Real estate brokers have long to-do lists that can sometimes feel overwhelming. Tasks can include listing properties, staging homes, building your real estate social network (and others), and managing your team. You don’t have much downtime. Add multiple real estate offices to the mix, and your task list can get quickly out of control.
So how can you market your real estate business successfully while keeping cost and time in check?
For many brokers, agents, and realtors, social media marketing is the answer.
- Instagram (in particular, Reels set to music)
- X/Twitter
- Snapchat (the least popular)
In this article, we’ll explore the why, what, and how of real estate social networks. Let’s dive in.
Benefits of Social Media for Realtors
Do you work with buyers, sellers, or both? Whatever the answer, social media marketing is essential for real estate professionals.
Here are just a few of the reasons to invest in social media:
1. Build your brand cost-effectively
Do you spend a significant portion of your budget on ads and pay-to-play channels? Social media has minimal costs. If you prioritize organic content, you can get started for free.
2. Create a lead generation machine
Do you put a lot of time and energy into prospecting and outreach? With social media, you can create a lead generation system that attracts prospects—so you can focus more on relationships.
3. Establish trust and credibility
Successful real estate agencies tend to have strong brands that inspire trust. With social media, you can educate potential clients, share social proof, and boost credibility with prospects.
The following video can help you plan a brand video for your real estate network:
4. Accelerate the buyer’s journey
Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) ads only work when prospects are actively searching. With social media, you can pique prospects’ interest and inspire them to begin looking.
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Social Networks for Real Estate Agents
You can choose from a dozen social networks, each with unique features and capabilities. How do you know which are right for your business? Below are six to consider.
Just remember that you don’t need to build a presence on all six at once. Start with one—ideally, the one that best fits your target audience or the one your current clients use.
Once you start to see results on one channel, consider expanding to another. Take what you’ve learned to build your brand, and meet your audience in the spaces where they spend time.
Real estate social network #1: Facebook
With over 2 billion daily users, Facebook has one of the largest user bases of any social media platform. Its user base skews somewhat older, with 77% of Americans aged 30 to 49 and 73% of Americans aged 50 to 64 reporting using the platform.
What does that mean for your real estate business? If your clients tend to be more established homeowners, Facebook marketing can help you reach your goals.
Because Facebook supports link posts, it’s also a great place to share links to your listings or your team’s educational content. For example, NorthGroup Real Estate alternates listings like the one above with links to articles on new home checklists and building materials.
Real estate social network #2. Instagram
With about 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram ranks just behind Facebook in terms of popularity. According to the Pew Research Center, Instagram’s user base skews younger, with 71% of Americans aged 18 to 29 reporting that they use the platform.
Because Instagram is primarily a photo and video sharing app, it’s ideal for sharing visual content like home tours and interior decorating tips. It’s also great for creating time-sensitive content, as stories automatically expire after 24 hours.
For example, @richrealtygroup has an Instagram marketing strategy for Reels and stories. The agency regularly posts Reels (above left) featuring luxury home tours. In stories (above right), the agency shares content by its agents as a way to help them build their personal brands.
Real estate social network #3. TikTok
TikTok content generates about 1 billion views daily, making this platform a good choice for real estate brokers who want to connect with prospects via short-form video. Like Instagram, TikTok’s audience skews younger, with users 18 to 29 years old making up the platform’s largest segment.
Along with posting house tours, many realtors use TikTok marketing to build their personal brands. Above, @propertiesbyrandi posts short videos to educate prospects on the value of a great realtor.
Real estate social network #4. YouTube
As large as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok’s user bases are, YouTube is the most popular social media platform in the U.S. Over 80% of American adults use YouTube to watch long-form and short-form videos and livestreams.
So how can real estate agents use YouTube marketing? It’s a good place to upload content like long-form home tours and short-form branding videos.
For example, Blackbook Properties frequently publishes a mix of exclusive property tours and educational content about living and investing in the agency’s local area, Miami.
Real estate social network #5. Pinterest
Compared to the social media platforms above, Pinterest has a much smaller user base of about 500 million users. For real estate agents, is it worth investing in Pinterest marketing?
If your typical clientele includes people with an interest in DIY projects and home decor, Pinterest is one of the best social media platforms for real estate. For example, the Corcoran Group shares luxury property tours that generate about 3.5 million views per month.
Real estate social network #6. LinkedIn
LinkedIn may not be the first to come to mind when you think of social media platforms for the real estate market. But because of its role as a professional networking platform, LinkedIn can work well for brand building and connecting with corporate clients.
For example, educational content focused on calculating property value, choosing the right investment location, and building your brokerage often works well on LinkedIn. Above, the eXp Realty promotes an online event for real estate agents.
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How to Grow a Real Estate Business With Social Media
Choosing the right real estate social networks is only the first step. Next, you need to know how to use them to meet sales goals, address multi-location challenges, and ultimately grow your real estate business.
At a glance:
- Sell your expertise and your listings
- Manage multiple business locations at once
- Run high-volume accounts efficiently
- Cross-post social media content across networks
- Produce on-brand creatives for social media
- Maximize reach in your local area
- Market new services to existing customers
- Respond to potential clients promptly
- Leverage employee advocacy
- Monitor social media analytics
- Track your social media return on investment
Sell your expertise and your listings
One of the biggest perks of leveraging social media for real estate is that you can use most networks to sell your expertise and listings. In other words, you can build your personal brand, promote your real estate agency, and share your active listings or sold properties.
For example, Nan and Company Properties almost exclusively publishes short house tours on YouTube, using an eye-catching thumbnail graphic to create consistency. On Instagram, @nanproperties shares collab posts with real estate agents for personal branding.
Manage multiple business locations at once
Managing one social media account for one office location may not seem like a heavy lift. But if you need to manage multiple business locations or agent profiles simultaneously, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the tabs and the constant need to switch in and out of accounts.
With a social media management platform, you can connect all your accounts to a single dashboard. Then you can manage posts, inboxes, and analytics for every account from one tab.
For example, Agorapulse supports all the social networks we covered above—including multiple brand accounts for each network. Once you connect your accounts, you can onboard your team and assign permissions. Then your whole team can keep your social media engine running.
Run high-volume accounts efficiently
For real estate agents, no two days look alike. On some days, you may have a backlog of listings to promote. On other days, you may want to focus more on educating prospects or building your brand on social media.
When you use a social media management tool, you can easily create content and write posts in advance. Then you can schedule it to publish at the optimal time for your audience.
With Agorapulse, you can schedule real estate social media content days, weeks, or even months in advance. You can also set up publishing queues that automatically post your content at preset time slots. Queues make it especially easy to batch content efficiently.
Cross-post social media content across networks
If you market your real estate business on multiple channels, you’ll likely find creating social media posts for each channel too time-consuming. When you use a social media management platform, you can easily cross-post to multiple networks, saving tons of time.
With Agorapulse, you can cross-post the same content to multiple networks and schedule each post for any time you choose. However, you don’t have to cross-post the exact same post. Instead, you can customize the caption and thumbnail for each post to optimize performance.
Produce on-brand creatives for social media
Whether you publish images, videos, or graphics, you want your audience to know it’s your team’s content instantly before they read or watch. When your content has a distinctive look, you can ensure it stands out on followers’ busy timelines.
One of the best ways to create immediate brand recognition is to develop a visual style for your brand. For example, decide on a color scheme, signature font, mood, or aesthetic.
Communicate these creative details to your marketing team. Then plug them into a design app. With an app like Canva, you can save your brand kit so you can apply these elements quickly.
Canva is also helpful for creating reusable on-brand image and video templates. While creating these templates takes time up front, this process can help you save time when producing content.
When you create with Canva, you always have the option to export and upload directly to your social media accounts. If you use a social media management solution like Agorapulse, you can use our Canva integration to create and publish content with a single workflow.
Maximize reach in your local area
No matter which social media network(s) you opt to use, you can easily reach followers across the region, country, or globe. While that may be a good thing for businesses with a large service area, it’s not as ideal for real estate agencies that serve specific areas.
Fortunately, most social media networks support hashtags and location tagging. Using these tools, you can help your target audience see your content. These tools can also make your posts more visible in your local area, effectively expanding your audience.
To find the right hashtags for your business and your local area, research each network separately. Remember that some hashtags apply across networks, but some are specific to TikTok or Instagram—so it’s important to use the right ones in the right place.
Market new services to existing customers
Many real estate firms provide much more than basic seller or buyer services. According to the National Association of Realtors 2023 survey, many firms also offer ancillary services to provide more comprehensive client care and to increase overall revenue.
For example, many firms offer staging services for sellers, relocation services for buyers, and title or escrow services. Some also provide commercial consulting services for B2B clients.
If you’re considering introducing new services in the coming weeks or months, your social media accounts can be the perfect place to promote your new offerings. From teaser posts to social proof shares, social media can be the ideal channel for generating demand and attracting leads.
In some cases, you may be able to meet your goals via organic social media alone. But if you want to expand your reach, connect with new clients, and generate new business, social media ads can help.
Respond to prospective clients promptly
For real estate professionals, timing is everything. To land new clients, you have to respond to their outreach promptly. If you’re juggling multiple accounts across networks, managing individual social media inboxes isn’t always easy.
With a social media management tool like Agorapulse, you can manage all inboxes from a single dashboard. You can respond directly to comments and DMs, and you can also organize them with labels and bookmarks.
Want your assistant or colleague to respond to a comment instead? Assign it to any team member right from your inbox. Need to make sure you follow up on a DM? Add a custom label and a note so you can find it easily.
Leverage employee advocacy
For top real estate firms, executing a successful social media marketing strategy takes a team. Publishing new listings, home tours, and sold properties from your business account is only the first step.
Many firms also use tools to elevate their agents and encourage team members to promote company content. For example, networks like Instagram have built-in collaboration tools you can use to create content in partnership with agents or brokers.
For employee advocacy, you’ll typically need a third-party tool. With Agorapulse, you can create social media posts and push them to colleagues via advocacy campaigns. Then you can monitor the success of your campaigns and track participation.
Monitor your social media analytics
Is your social media strategy working? Are you reaching your reach and engagement goals? Are followers responding positively to your social media content? You won’t truly know unless you monitor social media analytics.
You can certainly log into each individual account to check on audience growth and post metrics. But don’t expect any social media channels to make it easy to export data or share it with your team.
With Agorapulse, however, you can create and share reports in minutes. Whether you want to report on a single channel, a specific real estate office, or a certain campaign, you can easily create custom reports. Then you can set them to send on an automated schedule to save time.
Track your return on investment (ROI)
Your posts may be attracting views. But is that exposure driving revenue or creating new business? If your strategy focuses on organic social media, it’s almost impossible to measure revenue using native tools.
Instead, you need a third-party tool like Agorapulse. With Agorapulse’s ROI calculator, you can add campaign tracking to the links you share in posts, comments, and DMs. Then you can see which locations, networks, or campaigns drove the most clicks and leads.
You can even attribute ROI to specific social media posts. With this data, you can confirm exactly which posts drove the most business for your real estate firm. You can use these insights to create more valuable social media content and improve how you use each network.
Wrapping Up Our Guide to Real Estate Social Networks
With the right social media sites and an effective marketing strategy, real estate social networks can create impressive value for agents and brokers alike. And with the right social media management solution, real estate professionals can build a brand, connect with customers, and generate leads efficiently and effectively.
Curious if Agorapulse meets your real estate team’s needs? Sign up for a free trial or book a demo to see it in action.
