Social Media for Real Estate Blog
UPDATED OCTOBER 2023
Social media for real estate is a critical part of marketing your business. Done well, it’s the simplest and most cost-effective way to stay top-of-mind with your sphere. But to successfully manage social media for real estate takes planning. And we’ve got a simple real estate social media strategy you can implement right now.
One of the keys is to use a good social media real estate content calendar.
Using one will not only save you time, but as a result, you’ll have the peace of mind of knowing that you always have something to post, even when times get busy.
Table of Contents
Why Social Media for Real Estate Is a Must
Benefits of a Social Media Strategy
Getting Started with Social Media for Real Estate
What to Post on Social Media for Real Estate
Where to Post
How to Schedule Your Posts
Why Social Media for Real Estate Is a Must
To be a successful real estate agent today, you have to be marketing yourself on social media. In other words, there’s no getting around it.
Just look at the numbers for instance.
According to data from the National Association of Realtors:
- 47% of real estate businesses ranked social media as one of the top tech tools that give the highest quality leads
- 77% of agents currently use social media for real estate, with a whopping 97% utilizing Facebook
- 26% of agents use social media to promote their real estate listings
- 25% of agents say it helps them maintain relationships with existing clients
- 98% of older millennials (and 89% of older baby boomers) start their search for a home online before ever speaking to an agent
Numbers don’t lie. The importance of social media for real estate is obvious – it’s absolutely critical to the success of your business. But how do you fit it into your already busy schedule?
We’re here to help.
Benefits of a Real Estate Social Media Strategy
Your days are busy and often unpredictable. However, not making it a priority to consistently post to social media for your real estate business can be detrimental to your success.
Above all, no one will follow you if your most recent Facebook post is from two years ago. And it certainly won’t speak well of your ability to market online.
The best real estate social media strategy of course is a social media real estate content calendar. Because, with one you will:
- firstly, have an efficient process that will keep you posting on a consistent basis
- secondly, save time and the stress of trying to figure out what to post
- thirdly, have ideas for every day of the year that you can pick from at a moment’s notice.
- fourthly, consistently show that you’re active in the community, and
- lastly, you’ll stay top of mind with your sphere and their friends and family
Next, let’s talk about how you can create one.
Getting Started with Social Media for Real Estate
To create a real estate social media strategy and a system to manage the social media for your real estate business, you’ll need to first think about three things:
Firstly, decide where to post. Consider where your clients spend the most time online, and then, most importantly, choose a site (or sites) that you actually enjoy being on. Otherwise you’ll find it difficult to stick with it.
Secondly, decide how often you want to post – we recommend at least once a day on Facebook and Instagram, maybe once or twice a week on LinkedIn. This is assuming of course that you have something of value to share. Quality over quantity.
Thirdly, choose what format works best for you. For some, it’s a Google calendar or an Excel spreadsheet, for others it’s a physical planner.
Once you’ve chosen what type of planner you’ll use, sit down and do some research on types of content to post. This is important to your overall real estate social media strategy, so you’re not at a loss for something to post on any given day.
Now that you’ve got your system in place, you may still be wondering exactly how to use social media for real estate. It’s all about the content you post.
Plan to set aside an hour or so every week and plan your social posts for the week or month ahead. Here are some ideas to get you started.
What to Post on Social Media for Real Estate
Identify any upcoming traditional holidays you want to celebrate for instance and add them to your schedule. NationalCalendarDay can be helpful for researching holidays in the United States.
In addition, research special industry-specific months like National Homeownership Month (June) for instance, or National Mortgage Professional Month (September). These are perfect for social media for real estate!
Part of your real estate social media strategy should be to demonstrate your knowledge as a neighborhood expert, so brainstorm local events and holidays specific to where you live. Are there special traditions in the communities you serve? Think parades, tree-lightings, farmers markets and charity runs, for example.
In addition, include some regular business posts like a weekly mortgage rate update or Tuesday tip.
Use hashtag holidays to help promote small businesses in your area. Snap a picture at your favorite neighborhood coffee shop on #NationalCoffeeDay, for example, and include in your post a link to the shop’s page or profile.
Got a new listing coming on the market? Set a reminder to post about it on all your profiles. You can even create a series of posts as you meet with the sellers, stage the house, work with photographers, host an open house and finally sell the property. This is a great way to walk a prospective seller through the process.
Most importantly, remember that social media for real estate is not just about selling houses, it’s about being social so don’t forget to include personal content. After all, the quickest way to push people away is to post about nothing but your listings. With that in mind, add reminders to share a photo from your vacation for example, your child’s first day of school, or a local charity event you’re participating in.
Ask engaging questions and share motivational quotes to increase your likes and engagement. We’ve made it easy for you by including more than 75 of these in our 12-month calendar.
Where to Post
Every social media platform is a little bit different. Let’s take a look at three in particular and how you can use them as part of your real estate social media strategy to grow your real estate business:
Social Media for Real Estate Platform #1 – Facebook
- Get personal – Facebook is the old standby when it comes to social media for real estate. But don’t use it to just talk about real estate. Use it to show people who you are. Share photos from your vacation, of you working in the garden. This is how you make yourself relatable and build relationships that will help generate referrals.
- Use video – Video generates more engagement than anything else on Facebook. Use it regularly. And because most people watch video with the sound turned off, be sure to add captions.
- Go live – Facebook loves when people use their live feature and will show your video to more people than they would with a static post or even a prerecorded video.
- Engage and reply – Ask people engaging questions and respond to their comments when they do.
- Tag and check in – Post about local businesses and tag their Facebook profile. Out to dinner at a local restaurant? Use the check-in feature when posting about the wonderful meal you had.
- Create shareable content – Post lists of local events and encourage people to share it in your caption.
- Advertise – Your posts won’t be shown to a lot of people organically. If you have something great to share, spend a couple of dollars on an ad so it’ll be shared with more people.
Social Media for Real Estate Platform #2 – Instagram
- Let the picture tell the story – Instagram is a visual platform, so when posting an image for your new real estate listing, don’t just show the exterior of the house, share something intriguing, like the sunset view from the deck, or a beautiful chandelier in the dining room.
- Make it personal – Use Instagram to show people who you are. Share your personal interests and passions, especially in Instagram Stories.
- Use hashtags – Hashtags are critical to reaching the right audience on Instagram, people who are interested in your services and have the potential to become clients.
- Engage – Don’t post and ghost – monitor your feed and respond to each and every comment. Turn on notifications so you know when there’s activity.
- Instagram Stories – Use Instagram Stories to show people the behind the scenes of either your business, your life or what’s happening in your community.
- Sign up for our free mini workshop: Instagram for Agents: Get Found, Grow Engagement & Generate Leads
Social Media for Real Estate Platform #3 – LinkedIn
- Update your bio – It shouldn’t read like a resume unless you’re looking for a job. Use it to tell people who you serve and what you love about being a real estate agent.
- Connect – Whenever you meet someone, send an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, but don’t just use the standard prewritten invitation LinkedIn offers – write a personal note.
- Recommend and endorse people – Doing something positive and unexpected for someone goes a long way and keeps you top of mind.
- Blog – Produce original content on the platform and include video whenever possible.
How to Schedule Your Posts
While we don’t advise you to schedule an entire month’s worth of posts ahead of time, scheduling some in advance can therefore ensure that the social media content for your real estate business gets posted consistently.
For example, here are a few scheduling tools we recommend. Most have a free or low-cost plan:
Facebook Creator Studio – This free tool allows you to post, manage and measure content performance across all your Facebook pages in addition to your Instagram accounts.
Later– Later focuses mainly on Instagram, with a handy drag-and-drop scheduler and photo library where you can upload and save images so you always have some at the ready.
Buffer – Buffer allows you to manage multiple accounts, which is great if you work with a team of agents and above all, want to stay organized.
Tailwind – If you use Pinterest in addition to Instagram, Tailwind is a great tool for scheduling on both.
Time to Put Your Real Estate Social Media Strategy into Motion
In conclusion, now you can see that social media for real estate doesn’t have to eat up hours and hours of your time. With a little planning, it will become a natural part of your real estate marketing plan and you’ll quickly begin to reap the benefits. Above all, keep it fun!
If you want to save yourself the time and hassle, grab a copy of our Social Media Real Estate Content Calendar. It includes an entire year of post ideas created specifically for real estate professionals.
Check out these resources to help you rock your social media:
- From Likes to Listings – How to Turn Instagram Followers into Clients
- How to Leverage LinkedIn for Real Estate
- GrammarPros Free Content Page
- 2024 Social Media Content Calendar for Real Estate
- 49 Instagram Post Ideas for Real Estate
- 41 Lead Magnet Ideas for Realtors
- Pinterest for Real Estate Tips Sheet
- Free Instagram Mini Workshop