ranch and land, condos, farms, townhomes, single-family, barndominiums…and/or Craftsman, Colonial, Cape Cod, Victorian…you get the point).

#2 Choose Your Social Media Platforms

One of our philosophies at Mail-Right is: “Do a few things and do them well.” You can be a jack of all trades, master of none, or a jack of few trades, master of one. We’d prefer that you get good at 1-3 social media platforms, versus trying to take on doing 7 different social media platforms and sucking at all of them. Select a couple of them, and then put your attention on those, trying to master one of them. Once you master one of them, move on to focusing on the next, conquer it, and so on. Before you know it, you’ll get really good at 2-3 platforms, and you’ll notice the return on your investment increasing!

When people ask us which platform they should start with, we simply encourage you to start with what you’re already on and familiar with. For most, this would be Facebook or Instagram. Both are owned by Facebook, and both basically have every generation on them for the most part (that are purchasing homes anyway). The third platform one must consider is YouTube. The other reason we suggest these three is because you can repurpose your content and copy on them rather easily. We’ll go more in-depth about these in #4, so keep reading. One last thing, be sure to familiarize yourself with the technology and tools that are available to you from these platforms. You can do a lot nowadays with the free apps they provide, as well as their desktop tools, so take advantage of them.

#3 Social Media Needs to be About YOU

Before we get ahead of ourselves, you need to know that there is a fine line between making it ALL about you, and having your branding and social media represent you and who you are. Remember that it’s called “social” media for a reason, so give people a backstage pass to what your life is like as a Realtor®. You cannot afford to be an invisible agent if you want to be a successful real estate agent. Plus, people want to know what it’s like to be you, what you do, what it takes to juggle your busy schedule, where you hike and go on walks, books you’re reading and why, houses and features in houses that you love, if you have kids or are married or have a dog, how you overcome the challenges…you get the point

Also, don’t forget that you need to make your clients and prospects the heroes in your story. We’re currently seeing a lot of the same posts from agents on social media that are a single, static image of all the homes they’ve sold this past year…and wow…what a missed opportunity! Who’s the heroin that? Besides no one being able to see what those houses actually look like because it’s so small, nor if they’re really that real estate agent’s homes they sold; what if instead, you made a quick, little video with the homes and the happy clients of those homes…do you see the difference here? This is what we call a “two-for” because you’re branding yourself, but also highlighting your happy clients

! A little more strategic and intentional effort can go a long way. A static image with 50 homes on it will not connect to a consumer’s emotions like a home that pans to its happy clients…can you feel that difference even just reading this? Imagine if you have multiple shots of homes and happy clients that you can include in this video that’s even more impacting! In addition, the algorithmic weight that you’ll be putting out there will be much greater, you’ll be connecting to people on a much deeper level as they see and hear your happy clients laughing and smiling, and you will in turn also reach more people, get more engagement, and increase your SEO. Does this sound like a good return on your investment?

#4 Know About the Different Social Media Platforms

We previously mentioned three of these platforms that you can focus on (Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube), mostly because you’re already on them. But know this about social media: It’s a pay-to-play game now for the most part. Organic reach is next to nothing on most platforms, usually between only 1-7% at best research shows. And if you have the average number of followers (300-500 depending on the platform), then that’s a “whopping” 25 people you might be reaching with all that hard work you put into creating a video post or Story.

So what’s the solution? How can you strategically use one or more of these to market your real estate business? One important factor is to understand if the platform is aimed at short-form or long-form videos. Short-form can be 15-60 second videos for Stories and Reels for instance. Long-form videos would be more for YouTube, and even Facebook allows these. Once you know the difference between short and long-form, you can create your videos specifically for that platform, then repurpose it for the other platforms (we also discussed this in our other video Five Best Real Estate Marketing Videos and Tips for 2022 as ”batching,” if you’d like to learn more). Which platform are you going to focus on and master? The easy answer for most is again, the one you’re most familiar with. Here are a few highlights for each:

Facebook:
- You can have both short and long-form videos on Facebook, but it’s mostly best for short-form (3 min or less).
- Pay for leads $100 to $500 per month connected to custom lists and retargeting (we can help you with this if you don’t know what it means).
- Simply “Boosting” posts are like the pre-school of social ads, in which they will make you feel warm and fuzzy, and get you some results (otherwise they know you won’t keep paying them), but they are not a long term solution to generating higher quality leads.
Instagram:
- You can have both short and long-form videos on Instagram now, but it’s mostly best for short form.
- One of the best platforms for your personal branding, and a great solution to giving that behind the scenes look at your life as an agent…plus people love this type of content.
- Use hashtags to help you get more views and grow your following (we’ll share more about this in another video)
YouTube:
- The king of long-form videos and for a reason!
- It’s the only platform that counts a “view” as 30 seconds, whereas the other platforms count 1 second as a view. So it’s incredibly more effective in this area.
- It’s owned by the largest search engine in the world (Google), and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world…hint, hint!
- It’s great for attracting people both inside and outside your town, city, or state, depending on your particular niche and focus.
- It’s a great starting point for repurposing your content and videos to the other platforms that prefer short form.

#5 Be Prepared

It’s been said (and we agree), that if you fail to plan then you plan to fail. Don’t fall into this rut. If you’re ready for the challenge, then create yourself a basic social media calendar and content library or folder system. If this is too overwhelming (we know it is for most, or you don’t have the funds to hire someone to do your social media management), then consider the Mail-Right program which does this and more, but isn’t overwhelming. Here are a few more tips that will help you amplify your branding and marketing with your social media:

Batching: Set aside time to batch (a productivity hack for time management and efficiency)
Know when you’re going to post, what you’re going to post, and how often you’re going to post
Done is better than perfect
Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction
Be in the moment (be ready to capture things on the fly that may happen during the day)
Do a few things and do them well

When it comes to being successful in real estate this year, then implementing these five crucial tips will help you maximize your branding and marketing efforts, so you can generate real leads and get the return on your investment. Remember to brand yourself, know which social media platforms you want to master and get good at, and balance out making it about you (but also make your clients and prospects the heroes in your story). Integrate those short and long-form videos on the appropriate platforms you’re working on, and be prepared by integrating the above information. We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any questions. Which area is the most difficult for you? Which do you think you can accomplish? Lastly, let us know if you’d like to schedule an appointment so we can walk you through a demo of our Mail-Right program if you’re needing help with the above too, and are ready to step up your real estate game.