By Prem Luthra, President of Elm Street Technology
Growing your real estate business is fundamentally about fostering existing relationships and developing new relationships with consumers. The oldest and simplest form of relationship building comes from a marketing concept called one-to-one (1:1) marketing. The concept is certainly not new, but with the emergence of social media it can take the potential for one-to-one marketing to incredible new levels.
On the surface, social media may seem like just another way to get in front of large numbers of people with the hope of generating some leads, a few clients and some sales for the effort. However, today’s social media platforms offer much, much more than that.
As you know, marketing in real estate revolves around finding potential buyers and/or sellers, convincing them of your expertise and professionalism and then staying top of mind by reaching out to them periodically as making real estate decisions is often a process. The great news about social media is that you can develop and foster relationships over a period of time and be top of mind when the consumer is ready to make a real estate decision.
Leveraging social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allows for meaningful, repeated engagement with consumers in an environment that is familiar and comfortable for them. Unlike cold calling, door knocking, For Sale by Owner and Expired solicitations, social media engagement should begin with a simple “like” or “share” as you slowly build rapport with new contacts and potential clients.
Further, social media marketing is effortlessly interactive for both you and consumers. Messaging is simple, taking no time at all and allows consumers to respond to you on their own time to ask questions they might not have thought to ask over the phone or in-person.
One-to-one marketing on social media is particularly effective at relationship building because you can:
- Easily stay in touch with your personal sphere and reach out to those connected to them. These are people you have an established relationship with and others like them; their sphere.
- Connect with like-minded individuals who share your passion for business, local sports teams, music or other shared interests providing you with the ultimate icebreaker and a shared common ground.
- Level the playing field with your sphere and contacts unlike telephone calls and emails. You’re engaging with someone interactively in a two-way conversation. The ultimate no-pressure environment.
Now before you get started, here are several best practices and digital etiquette with social media:
- Separate your business social media activity from your personal social media activity! – Build business and professional profiles and pages.
- Try to refrain from political, religious and other culturally sensitive content on your business pages – If you feel compelled, save that content for your personal social media pages and you could even create special groups with like-minded individuals.
- For your business activity, focus on the quality of the post versus the quantity and /or frequency of posting – Content such as market value trends, mortgage rates and listing information such as just listed/just sold are applicable versus personal activity such as, when you woke up, what you had for breakfast and when you went to sleep.
- A Follow for a Follow – If someone follows you, proper etiquette is for you in turn to follow those people back.
- Don’t send real estate solicitations immediately following making a new connection – Establish an engagement with someone such as Liking or commenting on one of their posts.
These are just several tip of the iceberg concepts that can help you leverage social media to accelerate your one-to-one marketing practices. If you would like to learn more about social media and one-to-one marketing, join our social media specialists Frank Chimento and Sean Price on Wednesday, October 25th for a free webinar that will outline some of these social media best practices and other marketing ideas for your real estate business.
