Real Estate

BEST SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES FOR REAL ESTATE AGENTS by Eliza Brooks

The importance of social media for real estate agents cannot be overstated. According to a study conducted by the National Association of Realtors, social media has become an integral part of real estate marketing as 99% of millennials initiate their home search online. Social media sites create a platform to connect with the local clients, build trust and extend your reach. Because of its paramount importance, we have curated the best social media practices for real estate agents below.

  1. Choose the right social media platform

Facebook

Facebook is a staple for real estate marketing. Because of Facebook’s feature that to access the user demographics you can target an audience for any given real estate business using the age and income-wise categorization. Facebook also allows agents to publish listing-related content, schedule appointments, connect with customers, and curate reviews in a single platform. Make sure to set up a business page on Facebook to access useful business features such as promotion and page analytics. Use compelling visuals to make the page attractive.

As Facebook algorithm promotes posts that get a lot of engagement, upload content that users will react to and share among friends and family. Holding a contest can also lead to engagements on Facebook. 

Instagram

Instagram is gaining tremendous popularity among the millennials. As Instagram is a visual platform, your page has to be visually appealing. Captions and hashtags are of great importance along with the details and contact information. Use an Instagram business account to share highlights, contact information, add links and access promotional features.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most used professional social media site. LinkedIn is a networking site that helps you connect with other real estate agents, real estate brokerages, and current clients.

  • Engage with your audience regularly

Social media platforms are a great way to build a user community around your brand. To grow your community, you need to focus on engaging with your connections and followers frequently. Customers are nowadays using Facebook’s recommendations feature, page mentions, questions on Quora, or tweets for real estate information. Look out for this outreach through a nanny camera to answer their queries, and use these questions as an opportunity to build trust with the followers and expand your brand awareness.

  • Video marketing

Videos have a powerful impact on the audience and are more attractive than plain text content. Along with them being engaging, videos can also reflect your creative side. Videos are a great way to boost your website rankings on search engines.

You can either create a video about your company or create a 360-degree view of your property along with the neighborhood for uploading to your social networks. Creating Q&A sessions and panel discussions is a good way to position yourself as an authority on the matter. Live streaming of videos using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube will help you garner maximum engagement. 

  • Share Client Stories to build trust

Use your client stories to create a deep emotional connection and trust with the audience. Start conversations and involve your audience to turn your brand into an experience they can relate to.

  • Promote the town along with the house.

Homebuyers are likely to consider the type of town the house is located in before making a moving decision. Most real estate blogs tend to miss the importance of this and simply provide only the basic demographic statistics. By using social media platforms to give clients a good understanding of the markets you serve, you can build trust among the clients. The best way from a prospective buyer’s position and create content that adds value to them. For a better understanding of an area, you can share the local events and news, and information about the local property price changes.

  • Engage with the users through comments

Social media is a fantastic way to get your foot in the door but it has its share of online bullies. You need to understand that not every remark aimed at you is worth responding to. Make sure to resist the temptation to get into an argument with your harshest critics, and acknowledge the good remarks your clients leave on your service. A lot of people who reach out to you may have has bad experiences and therefore, try to absorb their frustration and use it as an opportunity to divert their interest to other properties.

Home Improvement

Barn Wood

A newer trend is to take old barn wood and bring it into our homes mainly as flooring and wall textures. But what is barn wood? Like the name states, it is the old wood on barns that have weathered for decades. Most of the interior of the barns around South Dakota were made from yellow pine. This wood gives a yellow-brown, furrowed wood.

Uses in the home include flooring, walls, furniture, accent walls, fireplace mantels, exterior siding, fences, and other smaller projects. It provides a rustic, worn-out feel adding a character to any area. One of the most popular uses for barn wood is in slide doors taking the place of regular doors.

The beams along the ceiling provide an aged feel, especially to farmhouse décor. Dark wood stands out with rooms and ceiling painted white.

Barn wood headboard

Make sure you clean the boards with a steel-toothed brush to remove the old paint and dirt. Use the wood “as is” and apply a sealing finish.

Starting seeds indoors

Organic Garden Seeds

You will find organic garden seeds available this spring at a higher price. Are organic seeds better than regular seeds? My answer is no. The plants producing the seed, say lettuce, use nitrogen after the soil microorganisms break the chemical or organic fertilizers down to nitrate or ammonium which is taken up to the roots. As long as they get this nitrate or ammonium, they are happy. An organic seed will not grow better than a regular one.


Organic seed means the plant producing the seeds was grown organically with organic fertilizer and chemicals. If the grower uses chemical insecticide, does any of the residue go and stay in the dormant seed? No, it is diffused into the plant to gradually breakdown. So, whether a seed is grown organically or with chemicals, it has no meaning to the seed itself.


Heirloom seeds are referred to older varieties that are field pollinated. They are available as regular seeds and organic seeds. I am not saying that organic raising of eatable plants is bad. Anytime you put manure or other organic material in the soil, you increase the soil’s health.


As for chemical vs organic pesticides, some organic insecticides can be more dangerous than chemicals. Chemical insecticides have a tendency to break down rather quickly.


Now treated seed is different. This seed is treated with a fungicide to prevent rotting in cool, wet soil. This seed is safe if you wash your hands after planting. Seed treated with an insecticide is not available to gardeners.


As for GMO seeds (gene-modified seeds), they are not available as garden seeds.