Deciding how to project and brand yourself on social media platforms can be confusing. Social media is meant to be organic, honest, transparent, and personal, and people identify strongly with that. Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and many other all encourage us to some extent to be a bit more “real.”
But then you can run into the problem of being TOO personal. Oversharing or sharing the wrong things is a great way to destroy your reputation.
So what to do?
Believe it or not, you can be professional and personal at the same time in social media. Your online brand needs a personality. The key is not to confuse “personal” with “private.” Be yourself via social media. Don’t be afraid to be funny, or a little more informal than usual. But keep your private life private. Think about this like the beginning of a conference call on Monday where you spend a few minutes talking about how you spent your weekend. You probably aren’t going to reveal anything private, inappropriate or unprofessional in a conference call with a client or coworkers, but sharing a little personal information does help you get to know each other on a level that is slightly deeper than just having strictly work conversations. This is exactly the type of personal information you can easily share on social media.
Blogs are a great way to portray your friendly, accessible side. Use your own conversational voice when you write. This will also help take some of the pressure off of writing blog posts. Show that you're an expert in your field by answering real estate questions and talking about local things to do. You want to create engagement, interact with readers to build a more personal relationship with them. Build prospects by sharing your opinions, thoughts, and experiences on all kinds of things, not just about real estate.
And that is the heart of the matter, when it comes to turning real estate leads into clients. Most people don't want a stuffy, cold agent who acts "professional" all the time - they want a personable agent, someone who is as human as them and who has shared similar experiences and so can relate to them. Real estate leads are EVERYWHERE for agents - it's just a matter of having the right tools to ensure the real estate leads are coming your way, rather than someone else's.
