FOUR SOCIAL MEDIA TACTICS EVERY REAL ESTATE AGENT NEEDS

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1 FOUR SOCIAL MEDIA TACTICS EVERY REAL ESTATE AGENT NEEDS By SAM Rico BATTISTA AWARD WINNING SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT

2 About this Book First, let s go over what you can expect. This ebook is going to cover the 4 Social Media Tactics Real Estate Agents Need. The goal of this ebook is to help you generate real leads on social media. The key word is real. We want to help you generate leads that you are going to qualify and ultimately close. About the Authors My name is Sam Rico Battista, I m the CEO and one of the co-founders of PropertySpark, a company helping thousands of agents across North America on social media. I wrote this book with the help of Matt Gee, our VP of Marketing and with the input of several of our team members at PropertySpark. Before we get started with the ebook, let me tell you a very quick story. Social media doubled my dad s commissions. Sam RICO BATTISTA MATT GEE My Dad is a real estate agent. He s been a real estate agent for 15 years. He s worked at RE/MAX and has done very well for himself and his family. However, with the rise of digital and new technology, the traditional forms of marketing just weren t working for him anymore. In fact, here s what happened. In 2014 he did $150,000 in commissions which was standard for him. He did this much in commissions for over a decade. 1 Sam Rico Battista

3 But in 2015 he had his first down year ever. He only did $110,000 in commissions. He made $40,000 less in commissions than the years before because he wasn t adapting to the new digital world. Now, here s the amazing part. He started implementing some incredible social media tactics into his business and his commission more than doubled. He did $250,000 one year after starting to really use social media. And his business has kept growing since then. He did over $300,000 last year alone. These were two incredible years for him and it was all because of social media Here s a picture of my Dad winning the platinum award from RE/MAX. This award is only given to agents who net over $250,000 in commissions. My dad's business and his life truly changed after implementing social media tactics. The big question on everyone s mind right now is... How did he do it? 2 Sam Rico Battista

4 Here s what happened... Near the end of 2015, my dad was telling my how his business was suffering, and he asked for my help. So, I started doing his social media for him. It took a few months to test different social media strategies and tactics. But once 2016 rolled around, his business started to pick up like never before and he double his commissions. After that, we set out to help agents across North America. And that s exactly what we ve done. With that, let s get started with the 4 Social Media Tactics for Real Estate Agents. Overview In this ebook, we are going to discuss four specific social media tactics you need to incorporate into your business that will allow you to tap into a larger audience and generate real leads. 1 We ll start by showing you how to use content effectively and we ll give you the 3-Step Content Guideline. 2 Then we ll discuss a major topic in real estate - social media advertising - and explain how you can target buyers and sellers on Facebook and Instagram. 3 A big thing a lot of agents miss is communicating effectively with their network on social media, so we ll show you how to do that. 4 Finally, we ll explain how you can manage your social media leads to ultimately bring them to the table and close a deal. Page 4 Page 5 Page 8 Page 10 3 Sam Rico Battista

5 Posting Content Goal: Build trust and nurture your network to develop leads in the long term Start with a Facebook Business Page First off - the most successful agents all have one thing in common - they are using a Facebook Business Page for 99% of their content. If you don t have a Facebook Business Page - you need one. But why - you might ask. What about my Personal Facebook page? Why can t I just use that and post to all of my friends and Facebook Groups? Here s the simple answer. Facebook does not want you to use your personal page for business purposes. Facebook s algorithm will begin penalizing your personal account if there is too much business-related content. In fact, Facebook will decrease the number of friends who will see any of your posts in their feed. Now the real question - what is the secret to successful content on a Facebook Business Page? The 3-Step Content Guideline 1. Post something every day When someone goes to your page, they need to see your most recent post is within the last 24 hours. Why? Because this person will now associate your business as being active and responsive on social media. The daily content doesn t have to be extraordinary and high-engaging - you can share blogs, links to articles, etc. The purpose here is to just get something posted so you show recent activity. 4 Sam Rico Battista

6 2. Post at least two of your own pictures each week The best type of content is your own content. If you really want to get engagement out of your network on social media, you should make at least two unique posts a week. Why? Because people want to see you. They want to engage with you - not some meme that you ve shared from a random Facebook Page. Unique content will help you build trust and personality with your network. Let them see what you re up to - personal, or work-related. Here are some examples: Post a picture you ve taken in the community every Monday morning wishing your network a good start to their week. Take a picture at a new listing, or with a client and let people know what you re up to. 3. Post at least one video of you a week Camera shy? Busy during the week? You can come up with many excuses for not posting videos. However, any video you take of yourself is better than none. Whether it s a video of you wrapping up what you accomplished this week, or wishing your network a Happy New Year, video is by far the most successful content form on social media. Following this 3-Step Content Guideline will put you ahead of 96% of agents on social media. Don t expect to get a listing after one week, but trust that the long-term payoff can be incredible in many ways. You will become a social media authority as an agent in your area. Advertising on Social Media Goal: Expand and grow your network while connecting with new buyers and sellers I m going to brush on two components here - one for the Facebook advertising beginners, and another for those of you who are more advanced. 5 Sam Rico Battista

7 For the beginners - working with some of the leading agents on social media has shown a commonality - they were committed to consistently spending on Facebook advertising. You may be thinking I don t have the budget for social media right now. Well, many of them had allocated over 80% of their total marketing budget to Facebook. Here s why... To reach 500 homes by flyer can cost between $200 to $500. To reach 500 people on Facebook is between $4 and $8. Now, let s think about those 500 people you just sent flyers to. Can you tell me how many of them picked up those flyers? Can you tell me the last time you picked up a flyer, sat down, leafed through every single one, called a business and made a purchase? I think we re on the same page. The point I m making here is you in fact have the budget to advertise on Facebook - you just need make the leap and commitment to doing it consistently. Are you spending big money on a website, professional photos, or virtual tours? These can be important investments, but how many people are visiting your website, browsing your listings, or watching your virtual tours? If it costed you $50 to get hundreds of more people to see these things, would it not make the investments so much more valuable? Don t let your content sit there and not be seen. Done the right way, social media advertising can significantly add value to every other investment you make in a client and listing. So, if you re ready to advertise on social media, read on to what we ve discovered works best to generate leads. 6 Sam Rico Battista

8 DO S AND DON TS FACEBOOK ADS FOR REAL ESTATE DON T: Promote listings with just one picture or link to your virtual tour. Why? Facebook s algorithm charges this type of ad the most per impression over all other ad types. The reason is because the user can t engage with the ad directly on Facebook. DO: Write targeted and engaging descriptions for your listing & brand ads. In the first line of the ad description, reference what region the home is from so it is immediately relevant to your audience. Use emojis in your writing to make it more engaging for viewers to read. DON T: Include the price of your listing in your ad Why? These are the basics of generating leads! If someone is curious about the price, let them ask and reach out to you. Even if they are not interested after you tell them, you can ask them more questions about their home search and begin to build a relationship with a new lead! DO: Run listing ads with the top performing ad types From hundreds of thousands of dollars run in ads, PropertySpark s dataset points to the carousel and album as the top performing ad types. These ad formats are proven to get the most engagement and clicks than any other ad format. This is because viewers can easily navigate right on Facebook to interact with the ad and view pictures. DON T: Click the Boost button and hope for the best Why? You need to identify the audience you want to target. Within Facebook s targeting feature, there are millions of ways to segment the people your ad will reach. From gender, age, and income level, to shopping preferences, sports interests, and location. You will need to continuously test and experiment different targeting choices to optimize your performance. DO: Analyze and optimize your ad results With so many variations in targeting, you will need to test what ads work best and track this data. Many of agents don t have the time or expertise to manage a social media advertising system effectively. The PropertySpark platform covers all the do s above if you don t have the time to do it yourself or don t want to spend thousands on hiring an expert. DON T: Spend less than $50 on a listing ad Why? Engagements have a snowball effect in real estate. Once one person likes or comments on a listing ad, more will follow. You need to leave enough budget for those initial engagements to happen. 7 Sam Rico Battista

9 Communicating Online Goal: Convert as many of your social interactions into real leads Top Agents Engage & Respond Quickly If you want to be the go-to agent on social media in your area, you have to be accessible to your network. This means you are actively engaged and responsive to messages, and comments to your page in a timely fashion. Here s the 3-Step Checklist to Communicate Effectively On Every Facebook Post or Ad: CHECKLIST EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK COMMUNICATION If someone likes a post, be sure to invite them to like your page. You can do this by clicking on the list of likes, then the Invite button beside their name Reply to any comments publicly on the post so everyone can see you are responsive. Be tactical about what information you provide publicly - in other words don t reply to a comment with the price of your listing! Leave that to the next step... for viewers to read. Send a direct message to the commenter to build or continue a conversation to a one-on-one level. If a prospect asks about the price of a listing you ve advertised, send them a message directly from your business page. This is incredibly powerful because the individual now has a real estate agent they can contact at any point right from the comfort of Facebook Messenger. 8 Sam Rico Battista

10 Now if you follow the 3-Step Checklist with all of your content and Facebook advertisements, you ll begin to grow your social media network very successfully. The more interactions, engagements and messages you ve done on Facebook, the better. Facebook Messenger Is the New and Improved The top agents on social media are communicating with potential buyers and sellers more through Facebook Messenger than even or phone. Why is this? It s because open rates on s are between 8-16% in the real estate industry. Everyone and their neighbour gets dozens of s a day - so good luck getting your community newsletter opened by your sphere if it s sent through . But if you were to send all your messages and newsletters via Facebook messenger, you would get 80-90% open rates. That means on only ~8% of people you reach out to are opening your , whereas on Facebook, ~80% of people are opening your message. Facebook Messenger can have over 10 times higher open rates than traditional marketing The issue is you don t have the time to send individual messages on Facebook to your network from your Business Page. This is just one of many pain-points we ve solved at PropertySpark by creating a autoreply tool that enables you to keep all of your social media network updated right through Facebook Messenger. On PropertySpark, you can send out Facebook Messages to all of your network in one click. 9 Sam Rico Battista

11 Managing Social Leads Goal: Close the leads you are generating without wasting time. The Best Agents Treat Engagements on Facebook as Potential Leads The best agents treat the interactions and engagements they make on Facebook as opportunities to generate leads. Every time someone comments on one of their posts, they use that as an opportunity to start a dialogue with that person. The reason this works is because people nowadays are not as prone to filling out lead generations forms online. Instead, 90% of people would rather comment on a post on Facebook. The best agents know that they need to turn those comments into leads. Best Practices for Following Up Here s an example of a best practice for following-up: Let s say an agent runs a listing ad on Facebook for a new property. The ad drives three people to comment and inquire about the price of the property. This agent now has three prospective buyers that have entered his or her network on social media. The agent should immediately add these leads to a CRM so they can be effectively followedup with and qualified. 10 Sam Rico Battista

12 As you know, the home buying process can take up to 180 days from start to finish. So when the agent receives a new listing, these prospective buyers can be sent more properties and the buyer will see the agent truly trying to provide value. Having a clear view of your social media pipeline is important. In the PropertySpark platform, our social media CRM for real estate is capable of tracking all engagements on your Facebook Page, and helping you grow and account for all of your social media leads in one place. Recap The 4 Social Media Tactics for Real Estate Agents We covered the 4 Social Media Tactics Real Estate Agents Need in By now you should: 1 Better understand the importance of both consistent and unique content. 2 How to begin the journey of running effective Facebook ads for your listings and brand. 3 The key methods of communicating effectively on social media. 4 How to effectively manage the leads you generate on social media to enable proper follow-up. 11 Sam Rico Battista