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Done well, your Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest presence can be a great way to cultivate your online reputation, build brand awareness, draw attention to your listings, and engage directly will clients old and new. More and more real estate agents are using these platforms to great effect. Professionally managed social media accounts are a useful brand building tool that allow you to create personal connections with buyers and sellers. 

However, the gulf between those agents who’ve mastered the art of social media and those still struggling is vast. If you’re playing catch up, or just want to do a better job of managing it, here are the steps you need to take to up your social media game in the New Year.

Resolution #1: Do one thing well

A mistake that social media rookies make is setting up a profile on every single platform. Avoid this trap – it’s guaranteed to end in social media burnout. Trust us: nobody has time to actively monitor and update so many sites.

To achieve the best results, focus your energies on a single site. Think about where your target audience is likely to be found, your overall social media aims, and choose the channel best suited to you. For example, investors want information, and lots of it – Twitter is a good bet. Busy families may prefer quick visual content, like YouTube or Pinterest. And Facebook is increasingly drawing an older audience – great news for agents, since young people generally don’t buy property.

Resolution #2: Prioritise sharing over self promotion

This may come as a surprise but, on social media, it’s not all about you. Excessive self-promotion is a huge turn off for users, and it’s a surefire way to lose fans and followers.

Self promotion is acceptable only so long as you also participate in the wider online conversation. By all means, tweet your listings, share links to your blog and post photos of happy buyers in front of giant sold signs. But as well as that, you should respond to queries and questions, share other’s people interesting content, and comment on relevant topics. Showcasing some personality helps build an engaged audience. 

Resolution #3: Maintain an active presence

A sporadically updated social media feed is a bad look – you’re better off deleting the profile entirely. An empty feed looks like you have nothing going on and nothing interesting to say. That’s definitely not the impression anyone should be aiming to create.

If you haven’t got your teeth stuck into social media before, maintaining a steady stream of updates is a challenge. Stick at it, however, and it will become second nature. The more you use social media, the more you’ll get out of it.

This is a job that can be delegated to a staff member where necessary. Just make sure it’s a trusted employee – someone unaware of appropriate social media etiquette can do real damage to your brand.  Giving two or three people access to the account so they can take turns to monitor it is a good idea. If you go down this road, establish a style guide and some basic rules so everyone is on the same page. 

What are your social media tips and tricks?