Boosting Social Media for More Clients and Listings
When it comes to making social media work for you as a REALTOR®, it’s much more beneficial to be a social shark than a social butterfly. You’ve got to attack to succeed. Doing so can keep your pipeline full of new leads and listings. The big earners in the business put in the time every day to make sure they’re front and center digitally, and recommend the same approach to agents who want to pad their pockets.
“I use social media marketing to get my name out to potential clients,” says Alyssa Morgan, a Miami REALTOR® and founder of The Inside Network real estate company. “I also teach a social media class. Social media allows me to get in front of my audience multiple times a day compared to traditional forms of marketing. I’m able to constantly remind my clients, network and those I don’t have phone numbers and email addresses for that I’m in the business.
“When I teach my class, it’s directed to real estate agents around the U.S., which helps me get in front of agents in top feeder markets. This helps grow my referral business and get my listings in front of other agents and their networks. It’s a great way to create referral partners.”
“People love to scroll through various platforms: TikTok, Facebook and Instagram just to name a few,” says Leah Williamson, an agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. “You need to have an active presence on all three with engaging content that can captivate the audience. Create content that is personable and fun, that makes you real and relatable.”
Dawn McKenna, of the Dawn McKenna Group with Coldwell Banker Realty, Chicago and Naples, Florida, knows all the platforms…but prefers one over all others.
“I use Instagram as a tool to get my name out there because there is so much potential with how many eyes see the content, and therefore, the homes I’m selling,” she says. “Instagram creates a nice funnel for my business. Other sellers see our Instagram and social media content and want us to promote their homes the same way.” – Michael Catarevas
Key points
- Share hyperlocal news, real estate trends, mortgage rate changes and more on social media to position yourself as a worthy source now and in the future.
- Find an “accountability partner” and work your strategies together. Being held accountable will help you stay on track.
- Create content on your social media channels that is personable and fun, that makes you real and relatable.
- Position yourself as an expert by explaining specific codes or rules within your area that buyers or sellers may not know.
“You need to have an active presence with engaging content that can captivate the audience. Create content that is personable and fun, that makes you real and relatable.”
-Leah Williamson, agent, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers
To read the full article, click here.
How and Where to Market Digitally
What type of marketing should you be creating, and which platforms should you run them on? Here’s what professionals who’ve attracted a following and business with their digital marketing have to say.
The obvious way to market your business digitally is with a social media presence, both by maintaining accounts and running ads on those platforms.
Lauren Matera is a Coldwell Banker Realty agent in Annapolis, Maryland. Under the username @itsthatrealestatechick, she’s also built up a following on TikTok and Instagram. She believes that social media is the future of digital marketing, saying, “You can reach millions and millions of people for free. It’s authentic, present and up to date.”
Randy Baruh, a broker with the Corcoran Group who specializes in the New York City luxury market, agrees. With 320,000 followers and 4.7 million likes on TikTok, he’s a certified influencer. His videos range from straightforward ones about his listings to comedy bits, mostly jokes about day-to-day proceedings (and frustrations) of selling real estate.
Digital marketing requires consistent output. Before you can do that, you need to have something that people will want to see. Scott Johnson, a broker with The Residential Group, a William Raveis affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts, found that in his day-to-day routine.
“We do a lot of new construction marketing,” he says, “so a lot of my day is going to property under construction—that gives us social media opportunities because we’re going to something that’s being created.”
Baruh is also sure to not just advertise his listings, but surrounding features, too.
“Usually the content that people bring up to me most are my neighborhood videos where I’m highlighting my favorite pizza place, or some great businesses in Greenwich Village or Brooklyn.”
If buyers like the neighborhood that a listing is in, they’ll be more likely to close the sale. Think of advertising the neighborhood as part of your overall sales pitch. And putting yourself on camera makes for a personal touch, which results in a memorable buying experience.
For Baruh’s money, agents are too often self-conscious on camera, but shouldn’t be. “When I’m talking into a camera about a property I’m representing or a neighborhood I’m representing, it’s really no different than if I’m doing it in person. People want reality. They want authenticity from their broker.”
Matera feels that the same sense of authenticity should drive not just how agents market themselves, but where.
“I think they have to be aware of the platforms and like using them and know what the trends are and what people are doing and talking about on them,” she says. “My strengths are my personality and my humor, and that ends up being communicated best through short-form video content.”
To get your message out, use platforms that you know and enjoy. If nothing else, it’ll make the experience easier.
Johnson encourages his agents to make their market knowledge a consumer-facing asset.
“Everyone likes to talk about real estate, so I encourage my agents to stay hyper-informed on the sales activities, stay current on interest rates and programs that are available for buyers, and just be that trusted authority in your market.”
Despite the wide reach that digital marketing can get your business, you can also shoot for a smaller audience with a targeted approach. Johnson says that his team is embracing a targeted approach for all varieties of clients.
“If you want to target investment property owners who have mortgages that are coming due, that data’s available,” he says. “If I want to prospect builders who are building, I can search for building permits. Targeted prospecting takes more time than just, ‘I’m going to send a postcard mailer to the 200 addresses around this location,’ but it does end up being more fruitful just by nature of it being targeted.” – Devin Meenan
Key points
- Digital marketing allows you to be more direct and targeted in reaching leads.
- You have to have something worth marketing, be it knowledge, authenticity, humor or really attractive listings.
- You’re not just selling a listing, you’re selling yourself, your services and the neighborhood.
- Your marketing should strike a balance between professional and personable—as should you.
“When I’m talking into a camera about a property I’m representing, it’s really no different than if I’m doing it in person. People want reality. They want authenticity from their broker.”
-Randy Baruh, broker, The Corcoran Group
To read the full article, click here.
The Importance of Data When Talking to Clients
As a REALTOR®, the job is all about communication. In fact, communication is key. But how you communicate is an entirely different obstacle. In today’s constantly changing market, finding the most effective ways to communicate with clients so they can understand the process is of utmost importance. And while there are no shortage of ways to communicate, industry leaders point to providing education through data as one of the best.
Most buyers and sellers come into the real estate market with little to no background knowledge beyond what they’ve grabbed from the news and/or TV shows. To trust you as their REALTOR®, they need you to not only show them the way, but teach them as well. And the easiest way to show your know-how is to be straight with the facts by breaking down the data with them.
Ennis Antoine, managing broker/sales manager at Compass Realty, agrees that clients want to know that you’re knowledgeable to be able to trust you.
“When you can present stats to them on how many homes have sold in the last 30 days or two weeks, or how many are pending, it makes you the expert in the area, and they rely on your information with integrity,” says Antoine. “If you don’t have stats, you’ll be done in this industry.”
Anam Hargey, team lead/broker with @properties, adds that the kind of data/statistics you’re sharing with clients will help prepare them for their specific situation and their needs from you.
“When working with clients who are selling, I give them stats about how low inventory is in our area, especially compared to previous years. I show them a comparison chart and share stats about how low inventory increases their home values and that they can sell for more in this market compared to previous years,” says Hargey. “With selling, I also prepare them for the low inventory and explain how it will take time to be able to find a place and compete against multiple offers.
“I think this vital conversation helps prepare clients for what to expect and to have realistic expectations,” she adds.
Hargey and Antoine agree that prices and sales are the two big points to hone in on when talking stats. As for where to source your data—national or local—Hargey notes that “it’s a nice mixture of both.” National data is great for showing the trends of the overall market and breaking down how real estate works overall, but localized data to your market, and even your brokerage, is really where it’s at.
“What we do is we compare the national trends to the local market,” says Antoine. “It’s important that anybody who does real estate, they understand that all real estate is local, and that they understand the numbers for that local community. The national trends may say one thing, but in a local market, it could be just the opposite.”
Overall, Hargey and Antoine say that providing data—mostly localized sales data—will build your reputation with clients as an expert. After gaining their trust, the sales part of the REALTOR®’s job will come easy. – Claudia Larsen
Key points
- Return to more old-fashioned ways of lead sourcing.
- Focus on becoming known in your community.
- Make sure behind-the-scenes structures are in place, and that everyone on your team is well-trained to handle this market and future markets.
- Always educate consumers and eliminate the noise affecting them.
“It’s important that anybody who does real estate, they understand that all real estate is local, and that they understand the numbers for that local community. The national trends may say one thing, but in a local market, it could be just the opposite.”
-Ennis Antoine, managing broker/sales manager, Compass Realty
To read the full article, click here.
Winning Strategies for Database and CRM Utilization
These days, with clients and listings harder to come by compared with the last few years due to inventory issues and rising mortgage rates, utilizing a customer relationship management (CRM) system is more important than ever. In tandem with trying to keep tabs on people in your database, the technology baked into a CRM can perform many communication tasks, saving REALTORS® crucial hours that can be spent with clients.
For newer agents and those not already using one of the several CRMs available, the software stores organized data about leads and customers, such as personal information, communication and purchase history. It helps promote the continuity of an agent’s relationship with leads and customers. CRM tools are becoming more and more important to the daily work of real estate agents.
“It really is about how you manage your database and the people you are engaging with, whether they’re on the buyer or seller side,” says Stuart Sim, vice president of Industry for Chime, a CRM platform for real estate agent teams and brokers. “We think about long-term conversion of the leads you’re bringing into your system. So text messaging, email messaging, social media messaging, content distribution, content management and placement and transaction management. Anything a real estate agent or broker will do in a day is available within Chime.
“Agents can be dealing with 12 to 15 different types of technology. We’re trying to pull that all together into one to make life easier. One of the major issues we have as an industry is that only 12% – 14% of consumers transact twice with the same REALTOR®. We’re trying to help grow that number, grow that percentage, so you have a lifelong relationship with someone who is going to probably transact in real estate seven to 10 times during their lifetime.”
Marketing is made up of numerous tedious tasks. Automating them is a smart way to improve the efficiency of everyone that connects with customers and leads. Along with a CRM, an agent’s database must be grown and nurtured, updated and used in order to stay top of mind for anyone in your sphere thinking of purchasing real estate.
“People do business with people they know, like and trust,” asserts Jackie Louh, COO at Lamacchia Realty Inc. “So how do agents get to that point? You can’t be a secret agent. Too often we hear that ‘oh well, my database is up here in my head.’ That’s not really going to help you out. That means you’re not using it to the best of your ability.”
It takes determination and effort to build up a database, which should not be especially difficult for REALTORS®, who, by nature, have to be fairly aggressive to succeed.
Building up a database and then incorporating it into a CRM is what Whitney Finn LaCosta, CEO of Howard Hanna | Coach REALTORS®, recommends.
“I don’t think enough agents work real estate like a business,” she notes. “And in order to work it like a business, you have to have the right systems in place. A CRM creates a way to put people in, organize them, put them in groups and connect with them on a regular basis.
“If an agent’s business is down 10%, how can they get 10% or 20% more people in their CRM? Because the more people you touch, the more business you’re going to get. Most companies are down a little bit because there are not as many transactions as there have been in the recent past. If you increase your database, you can make up for that. It’s a simple solution. More connections, more business, more money.” – Michael Catarevas
Key points
- Everybody thinks that the transaction ends when you get to the closing table and get your check. That should be the beginning of the relationship.
- With a CRM, the more you put it in front of your agents, the more you train them on it, the more receptive they’ll be to using it.
- Make sure the information that’s going into a new CRM is accurate and you’re using the right follow-ups for your business.
- Talk to five people a day in your database as well as others outside of it. Ask about family, occupations and recreation. Make sure they know what you do.
“We think about long-term conversion of the leads you’re bringing into your system. So text messaging, email messaging, social media messaging, content distribution, content management and placement and transaction management.”
-Stuart Sim, vice president of industry, Chime
To read the full article, click here.
Retaining Agents By Staying Connected With Them
If you’re a broker, part of your responsibility in running your brokerage is making sure it’s a place agents want to stay. Even if you’re not actively growing your team, you don’t want to be losing agents either. Research shows that a low turnover rate will save your business money and help its reputation.
Keeping your agents means knowing your agents. Rick Haase, president of United Real Estate, has written that the most common reasons for agents leaving their brokerage are career advancement, compensation and feelings of restriction.
While these are a good place to start, they’re also broad. And while there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to implementing an agent retention strategy, the only way to ensure you know exactly how your agents are feeling is by asking them. That means making relationship-building a priority.
Robyn Erlenbush, broker/owner of ERA Landmark in Bozeman, Montana, says that “part of our (retention) strategy, both deliberate and maybe by accident, is just strong communication.”
Erlenbush says that when it comes to listening to her agents, “I’m 90% therapist and 10% deal doctor, but that’s okay. I mean, people need to be heard, and they need to be acknowledged.”
As Erlenbush explains, the broker should not only focus on building their relationships with agents, but also on fostering relationships between their agents. Agents shouldn’t neglect counting their teammates when calculating their spheres of influence. If an agent has good camaraderie with the others in the office, and even better, feels like their fellow agents are a reliable source of business, they’ll be less inclined to leave.
“We celebrate our successes every week,” adds Erlenbush. “We talk about where the buyers came from, how they got the buyers, what buyers intend to do with properties. We’re trying to give everyone really good market intel, but also celebrate the agents who are having success…We do annual business planning, we do quarterly peer-to-peer updates where people are acknowledged for being on track or above track. Those people who aren’t necessarily having their best quarter, that’s just a big cheerleading job of how you’ve got to look at real estate as a long-term deal.”
As her firm shifted to a hybrid work model, Erlenbush notes that she had to innovate with new strategies to maintain facetime with her agents.
“Every Tuesday morning we do training, and out of those 60-some people, the census is usually about 25 live and 25 on Zoom. And so we’ve been able to keep that camaraderie across four different communities or office locations. I think that’s been huge. People want to know that their thoughts matter, and they want to feel connected. I think that it’s so simple, but it takes a lot of time to do.”
Even with this level of interactivity, what can cause agents to consider moving to seemingly greener pastures? Erlenbush feels that it has a lot to do with market shifts.
“There’s no question that when economics change, when market conditions change, there are a lot of people still trying to figure out what happened to them in the last couple of years, so there’s a lot of early-life crisis, mid-life crisis, late-life crisis. And when that happens, people start to say, ‘Well, is it me, or do I need a change in scenery? Is it my company?’ And so we try really hard to anticipate that.”
The space between desperation and frankness is a thin line. If you sense a good agent is considering leaving, don’t beg them to stay, but be willing to put a counteroffer on the table. If you can anticipate potential departures, as Erlenbush suggests, all the better. – Devin Meenan
Key points
- Smaller firms make it easier to keep in touch, so if you’re running a larger brokerage, go the extra mile and host events for your agents to connect.
- Don’t take agents for granted, even if they’ve been at your brokerage for decades.
- Building a relationship with an agent is the same process as building one with a client.
- If you sense a good agent is considering leaving, be willing to put a counteroffer on the table.
“I’m 90% therapist and 10% deal doctor, but that’s okay. I mean, people need to be heard, and they need to be acknowledged.”
-Robyn Erlenbush, broker/owner, ERA Landmark
To read the full article, click here.
