The cold hard fact – the hard truth – is that a lot of letting agents’ social media is rubbish. It’s dull. It’s boring. There’s nothing ‘social’ about it.
Of course it is not all like that, and there is good reason to think that yours could be a lot better – and a lot more productive as a result of it. Sharing photos of your properties and information about your services is all well and good, but when you’re talking me me me, other people stop paying attention because it’s simply not interesting enough.
Here at Jupix, the leaders in estate agency software we don’t believe that social media should be impossible. We think that you can create a great social strategy no matter who or where you are. Developing your social media into a solid strategy that provides returns for your business is not easy and will not happen overnight, but there are huge rewards at the end of the tunnel for those willing to put in the effort.
Here are 7 pieces of advice you can use to improve everything you do socially:
1. Give it time
A lot of people view social media as a race. Whether that’s to get a greater following than your competitors or simply to see how many “likes” or re-tweets you can get.
Well managed social media is a long term project that has a plan behind it.
2. Don’t buy followers
Paying actual money for more fans or doing things like #teamfollowback does nothing for you. Sure, it may look impressive when you look at competitors, but these accounts are not going to engage with you or help drive any business metrics, so it is a complete waste of time, effort and money.
3. Do use the ad features
The days where social media was a free marketing tool are well and truly behind us, sadly. Virtually every social media channel has now been (or very soon will be) monetised. So whilst it is a shame it is no longer free, it is reality. In a lot of cases though, you can get really good exposure at very little expense. If you have content that is doing well organically, a really exciting piece of news you want greater coverage on or want to raise awareness of certain services it can be really worth paying for some social advertising.
4. Don’t just talk about yourself
The most common pitfall letting agents fall into is just talking about themselves. ‘Here’s our latest property for let’, ‘Look how we refitted this kitchen’, etc. is all well and good, but unless there is other content around this then people are going to start glossing over you pretty quickly in their feeds.
You should use the 70:20:10 rule. 70% of content should be useful to your audience; 20% promotional for your services; 10% should be a little risky and out there. Remember your company values in that 10% and don’t be too out there, but mixing it up can produce huge results.
5. Think about the visuals
21st century human beings are very visual creatures; we love looking at things, especially if it gives us insight into the lives of others. We have talked before about how video is changing the way letting agents work and what the future might hold but video can be pricy and hard for some to do. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, so you should take advantage if you can, but photos and graphics are also hugely popular visuals. Channels like Instagram can turn relatively dull photos into something more interesting, and services like Canva or Pablo are great for adding text and design to you images without needing expert skills. In fact all the images in this post were made using Canva.
These five tips are, of course, just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to livening up your social media presence and putting it to use in a way that benefits your business. But by setting aside some time to think about what you do with social media and implementing these tips you will start to see change sooner than you think.
