One of the best aspects of having a strong online presence through social media is that it can work for you without having to spend a dime. But even though organic content can help build up your audience and increase your engagement, every business can benefit from paid strategies. This can look different for every agent, broker, brokerage, team and brand. While some may thrive online without spending any marketing dollars, others may need the occasional boost, especially when starting out, or even depending on your target audience.
Budgeting for Your Business
Keep in mind that when it comes to marketing dollars, it isn’t all spent online. Many real estate businesses and professionals still rely heavily on print marketing, and likely put their budget towards that aspect, while also bolstering engagement through various social media enterprises as well as through traditional email newsletters. Whether digital or print based, the most important thing to determine is what works best for your business in order to create a spending plan that fits your unique needs.
For Hill and her team, their marketing budget will shift in 2022, pivoting more efforts and campaigns toward the digital space, while still leaving room in their spending plan for more traditional marketing.
“Our marketing spending is 80/20—80% in digital marketing and 20% in print,” says Hill. “Digital marketing provides more exposure for less dollars.”
On the other hand, Van Burkleo and her team take a different approach when it comes to social media and marketing spending, which includes staffing, collaboration and a flexible budget.
“At eXp, social media and digital marketing are two separate areas under the marketing umbrella. We have organic content strategies and paid content strategies,” she explains. “Throughout 2022, both teams will continue to collaborate closely to grow resources and increase digital and social media efforts. On the organic side of social media, we will have staff dedicated to monitoring, posting and designing content that is aligned with our mission, vision and goals. We expect marketing spend on social and digital marketing in 2022 to increase if current engagement trends continue.”
Check out this RISMedia webinar ‘Where Are Your Marketing Dollars Best Spent?’ to explore effective marketing solutions and strategies to help you manage your marketing budget wisely.
“Our marketing spending is 80/20—80% in digital marketing and 20% in print. Digital marketing provides more exposure for less dollars.” -Maria Hill, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada, California & Arizona Properties
Here are some ways that real estate professionals can grow their online presence, gain exposure for their brand, and connect and engage with potential clients by leveraging social media without dipping into the marketing budget:
- On Facebook, going live with videos, such as sharing tips or giving a virtual home tour, gives your audience a chance to see your face, hear your voice and see your authentic personality. Just be sure that the videos you live stream provide genuine value to your audience.
- On Twitter, utilizing hashtags is a great way to nearly double your engagement and improve visibility. “Hashtags are a great way for new people to find your content. Hashtags are like keywords that a user can search for to find what they are looking for,” says Sarno. “The more specific and creative you are with your hashtags, the more likely your post is to appear when someone is searching.”
- On Instagram, take advantage of the many benefits associated with IG Stories. These can include 24-hour posts and live videos, polls and quizzes (which are great ways to increase engagement) and the opportunity to live-chat with other professionals, colleagues and followers.
- On LinkedIn, join groups of like-minded people and other professionals in the industry. This can help gain exposure for your brand and create networking opportunities with key influencers.
Bringing in the Top Talent and Tools
While there are many tools and resources available to real estate professionals for creating, managing and executing a social media strategy, for some, it can be a lot to handle. However, in this digital and social media-driven environment, specialists and strategists are becoming more prominent—and adding someone to your team is a move worth considering.
Sarno is a field social media specialist, brought into Coldwell Banker based specifically on her social media skills and experience. “I assist agents with getting established on social media, creating a content strategy and answering questions that come with the territory,” she says. Her role also includes providing content to share among colleagues and across their social platforms, as well as traveling to offices throughout her region to educate agents on the latest and greatest social media trends and techniques.
eXp World Holdings, on the other hand, handles over 80 social channels, and has a dedicated team of social ‘eXperts’ who collaborate with agencies on the ground globally.
“My in-house social team meets daily to sync first thing in the morning. We discuss anything that’s trending to see if we want to adjust that day’s social calendar,” Van Burkleo explains.
“I review weekly social reports from our different business lines and channels to identify trends, opportunities and more. Then, the broader team meets monthly to share campaign successes, opportunities for cross promotion, etc. We also go over high-level stats and any important social changes that would impact our current strategies. This allows us to grow our community while keeping our audience and their needs at the forefront of our minds.”
Because every real estate brand, brokerage, team and agent is different, so are their needs when it comes to the vision and goals for their social media and marketing strategy. While larger companies have dedicated teams that manage, oversee and curate strategies and solutions, smaller businesses may have agents handle their own social media. But in this ever-evolving space, there are more opportunities for both social experts and real estate businesses to come together to reach new levels of success.
From determining the skillsets you need to understanding the roles and responsibilities, here are some things to consider before hiring a social media expert, manager or specialist for your real estate business:
- Establish Your Goals. What results are you trying to achieve? Whether you are looking to grow your audience or improve the quality of your content, setting goals, timelines and a social media strategy will help you determine if you should bring in a full-time or part-time social specialist, or if you should hire a freelancer or third-party service.
- Find the Talent Pool. Where can you find the right candidates? Websites like Indeed and LinkedIn are a great place to start, but social media groups and local universities can both also provide a variety of talent in the marketing field. Tapping into your network is also a great option. Colleagues can point you in the right direction, whether they know someone for the job or give you a great reference.
- Attract the Right Candidates. Just like how a listing description helps sell a home, the right job description will attract the best candidates for your business. Highlight your goals, detail the daily tasks and expectations, and ensure that all candidates know the benefits of working for your brand. As for pay, this can be determined by your needs, and depends on their experience and the market. The average salary for this position falls between $47,549 and $61,412.
Whether you choose to move forward with hiring a social media specialist for your real estate business or not, you should also consider utilizing a content solution platform to help grow your audience organically with curated content.
RISMedia’s ACESocial is a content marketing solution that offers high-quality real estate and lifestyle content, including exclusively curated articles, videos and infographics. The best part? ACESocial posts to your social media platforms—including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram—automatically, and provides a content calendar so real estate professionals can schedule posts and choose from a library of content.
This platform makes it simple to create personalized, branded landing pages that communicate your authority and expertise in the marketplace while driving traffic to your website. With ACESocial, you can even promote your listings across your social media accounts, on your branded landing pages and embedded directly into the articles. The ability to integrate your listings helps capture high-quality leads as well.
