5 Forces Against Real Estate Brokers

Every brokerage has a fundamental challenge: you want to grow your profits. What are the obstacles to overcome to dominate your market and increase your revenue and profit? 

One of the biggest threats to a real estate broker – new or established – is competition. Who is your competition? How are their actions in the marketplace going to affect your current bottom line and future planning? 

To answer those questions, you must analyze and understand your competition. One way to do that is by using Porter's Five Forces model to break them down into five distinct categories. 

Below are the five forces you are currently losing profit to: 

1. Rivals: your direct competition 

As most real estate brokers, the first person you're losing profit to is rival companies - companies and brokers that do what you do and compete with you directly. You know who they are. How do you prevent an owner from listing his property with another brokerage, how can you reach out to a qualified active buyer before your competition does? How can you make sure that one of your past clients will reach out to you if/when they go back on the market? When rivalry competition is high, advertising and price wars can ensue, which can hurt a business's bottom line. 

2. Sellers/Buyer bargaining power: 

The third thing that you're losing to is consumer bargaining power: powerful customers. Powerful owners and buyers always negotiate to lower your commissions; they ask for more value, increasing your cost. Both of those reduce your profit. Profit equals price minus cost. Your commission always gets squeezed. How can you prevent it? 

3. Threat of new entrants: your new competition 

There is a constant flow of new agents and new real estate brokerage companies using better and smart technology and with great inventory. How do you stay competitive? The easier it is for a competitor to join the marketplace, the higher the risk of a business's market share being depleted. 

4. Powerful supplier and their bargaining power 

The fourth thing is a powerful supplier: supplier bargaining power. There are a lot of different types of suppliers; we're going to talk about your marketing suppliers; companies like Google and Facebook that you typically use for your PPC and online advertising. If they change their terms or increase their cost, raise their prices, they're going to grow your cost, and therefore, lower your profit. How do you protect yourself against it? 

5. Substitutes 

How easy it is for customers to switch from your service to that of a competitor or companies that do something similar, close enough that they could be considered a solution. For sale by owner, individuals not using brokers, property management companies. 

Those are the five forces that you compete against you for profits. Do you have a strategy to beat the five forces and to grow your profit? 

If you're interested in a strategy that can deliver against all five of those, while bringing on new clients in an affordable acquisition cost, you have to look into a different type of strategy to expand your competitive advantage. To that end, Brandora uses data-driven insight technology to help brokers market solely to prospects who are ready to buy now (active buyers) or looking to sell their property (real sellers). 

Brandora eliminates wasteful ad spend, drives down the cost per client acquisition and increases real estate brokers’ profits. 

Related Article: If you are interested in finding out how to grow your profit and how to beat these five forces, click here.

Online Marketing Techniques For Realtors

Online Marketing Techniques For Realtors

It is apparent that the Internet has been proven to be a game-changer for businesses, especially real estate. Online searches and listings have made it simpler for prospective home buyers looking for their dream homes.

 However, this has resulted in new challenges for real estate agencies. Realtors can no longer rely on traditional advertising alone for exposure. The Presence of social media and content marketing has given everyone a voice. While this has made it easier for agents to market themselves, it has become harder for firms to differentiate themselves.

How do you stand out from the competition in your area?

Creating a Strong Brand

It’s no longer enough to use online tactics just to advertise your services. To stand out from the clutter, you have to set up and nurture a prominent brand that will make your prospects want to engage with your firm.

Your online marketing strategy should focus on this aspect. If you come up with content that helps your prospects in their search for a home, they will be that much more inclined to hire you. While creating content, you should make it easier for your prospects to take the decision where to live. A successful online presence will help you attract and convert more leads into actual clients.

Regular Newsletters

A great tactic to keep your clients engaged (even after your business has concluded) is to send out regular emails. This can work well in nurturing the relationship while further enhancing your position as an authority in your area.

You can use newsletters to provide helpful content - timely information about your community, information regarding events happening in the city, etc. - to your audience on a continuous basis. You can also use this to direct your audience to your website and new blog posts.

Real Estate Blogs

The most compelling online marketing tool for any real estate agent is their blog. This is where you can share relevant and informative content on a regular basis.

Publish posts on topics that your prospects care about. Provide solutions to common queries. Give updates on the community and neighborhood, spotlight local businesses and events, educate your readers about happenings in your city.

Don’t be too lengthy and employ a casual, friendly tone. Your blog isn’t the place to show off your brilliance.

Do not use your blog to promote your services or sell yourself overtly. However, try to communicate your brand’s message through each blog post you create.

Guest Blogging

Sharing your content on other blogs is a sure-fire way to build authority and influence. This will get you more exposure, connections, and exposure to potential prospects.

Scout for networks relevant to your profession and become involved in the community.

Not only does such guest posting provide you a platform to showcase your expertise, but it can also increase your web traffic while providing useful backlinks. This works great for your readership and SEO. You should try and contribute as many guest blog posts as you can.

Final Words

Effective online marketing is essential for any business, especially in the real estate industry. However, the one key point to remember always is that it’s all about providing value. With hard work and focus, you can successfully establish a viable and prominent presence in your area.

4 Online Marketing Tactics for Real Estate Pro’s

4 Online Marketing Tactics for Real Estate Pro’s

For any business, your online presence can be essential to your success (or failure) in generating new leads and clients. Here, we will share some specific strategies that you can use to promote yourself and your real estate business. That’s already assuming you have the basics in place – namely, a website, blog and social media presence.

Responsive Web Design

A must for any business. The number of website visitors using mobile devices is continuing to rise, making the need for a mobile-friendly site imperative. Responsive web design is simply a design that is fluid— that changes with the visitor's browser size.

Studies and statistics have shown that sites with responsive web design have higher conversion rates and increased sales. Potential clients can visit your website from anywhere with any device.

Host Local Content

In the real estate business, creating helpful content for home buyers and sellers is a must. They usually tend to spend a lot of time researching the buying and selling process, especially if it's their first time.

In addition to the basics, you'll also want to focus on creating content for the locations you cover. People looking at moving to a new area will be interested in neighborhoods, statistics, events, fun facts and so forth. If your website can offer them content on such topics, they will ultimately come across your services as well.

Solicit Reviews

Real estate sites like Zillow receive, on average over 16 million visitors per month. Web statistician Alexa ranks Zillow above other home listing networks such as Trulia, Homes.com, and Movoto.

More and more customers are making use of Zillow to find houses and scout for real estate agents in the area. Reason enough for you to not only have an agent profile on Zillow, but also encourage your clients to review you.

You don’t need to be shy about asking for reviews; these can be extremely valuable for your business. Anytime when a client expresses praise for your service – be it over phone, in person or via email, use the opportunity to ask them for a review on the network they used to find you.

Make sure to post unique testimonials on your pages to instill confidence in anyone who will likely contact you.

Answer and Engage

There are many places online where you can connect with potential clients by simply answering their questions. To start off, the City-Data.com forums have people ask questions about global locations. There are specific sub-forums states in the US and for the largest metropolitan areas within each state. In addition to real estate sites and social media, you also have question and answer networks like Quora that have people to ask questions about all topics, including home buying, selling and relocating.

All you need to do is find and join such forums where potential clients are likely to discuss their real estate needs and start answering questions. Devote some time each day to checking each network for potential questions and answer them.

Even if you don't succeed in converting a query, it will generate more exposure as others will view your answer.

3 Reasons to Invest in LinkedIn Marketing

3 Reasons to Invest in LinkedIn Marketing

Software giant Microsoft made history when they acquired professional networking platform LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, one of the largest acquisitions for the company. The acquisition was perplexing for many, but Microsoft and LinkedIn seem a pretty good fit together, as the bulk of LinkedIn’s members form Microsoft’s primary customers. This tie-up gives MS access to an enormous amount of data and direct connections to the people they wish to transform into a long-term business.

However, these are the same reasons why other businesses also should incorporate the social network into their marketing strategy. There are quite a few more benefits that LinkedIn has for you.

Leverage Customer Networks

LinkedIn offers the ability to scout the relationships of your current customers, future prospects and the contacts of theirs including possible vendor and supplier networks.

You can go through your connections and examine others they’re connected to. Review profiles for interests and pay particular attention to the groups they’re part of. Take note of the relevant groups and join in.

Individual’s profiles provide input for better methods of engagement while also revealing more opportunities to garner leads from the people and groups they are connected to. By joining such groups, you stand to gain access to more prospective audience segments and also additional space to share your content.

Visibility For Your Content

Sponsored Updates is one of the best ways to position content in front of a highly-targeted audience on LinkedIn. If you are looking to build credibility among your existing connections and prospects, you can use this feature to target a very focused audience.

Once you have some high-value content shared on your LinkedIn feed, you can also promote them through LinkedIn’s ad platform as well to get the best reach. You can also share such content with any relevant LinkedIn groups where you’re looking to build engagement with prospects.

The layered targeting on LinkedIn makes it easy to connect with the right people, and the analytics within LinkedIn helps you track the effectiveness of your sponsored content.

You can compare the results of your non-sponsored posts with paid campaigns to see how they stack up against each other. You can adjust your strategy accordingly to improve engagement.

Gain Additional Leads

Your website will be the perfect platform for your content and a big source of organic traffic as you generate more content and promote it. There are plenty of suitable places to promote content, like LinkedIn’s publishing platform, LinkedIn Pulse.

Open to anyone with a LinkedIn account, it’s a simple interface with a WYSIWYG editor much like posting on WordPress. You can either create unique content or re-purpose some of your existing content for the platform.

If you have previous articles, videos, podcasts or webinars that have performed particularly well, you can re-purpose any such content into a new post to be published on LinkedIn Pulse.

Publishing such content on LinkedIn Pulse puts it directly in front of your established connections as well as a brand new audience. It helps position you as an expert or a thought leader, providing solutions and valuable ideas. This can entice entirely new prospects - who otherwise may have never caught wind of you - into your funnel.

The 3 major benefits of CRM for Real Estate Agents

The 3 major benefits of CRM for Real Estate Agents

With a wide range of uses, it is not surprising that real estate agents apply CRM to their line of work. While most agents see it only as a means to assist in client management, some include it as an essential part of their overall marketing, lead generation and conversion strategy.

In reality, real estate CRM can accomplish all these things and much more. We give you the main reasons for all real estate agents to benefit from adopting a CRM into their business plans.

Consolidating Data

All successful real estate agents make use of more than one lead generation stream. You are most likely get your lead contact information from your network, website, various social media channels, direct mail campaigns and other possible avenues. Keeping up with multiple tables or datasheets of all these potential leads is awkward, clunky and time-consuming.

By using CRM as an integral part of your day-to-day real estate business, you’ll find that information from all these channels are consolidated and available in one place. This data can be easily accessed, organized and managed via laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.

Communicating with Clients

No matter how complicated or time & resource consuming it is to sell houses, each and every house that has ever been sold was because of communication - between agents, sellers and potential buyers. At times, the difference between making a sale on the house or not is as simple as answering a phone call. Most modern CRM tools include customizable auto-response features that provide an immediate response to anyone who might reach out to you.

While these auto-responses aren’t exactly the most personal or effective method of responding to clients, it is very much better than an inquiry going unnoticed and without response. You should opt for a response that acknowledges its nature instead of something that seems remote and disingenuous.

“Oops, Sorry for the auto-response! I’m out for a meeting at present. I want you to know that I received your message and will reach out to you as soon as I possibly can. Thank you for understanding!”

Any simple response of this sort can make the potential client feel that you are not ignoring them and make them want to stick around – always the key to maintaining a relationship with a client.

Automation of Tasks and Workflows

With an appropriate real estate CRM, you can combine the personal touch of your individuality with the efficiency of automation. For starters, it can help you send out “Happy Home Buying Anniversary” messages to your clients. You only need to draft an email, and the CRM will send it out to those with the appropriate anniversary date.

You can do large batches in one go which means your CRM does most of the heavy lifting. You can automate your CRM to do this and much more functions for you!

Real Estate Scheduling Tips for Instagram and Linkedin

Real Estate Scheduling Tips for Instagram and Linkedin

An effective social media marketing strategy is one that’s organized, well-planned and which incorporates lots of informative content. Once you’ve polished your real estate website and hosted a significant amount of content, it’s time to schedule your social media posts around such resources and establish a plan of action for regular activity appropriate to each major social network.

This might sound hectic, but you don’t need to spend tons of hours to extract substantial results from social media. All it takes to succeed in social media marketing for real estate is knowing what and when to publish and also the right tools to use. Discover how to fine-tune your posting plan and organize your social media scheduling tasks.

Instagram

Content to Share: Photos and videos of listings, clients, neighborhoods, local businesses and your office.

When to Post: Afternoons, every day of the week

Frequency of posting: A few times daily (Ensure a good mix of videos and photos)

Arguably one of the most leisure social networks around, posting on Instagram is as simple as point, shoot and share. An incredible platform that allows you to showcase beautiful shots of your listings, community, and of course yourself on the job. There is no one proper posting frequency schedule for this photo- and video-sharing network. As long as you publish at least a few photos and videos on a daily basis, you’re in good shape.

Originality should be a priority while Instagramming, so be sure to keep your recordings and images fresh. In short, make use of best practices on Instagram to get plenty of users “favoriting” your content.

One’s best bet for Instagram success is to gradually stock up on photos and videos over time so that you have a well-stocked library with you and don’t need to worry about having enough to post regularly. Some Instagram automation tools even make it simple to schedule photos, thus saving you lots of hours each week.

LinkedIn

Content to Share: Company updates, announcements, answers for buyers/sellers, external content, blog posts, etc.

When to Post: Late morning or early afternoon during weekdays.

Frequency of posting: A couple of updates per day is ideal, but be sure to monitor conversations in related groups.

LinkedIn can be quite the real estate lead generation tool. All it takes to generate leads on the channel is to make your presence prominent on the site — like creating a detailed and informative Company Page — and taking advantage of bonus features like Groups.

Shortlist groups that are either related to your locality or specifically for prospective buyers and sellers in your area. Even if you don’t directly provide solutions, you can make a name for yourself as a considerate local professional who helps out fellow community members.

Regularly publishing blog posts on your Company Page is a must, while engagement in Groups can set you apart from other agents.

If activity on your Company Page is low, make use of LinkedIn’s advanced search feature to discover specific individuals in your market to connect with. As with other social media platforms, it’s important to steadily grow your LinkedIn network so your content can reach them.

Why real estate agents get ignored on social media - And what to do about it

Why real estate agents get ignored on social media - And what to do about it

Face it, your social media stinks. No, that’s not an insult. It’s just that the facts can’t be ignored. Despite the highest frequency of posting, the real estate industry seems to have the lowest engagement rates.

This data might be surprising, what with all the social media gurus talk about is how important it is to post regularly. Statistics also show that using images increase engagement as well. And the real estate industry tops in this as well.

So why are people being turned off?

Too Much Content?!

Very likely because you’re not posting the right stuff. Not that your listings and other updates are bad, but the majority of your followers just don’t care. The reason people use social media is not to be sold to. People like updates because they enjoy something new or share an opinion. They retweet or share content that evokes emotion or interest. That’s the sort of content you need to post.

Unless all your followers are in the market for a new home or planning to move, then they will have not much interest in your listings, the sale you made recently or anything at all related to your business.

You have to realize that most of your connections don’t fit into that group. It’s usually several years before your clients will even think about moving again. However, you can’t afford to ignore them until they are back in the market. Remember that 70 percent of real estate clients forget their agents after only a year. Here’s what you can do instead

Content rules, but in Context

Too obvious to state? Most agents get into the habit of posting updates they want to share rather than content their followers would like to receive. You can’t force engagement this way.

Always remember the 80/20 rule when planning your social media calendar. Not more than 20 percent should be about your services while the remaining 80 percent or more should be about your clients’ needs, likes and wants.

While interest varies from client to client, certain topics have broader appeal than others. According to research, food, home and lifestyle topics account for 85 percent of the world’s most shared content. So all the shareable recipes, organizational tips, DIY and self-improvement ideas will consistently fare well.

Building relationships, the right way

Displaying a little personality or sharing some non-commercial updates helps you connect with your clients. If you do post about yourself, make it personal and not anything that would make you look unprofessional.

Most social media sites let you share directly with individuals. Use your knowledge of your followers to connect with them to make your clients feel special. The more your followers get to know you, the more rapport you’ll have. It can be hugely beneficial when it comes to referrals and repeat business.

It takes some time and effort, but improving your social media efforts can bring you substantial returns on investment.

Three tips to effective real estate promotion on Facebook

Three tips to effective real estate promotion on Facebook

Real estate promotions on Facebook can be a great way to pull in new business, but it isn’t as easy as many would have you believe. It might take months of effort and dedication before your strategy on Facebook pays off. Patience is the name of the game when it comes to cultivating leads on this social network.

Regardless, growing your client pool without spending additional money on advertising, will be worth it. So how to achieve marketing success on Facebook? Here are a few tips for successful real estate campaigns on Facebook.

Showcase your services and post content of value for your clients

When you have a Facebook page to promote your real estate business, you need to ensure that the content you put out is 100% professional and polished. No using a business page to rant about the system or hassles of day-to-day life. You should treat it as an extension of the excellent service your clients can expect from you as their agent.

You might have a hard time finalizing the type of content to host on your page, start by asking yourself this: What will be of value to your clients? Endless posts of listings aren’t useful for most clients, more so on social media. On the other hand, information on mortgage and local news are often more pertinent to potential real estate clients.

Downplay your accomplishments, focus on your clients

If you are focused too much on your business, you may come across as conceited and only caring about your success. So, instead of focusing your content on yourself, concentrate on your clients’ interests. This will help you market your services to potential clients and communicate your competency as an agent.

The next time you close a sale, don’t post about it, but take a picture of your clients being ecstatic about their new home and ask them to share their story on your Facebook page. Through this, the focus turns onto their success, and the content will convey your incredible ability to help clients in their real estate goals.

Going beyond “likes” and more of authentic engagement.

If you really wish for your Facebook marketing efforts to pay off, engage with your audience! It’s important that you post content on your business page on a regular basis, but it’s the interaction with your clients (prospective or existing) that really counts. As a thumb rule, committing about 20 percent to content and 80 percent to user engagement seems to be the most effective in balancing the two.

One of the best ways to engage your Facebook following is to comment on their relevant posts. Always be responsive when someone asks you a question. This goes to show others that you are active and accommodating. Keep in mind this important bit: A Facebook “like” doesn’t take much effort, but taking the time to actually comment or respond goes a long way to show your commitment.

Three major ways for real estate players to grow their social media following

Three major ways for real estate players to grow their social media following

The question on the minds of many real estate players is “How to nurture your social media profile and increase your reach?” If you start behaving on your social media accounts like you’re the only one who matters, it will soon turn into a mid-day soap opera — you’ll lose viewers.

The answer is this: By creating more relationships with people and building upon existing ones. There are tons of advice around on how to do that, but it doesn’t matter until you start doing it. You’ll never get the attention you deserve unless you take action on that front. Here, we aim to show you actionable ways to build and grow relationships with people on major social platforms.

Facebook

In order to grow an audience out of nothing on Facebook, one needs to leverage someone else’s audience. Start off by identifying a few companies or individuals on Facebook who share the same customer base with you but are not direct competition.

For instance, if you’re a Realtor looking at local lenders, title companies and regional news outlets are a great place to begin. Once you’ve made up your list, you need to set up notifications for all these pages to see every time they post. Regularly participate in the comments section for these posts and interact/engage with individuals who are adding value to the discussion. Your goal is to build a similar audience, by adding value to a discussion they have started.

By commenting and interacting with others, you’re not selling anything, but merely facilitating discussion. The more discussions you conduct, the more your exposure grows, the more views your page gets, and the more you get to build your audience. This eventually leads to inquiries and rapport building.

Twitter

One of the favorites to build an audience, the fast-paced platform allows you to engage directly on certain topics, all in a crisp 140 characters.

The strategy is simple enough: Using Twitter to find people in your area. It’s as simple as heading over to Twitter and typing something into the search bar. Maybe “moving to Austin,” for starters.

You are sure to come across tweet(s) from people planning to buy houses in Austin. Though these can be considered leads, but rather thin ones you need to build upon. The key to approaching someone on social media is to be friendly, not “salesy”.

LinkedIn

A great platform to network with other professionals. You can showcase your knowledge or expertise in several ways, but what you should focus on is articles via the blogging platform, LinkedIn Pulse. Every time an article is posted on LinkedIn, his or her network is notified of it.

But first, you need to ensure your content is up to par. Too many shameless self-promoting blogs will have people tuning you out. Dust your best blog post, and republish it on LinkedIn. If the content is engaging, you will gain followers and see a ton of followers for your content.

These actionable pieces of advice won’t cost anything but time and may benefit you in a huge way in the long run.

Tips For Real Estate Marketers to Build a Social Media Following

Tips For Real Estate Marketers to Build a Social Media Following

Social media marketing may be one of the cheapest and easiest ways to market services and products. More so for real estate agents, especially realtors working for small and midsize agencies. The latter may actually have an advantage in this area.

The reason for this is that many large, enterprise-level businesses struggle to establish and effectively communicate the business value being created through social marketing. Smaller agencies can use this anomaly to their advantage. For one, you’ll be able to directly experience the return on investment (ROI) for your strategies and campaigns on social media, and you can quickly modify such campaigns to achieve better results.

However, to succeed on social media, you need to ensure you follow the things mentioned below.

Regular Updates

The easiest way to achieve success through social media marketing is to build up a substantial following on a variety of platforms by posting regularly. You need to post updates frequent enough that your followers are aware of your presence, creating brand awareness.

Keep in mind that real estate is the most saturated market on social media. Make sure you don’t post too frequently, flooding your follower’s feeds to the point that they become annoyed. Take care to schedule your posts and the type of content. It’s important to put quality over the quantity of content, and schedule them well. Use analytics available on networks to see when your followers are most active, and go onto schedule quality posts at that time.

You should make sure not to post similar content repeatedly, or your followers will start ignoring it. Make sure you’re mix up different content including Promotional, Personal, Editorial as well as Shared content.

Showcasing Your Personality

No matter which platform you use, remember that a successful realtor relies mostly on personality and salesmanship. Showcase these traits in your posts, and evolve a persona that your followers trust and interact with.

You’ll never get the following you want if you merely promote listings. This can be accomplished if you post shareable interesting content in order to gather a following. So when its time when you market a property, you have a ready built base of viewers.

However, it’s best to stay within limits. Stay interesting, but non-offensive so as not to drive any potential clients away. It’s best that you establish a professional Facebook page (or Twitter/Instagram accounts) that are distinct from your personal profiles. Use this page to post virtual tours, listings, announce open houses, share real estate tips and conduct business activity that doesn’t compete for visibility with your personal stuff.

Building a Community

You should use your social media presence to position yourself as a thought leader amidst the community that you cater to. For instance, you can build your audience around your professional Facebook page. Facebook groups can be used to share content such as information on taxes, local news, events, tips, promote businesses in the area and so on.

However, in order to build a community around your services, you first need to decide specifically what that community is about. You will need to make sure that your fans will engage and enjoy the content that you plan to focus on. This way you will be able to build a following who is most likely to use the services you provide, and build your business.

Five Social Media Management Tips for Real Estate Marketers

Five Social Media Management Tips for Real Estate Marketers

Real estate marketing used to be limited to bus stop benches, classifieds and newspaper pull-outs. But those days are long gone, real estate has taken to online, and is going social at a hectic pace.

The art and strategies of social media have led to a powerful community being enabled in real estate, and it can have a considerable impact on a marketer’s success. There are any number of seemingly minor things that can make a huge difference when planning a strategy for social media marketing in real estate.

We have for you a few tips from experts in the field on how to use social media for real estate marketing. These can be applicable for businesses beyond real estate as well. Here are a few of the most important tips for marketers in real estate:

Consistency

The key to being successful on social media is consistency in posting content and engagement. You cannot just post on Facebook or Tweet once in a long while and expect results. You need to be present everyday—just like with your work, phone calls, email and with the rest of your marketing strategy.

You can make use of a tool like HootSuite to schedule your messages. You can compose a few messages in one go and schedule these posts to “drip” out in intervals during the day.

Fine Tune your Content Strategy

You need to have a solid content strategy to be successful on social media in the long term. Ask yourself about the type of content most suited to your brand, relevant for your audience and where you can get that. Then, plan a content grid or editorial calendar where you can chart the topics you plan to post over the next few weeks.

Real Estate is Local

When planning your content strategy, make sure to focus on your area by including things that locals know. Buying or selling houses is not only about the home—it’s about the locality – the parks, the schools and so much more. Your potential clients will love that hyper-local information—this is one area that can really set you apart as a local real estate pro.

Listen Around

Understand that conversation doesn’t just have to be on your Facebook page or Twitter stream. It can happen in Facebook groups, in chatter on social platforms and throughout Twitter. Be aware of conversations going on in your social circles about real estate and jump in. These conversations will occur whether you are present or not—so it’ll be better with you there.

Measure the Success of Your Efforts

Be aware of your Facebook posts and Tweets that get the highest number of clicks or engagement. Know how much of your web traffic come through social networks? Try to know where your audience is at.

Make sure you check your HootSuite Analytics regularly to gauge your progress. You can integrate your Facebook Insights and Google Analytics into HootSuite to see the larger picture.

How Real Estate Agents Can Succeed at Social Media in 2017

How Real Estate Agents Can Succeed at Social Media in 2017

Till a few years ago, real estate agents could easily get away without a strong social media presence. Consequently, the industry was relatively slow to embrace technology. But now, with consumers expecting any and all the businesses they deal with to be online, it is no longer optional for real estate professionals.

However, social media marketing isn’t rocket science and here are five simple steps for any real estate professional to ramp up their social media game.

1. Craft a Plan

There are a variety of social platforms out there—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat and more. Simply having a mere presence on one isn’t enough. One needs to be active and consistent on the network.

It’s quite normal to get overwhelmed at first or lose momentum over time. A concrete plan will force you to think out your strategy well in advance and also hold you accountable. Charting a plan will help you stay focused and organized about your efforts, so there’s less chance of you getting sidetracked or giving up.

2. Choose Your Platform Wisely

For many reasons, you need to be selective about the social media channels you invest in. Every social network is tailored for distinct demographic and distinct types of content. It is better to focus on the networks that align with your goals rather than spread yourself thin and be mediocre as a result.

Identify the social networks that fit your business objectives. This can be based on your target audience, your brand, relevant fields or topics and so on. Be targeted in your campaigns to establish and cultivate relationships.

3. Use The Platform Effectively

Every social network has unique characteristics that are important to keep in mind. Twitter is great for sharing articles and participating in topical conversations, while Pinterest is one many people turn to for visual inspiration, Linkedin for professionals to network and so on.

While posting, be sure to follow the 80/20 rule. It means that 80 percent of your posts should be on common areas of interest and only 20 percent that relates to your business and listings. Being overly promotional on social media can hurt your brand as people do not want to be sold to.

Social media is a two-way street. If you want your content to engage people, you have to engage in return. Responsiveness goes a long way in this.

4. Managing Social Activity

Consistent and strategical activity is the key to Social Media Prominence. In its absence, social media could end up either taking up way too much of your time or fail midway. Make use of management tools like Hootsuite that enable you to schedule all your posts from one place.

You should always keep in mind that you shouldn’t re-purpose content wholesale, but rather adapt effectively.

5. Monitoring and Measurement

Marketing always goes hand-in-hand with measurement. While social media marketing is mostly about long-term goals, for the short term identify metrics (number of likes, followers, etc.) that demonstrate progress until eventually, these statistics translate into concrete leads and sales.

Many of the social networks help you with analytics to help track growth. This helps maintain motivation while gaining insight into that which works and what doesn’t.

In order to establish a strong online presence, position yourself as an expert, connect with clients and prospects to build relationships. And remember, all this can be fun as well.

3 Tech Startups Shaking Up the Real Estate Market

3 Tech Startups Shaking Up the Real Estate Market

Residential real estate as an industry has traditionally been built upon relationships. Those planning to raise a family and looking for the perfect home is prone to work closely with their real estate agent to discover the most desirable property. So it is mandatory for agents to possess engaging personalities as well as actively build personal networks to gain new business.

However, tech ventures like Zillow and Trulia as well as other startups have emerged to automate the processes for investors, property managers, and brokers. They employ technologies that infuse machine learning, predictive analytics, digital media and transparency into the real estate ecosystem.

Here are three startups that are notable for leveraging technologies to significant effect in this niche.

Unisource: Automating title and escrow.

Organizations are leveraging automation to significantly expedite the process of loans with mortgage lenders trying to close loans, title and escrow faster than ever before. Apart from aggregating buyer information from various online sources, title and escrow companies are customizing solutions to fit the needs of individual mortgage lenders.

Even though the industry has traditionally delivered real estate transactions through brick and mortar firms, people are increasingly discouraged by the paper-intensive and manual processes. This enables newer tech-focused models to emerge in all facets of the lending process. The challenge is in combining technologies to automate processes while adhering to the stringent and constantly evolving compliance regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to deliver a seamless lending process.

Honest Buildings: Changing commercial real estate.

Increased access to technology and analytics has made collaboration and transparency throughout the life of a real estate project easier. Of vital importance to the health of the project, the data-driven project management and procurement platform from Honest Buildings has been built for operators, real estate owners, and managers.

Honest Buildings strives to become the go-to source for commercial real estate projects, similar to a centralized location for buyers to shop for homes and examine a range of property aspects. Founder Riggs Kubiak says that he sees the real estate industry evolving from outdated pen and paper processes, unlocking value through faster project completion within budget.

Matterport: Augmenting the purchasing process.

With the next big thing - “Virtual Reality” penetrating nearly every industry and turning increasingly mainstream, real estate startups like Matterport are taking off in a huge way. The company’s 3D technology allows real estate brokers and agents to scan rooms in a matter of minutes, making virtual tours the future of the open house.

The effect of this new standard in real estate can be explained by the increasing number of people choosing homes without ever visiting them. This is helpful in a lot of cases where the buyer is off location and needs to make a quick decision. At times if a couple is buying the property, only one person needs to fly out, the other may experience it remotely via VR.

These startups have been successful, albeit in small steps - by opening up the real estate to buyers with reduced involvement from realtors.

3 Ways that Social Media can Help Real Estate Agents

3 Ways that Social Media can Help Real Estate Agents

Social media is tailor-made for real estate agents to market and grow their business. They can instantly connect with clients both existing and prospective as well as other real estate peers. While most real estate agents make use of some social media platform or other to promote their business, this marketing is only effective as long as you do it correctly.

Knowing how to best harness the power of social media to help grow your real estate business can help you utilize your time efficiently over various social media platforms.

Building a Reputation

The major reason that real estate agents use social media websites is to promote their business and also to build their reputation. They are able to position themselves as an expert in their chosen field, which succeeds in attracting new clients. Providing your followers on Facebook or Twitter with insightful and quality content is the best way to achieve this.

However, before posting you need to consider your audience and whether or not they will find this kind of information relevant. This ensures that your readers remain interested and responsive to what you have to say.

Networking with Peers

Using social media to network with your peers, professionals in other markets and related fields is a highly effective way to generate new business. Keeping in touch with your current and past clients through Facebook is an excellent way to gain from referrals for your business. You can always prompt your readers to share your article or post with someone, who is hopefully in the market for a new house.

Another advantage of social media websites is the ability of real estate professionals to network with others in the real estate industry. Following other agents’ Facebook pages and Twitter accounts is a wonderful way for you to see how other agents are promoting their businesses. Aligning yourself with other successful agents in real estate will help you succeed within the industry as well.

You can interact easily with these professionals over various social media platforms thus building a productive relationship.

Diversifying Marketing Strategy

The more you market your real estate business, the better your chances of being successful. Mixing up some social media marketing and online advertising is sure to help you reach new clients that traditional marketing methods can never have. Frequent updates on Twitter and Facebook accounts on a consistent basis is an easy way to keep prospective clients informed about your latest listings.

Posting videos on a YouTube channel is another effective way to market your business. Something as simple as a photo slide show posted as a video on YouTube can help spread the word about a new listing on the market. Being able to show prospective buyers the video of a new home you have for sale is a convenient way to pique their interest.

Finding such new and diverse ways to promote your real estate business can help your business thrive, especially during these tough times.

The Major Real Estate Trends Predicted for 2017

The Major Real Estate Trends Predicted for 2017

If you’re considering buying or selling a home this year, it's good to learn everything you can about the market trends in order to make the best decision. While predicting the real estate market behavior is problematic at best, this year is especially difficult to predict.

A major part of this is the uncertainty as to what President Trump will put in place with respect to housing policies. Apart from this, other market trends for the new year are relatively clear.

The Outlook for Housing

Growth in home values should see a slight drop from 2016, tempering the high home value appreciation rates in market recovery that followed the housing crisis. This year will be more in line with the historical appreciation rates.

Renting too is set to become more affordable this year as Incomes are growing faster than rentals for the first time in a long while. This is also in part to an increased supply of more multifamily rental units coming into the market, while many renters have teamed up with roommates.

One thing that’s likely to move up though is mortgage rates from the record lows for years. Rates are climbing now and are expected to keep doing so next year. This essentially makes it inevitable for buyers or sellers to act (transact) sooner rather than later this year.

Due to the same reason, new construction that always comes at a premium will be even higher in 2017. An existing labor shortage in the construction industry will be exacerbated due to tighter immigration measures.

Millennials to Lead the Way

One clear trend is that the oldest of the Millennial generation will get into their mid-30s and many will be entering into marriage, having children and most certainly buying houses to settle down. Several other factors also contribute to this broad trend, with more jobs being created for this segment (early thirties) than other age groups and rising wages.

While traditionally most young people headed for the coasts after college, an increasing number are now choosing to settle down and buy homes in the Midwest. These markets are often close to large universities, offer well-paying jobs and are relatively more affordable.

On the other hand, prices on the already-expensive West Coast continue to rise, where the most significant job growth has been since the recession. Population growth tends to follow jobs and due to the market's lack of inventory. As a result, everything will be priced higher.

Baby Boomers – Still swinging

On the other hand, the oldest of the Baby Boomers, who are entering their late 60s, are also looking to move as they approach retirement. This is in contrast to the last few years that have seen their participation in the housing market dwindling. Many already possessed homes and were reluctant to sell properties that have now recouped their value lost in the housing bust.

While this segment is mostly looking to downsize and control expenses, there are also those who plan to buy the biggest house just so that their children and grandchildren can come to visit. Many erstwhile boomers are opting to move closer to their families rather than traditional retirement hot spots like Florida or Arizona.

5 Ways LinkedIn Can Be A Useful Tool For Real Estate Agents

5 Ways LinkedIn Can Be A Useful Tool For Real Estate Agents

Most of us are creatures of habit. For many of us, checking a device, reading the news and briefly scanning the social networks before you begin the day at work is a regular habit.

People have differing even conflicting views of the real estate business, but it all essentially boils down to: scouting for new business. We meet someone, look for common ground, try to build rapport and eventually move the conversation toward executing business.

So it makes no sense that real estate agents who often talk (non-stop) about their businesses avoid a tailor-made platform such as LinkedIn. Admitted, scouting for links can be tough but profitable in the long run. Here are a few ways LinkedIn can be useful to real estate marketers.

Networking:

Works particularly well with erstwhile colleagues, alumni groups, casual acquaintances, etc. A past client can connect with you when they want to make a deal in your region or an alumni reaches out for help in buying an apartment.

Self Promotion:

There are few things stronger than “Recommendations,” what others have to say about you. Good reviews prove that you are someone that the writer considers valuable. The icing on the cake would be dishing out advice to individuals with real estate related podcasts.

Referrals and Alliances:

Real estate people in other regions, other professionals you have a relationship with and all other alliances outside of the real estate field are all excellent examples of individuals you can find and engage on LinkedIn. Believe it or not; outside of real estate, there are many other organizations in which you can be an active volunteer or board member.

Research:

Meeting a prospect? You would do well to take a look at their Linkedin profile and learn more than any other Google-sleuthing can.

Notifications:

Almost always a great reason to reach out and congratulate someone.

No matter what the platform is, providing value is key to all relationships. LinkedIn is a great place to engage with other people and speak about business, be it your knowledge of an upcoming pipeline, new developments or even mere sharing of views about business. It is a potential gold mine of context so that communications can be targeted and customized.

Of course, you need to keep it professional; it’s not a place you would discuss your dog or the movies. Almost everybody will connect on LinkedIn, and it is only logical to engage on a professional basis. It is different from being friends on Facebook. Eventually, many of your clients become friends (or vice-versa) and most often provide referrals.

You should not miss out on this splendid opportunity - outside of your other interactions (real world connections, existing clients, etc.) Understanding the platform you use to engage in business, and the nature of audiences involved is essential in learning to maximize your returns.

Try it out and let us know of your experiences (either good or bad) on LinkedIn.

The 5 Industries Best Suited for Social Media Marketing

The 5 Industries Best Suited for Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is relatively new and based on a technology that didn’t previously exist. No wonder it’s a divisive strategy, and many business owners continue to resist it, branding it a fad and a waste of time. Several other business owners believe their particular industry can’t possibly benefit from social media marketing.

A large number of business owners lie somewhere between the extremes of successful implementation and outright rejection.

Given this scenario, some businesses certainly stand to benefit from social media more than others. For instance, a company with a high, conversion-optimized website obviously stands to benefit from increased traffic more than one with a rudimentary landing page and little else. Personal relationship oriented businesses stand to gain more rather than one-and-done product based ones.

We take a look at a few of them:

1. Real Estate

The industry depends on a lot of visibility and networking, both of which are available in spades on social media. Most real estate agents garner business through references, and references are much easier to obtain when your contacts are only a mere click away. The strength and personality of an agent's profile can make a big difference for customers considering different options.

2. Legal

Another area where charisma and reputation count more than anything else. People look to work with someone they trust, and someone who is knowledgeable. Attorneys or law firms can use social media to show off their knowledge, provide (limited) information to user questions, and establish their brand.

3. Human Resources/Recruiting

It is often hard to find the “perfect fit” for an open position. With social media, you can cast the widest net possible and showcase the best of your brand in order to recruit the best talent.

4. B2C Retail

Countless brands have made use of the mass marketing potential of social media. They started out building brand recognition among total strangers, who often chanced across a random image of a product they had been unacquainted with.

Facebook and Twitter are almost custom-made platforms for reaching large numbers of individuals at once, making them ideal for retail companies. Such brands could also make good use of brand evangelists, who share everything you post and consequently attracting even more people.

5. Technology

The industry is “hot”—with constant flux, and people are evidently interested, so they’re naturally more attuned to the happenings on social media. Social media provides the perfect platforms for you to show off stuff that makes them special. It also makes it easier to provide support through useful tips or walking people through troubleshooting steps.

In the end, social media marketing is more effective for some industries than others, but any industry can take advantage of it if they approach it with the right goals and the right strategies. Establish a foundation for a good content strategy, focus on the primary goals, and start building something.

Remember: social media platforms are almost universally free (unless you’re building on a paid advertising campaign.) You don’t have much to lose by trying it out.

The Potential Danger of Marketing Real Estate in Social Media

The Potential Danger of Marketing Real Estate in Social Media

Real estate listings are aplenty on Facebook, whether from a friend posting about the house they are selling or "suggested posts" from an advertiser or real estate related content. These kinds of content are gaining in popularity across social media platforms. It's free advertising and often comes with dangers attached.

The National Association of REALTORS even has a dedicated section called "Field Guide to Social Networking for REALTORS," complete with articles that highlight tips to grow your real estate social marketing and delve into the benefits of social media among several others.

According to experts--using social media allows real estate agents to be available, engage pro-actively, establish a brand and build networks. Agents are rarely aware where their next customer is going to crop up, so they make use of all advertising mediums to get their product out there.

Seasoned agents make it a practice to click photos with their clients on closing and share them widely on social media, often both on their personal and professional pages. Rather than posting a random picture of a new listing with an address, agents also share in detail, the unique features of new listings. Highlighting such specifics always grab people's attention.

The ease of using social media and its reach have prompted many owners to test selling their houses themselves. However, be aware that there's an inherent risk in being so public with information.

When people post information about selling houses, you never know who is going respond. There can be the risk of non-genuine buyers getting in touch, especially if you are listing a home 'for sale by owner. Realtors, on the other hand, go through safety training classes and have systems in place specifically for these reasons. Someone looking to sell their house by posting on social media needs to be aware of the potential dangers.

The dangers of opening up an empty house to total strangers, unfortunately, extends to even experienced hands. Like the disappearance of real estate agent Beverly Carter which made national headlines while showing a foreclosed house in Arkansas to a prospective client. Tragically, Carter's body was found several days later, believed by the police to have been killed by this new client.

The shocked real estate community took Carter's death as a tragic wake-up call with safety training classes more popular these days. To capitalize on all of the real-time opportunities presented by the social Web you need to get as many people involved socially as well.

In most real estate organizations today, social is a job for some random social media person, who is centralized and managing by listening, responding, analyzing and handling other tasks. This has to change for small to midsize companies by having more antenna up than one person or a few random people.

Social media is awesome, but not necessarily easy to use for business, especially marketing. More so in real estate where we open our doors to strangers.

Marketing Real Estate in 2017, 4 Trends to Keep in Mind

Marketing Real Estate in 2017, 4 Trends to Keep in Mind

2017 is just around the corner, and we can no longer put off drafting our marketing strategy for the coming year. With that in mind, these are the prominent trends that will emerge in the new year.

However, remember that no radical change in marketing is going to occur overnight, and content will reign supreme as it has for the past few years. But what is likely to change is how content will evolve in relation to the times and how search engines are going to rank those different types of content.

1. Creativity in Content and Formats

Mere blog posts won't do anymore; you have to get creative. Especially with visual content that appeals to your target base and which they are more likely to share.

Content can take many shapes and sizes: text, sounds, images, animations, video, illustrations, etc. Content can be anything that adds value to a user’s experience wherever they visit you, be it your website or social media.

Search engines will turn more sophisticated and capable of indexing more than simple text, so no need to be worried about the impact of less copy and more of other content.

2. Don’t Float, Dive In

The days of broad general content are over. When crafting content, it's not enough to just scratch the surface — you have to dig deep. Get into as much detail as possible.

There is a lot of general information out there that is of not much value. What makes you stand apart is your in-depth knowledge of the various aspects or features of a particular subject. So if you are an expert in international or industrial real estate, demonstrate it through your content.

3. Video is the Star

Videos give you the highest return on investment, and that holds true across all platforms. Even a smartphone can be used to shoot videos. Go on and share as many as possible, you’re sure to get more engagement.

Make sure you include captions and descriptions. Most people have their audio on mute when they watch videos on social media; they prefer to read(!)

4. Acquisition vs. Retention

Marketers tend to focus on client acquisition rather than retention. However, after a year or so, most homebuyers forget their agent’s name. So if you want to be remembered, you need to nurture the relationship. Your transaction is not over with the signing of the contract.

You should make every effort to retain the loyalty of your existing clients. Make sure to communicate regularly and obtain credible referrals.

Some other trends of 2017 include live video streaming, native advertising (again), shorter content, greater use of virtual reality/augmented reality and web design that focuses on mobile devices.

Be sure that you account for these while drafting your marketing plan for 2017.

New Instagram Features for Real Estate Marketers

New Instagram Features for Real Estate Marketers

Instagram was once thought to be a platform meant for pictures of kittens, fancy dishes, and artful lattes. Now 85% of top brands are on it, and 60 percent of its 400 million active users log in each day, making it the most engaged social network second only to Facebook.

Instagram released several major updates in August, including Stories, a photo-sharing function similar to Snapchat. It allows users to create a string of pictures and videos that can be viewed by their followers for 24 hours. With the increasing popularity of Stories, Instagram has incorporated several additional features to make it even more useful.

Links to external pages.

For those in the real estate world, the most important update is arguably the addition of website links into an image or video in the Stories feed. By giving viewers access to a URL, posters can direct their followers to a specific landing page. At launch, this feature was only available for verified accounts, meaning those owned by brands or celebrities.

Once it’s available for lesser mortals, this feature will bring some significant advantages for real estate agents. Realtors who share photos or short videos of new properties will be able to direct viewers to the listing’s landing page. Or those with DIY or property-buying video clips can have links to full videos on YouTube or recordings on their own websites or other social pages, like Facebook or Twitter.

Marketing possibilities are immense, with the primary goal to drive traffic you stir up on social media to a landing page where you can capture lead information.

‘Mention’ other users.

The easy ability to create new connections is a great advantage of Instagram. Through allowing users to mention others in Stories, story-creators can target pictures or videos at specific people. And tagging someone thus immediately turns available to all users, so there is no delay.

One example is to use it to showcase happy clients. If an agent makes a successful transaction with a client, they can take pictures or videos at different stages and share it later on a storyline for all of their followers to see. The clients feel appreciated as well once they know you’re excited to be engaged with them.

You can also make use of this feature in Q&A sessions. If there are relevant questions that most of your clients have, you can record a short video response (or series of short responses) and mention individual clients in the caption.

Benefit from the ‘Boomerang’ Effect.

A stand-alone app that works specifically with Instagram, Boomerang creates ultra short, one-second videos that loop back and forth, so the matter needs to be suitable. Though nothing revolutionary, it’s a fun way to interact with Instagram followers. You can use this feature to show off clients celebrating after closing a transaction—dropping keys into hands, making a toast, opening the front door, etc.

While Instagram is indeed a great platform to promote your brand and your listings, it requires considerable effort. Needless to say, challenging for a busy real estate professional to maintain along with other platforms. No need to worry, we have several comprehensive social media plans available that are designed specifically for busy real estate professionals who are looking to connect better and engage with their audience without wasting any of their own precious time.