June 20, 2024 by Lionel Pinkhard
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Owning a real estate business is one thing, but creating engaging social media content for it is another. You know you should be communicating with your audience, but you don’t always know how.
Figures suggest over 95% of people interested in buying properties use the internet in their research process. As such, getting content creation right from the start is essential.
That’s where this guide helps. We run through some compelling social media content ideas to incorporate into your outreach efforts. The more you can implement these suggestions, the more success you will see as you grow.
But what should you be doing, exactly? This guide provides advice from some initial top real estate content ideas to how to help your brand succeed online. By the end, you will have a picture of where to start and how to drum up publicity for your enterprise.
Table of Contents
- Building Your Online Real Estate Brand
- Crafting The Perfect Real Estate Posts
- Top Real Estate Content Ideas
- Dream Home Polls
- Behind-The-Scenes Glimpses
- Home Maintenance Tips
- Mortgage Q&A Sessions Or Webinars
- Must-Have Lists For First-Time Homebuyers
- Price-Guessing Contests
- Write About Specific Neighborhoods
- Seller Tips
- Market Updates
- Investment Basics Advice
- Compare Neighborhoods And Properties
- Seasonal Content
- How To Create Engaging Facebook Posts As A Realtor
- How To Generate Engaging Instagram Posts As A Realtor
- Now You Know How To Make Your Content Successful On Social Media
Building Your Online Real Estate Brand
Getting your branding right before you get into the nitty-gritty of creating specific content for your real estate business is essential. Nailing this will help everything else you produce to make more contextual sense.
Making Your Real Estate Brand More Visible
Making your real estate brand more visible is the first step. The more people know about it, the more they will take your content seriously.
Define Your Brand
Start by defining your brand and what you want it to represent. Consider where you want to become an expert and your unique value proposition. This focus will help audiences contextualize your content.
Also, think about who you want to talk to. Are you targeting seasoned investors? Or is your audience regular people looking for a home?
Again, the clearer you can be on this, the better your outreach will become.
Establish A Content Strategy
Once you have a brand and customer persona, start preparing your content strategy.
One approach is to build so-called “content pillars.” These give you the main topics around which you constellate the rest of your ideas and informative pieces.
Pillars should relate to your audience and their needs. Content should cover their various paint points and show them how to thrive when spending with you.
For example, you could cover things like:
- Neighborhoods they are interested in
- Updates on the market
- Guides for first-time buyers
- Guides for investors looking to rent out properties
Content strategies should also include a calendar – a timeline outline of when you will create and publish blogs, videos, infographics, and polls on your social media channels. A steady cadence will keep people interested and engaged. It will also build trust by showing your audience you will always be there for them.
Make Your Content Diverse
At the same time, ensure your content is diverse and doesn’t rehash the same ideas. Keep it fresh by introducing new concepts to social media audiences regularly. Don’t say things that might make them yawn or switch to someone else.
If you need to revisit content, present it in a different format. For example, create a video instead of writing another blog post or cartoon.
Make The Narrative Compelling
While crafting content, check it dovetails with your existing narrative. Does it make sense in the wider context of the information you release and your real estate brand?
Ideally, you want your tone, values, and philosophy to remain the same, even if topics change. There should be an undercurrent your followers can recognize.
Build a more intimate community if this consistent approach feels like a straight jacket. Knowing your audience better fosters trust and helps them keep up with your changing ideas. Being close to the people you serve lets you evolve your brand over time.
Focus On The Visuals
Finally, focus on visual content for social media. Photos and videos with punchy captions do better than walls of impenetrable text for most real estate brands.
For example, show more of your property images on social media. Steer clear of dry descriptions of living rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. Treat your visual outreach as a way to inspire and thrill potential customers about the properties they could own if they chose you. Show off luxury homes and take videos touring apartments, condos, and penthouses. Don’t be afraid to make content that seems a little over the top or out of the range of most buyers. An aspirational tone draws people to your brand and fosters trust.
Crafting The Perfect Real Estate Posts
Once you discover your audience’s needs and build a strategy for brand awareness, it is time to start creating. But how do you do that effectively?
Draw Them In With A Great Hook
The first part of your content audiences see is your headline, title, or intro. Therefore, it’s critical to get it right. If you don’t, people won’t read your posts, regardless of how informative or helpful they are.
When trying to reel people in with introductions, start with something attention-grabbing. Ideas include:
- Related statements to do with buying or investing in properties
- Surprising facts that people don’t expect
- Questions that captivate audiences.
For example, you could open a Facebook post with: “95% of people regret their home purchases” or “Why is it so hard to find a property with decent yields?”
Keep the introductory text short and sweet with a clear and concise tone so audiences can skim it to see if it is worth their time. Don’t make it too long.
At the same time, ensure your hook contains all the necessary keywords you want to target. Social media platforms need to know what it’s about so they can recommend it to their audiences.
You can use keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush for more ideas on phrases to include. These can help you tailor your content to the algorithms.
Make The Content Compelling
Once you create the introduction, the next step is to make the content compelling. It should deliver on what the title promises.
Here’s a list of things to do on social media to ensure your real estate content succeeds:
- Avoid listing properties and instead, draw attention to their highlights and unique features
- Weave a compelling narrative into the stories behind properties, talking about the people, architecture, and add-ons that make them unique
- Discuss how you help your clients succeed and provide real-world examples
- Use a
combination of text and imagery/video to get your points across
Leverage Calls-To-Action (CTAs)
After building the content, guide your audience on what to do next with a CTA. Don’t leave it up to them to find your site online.
You can boost the effectiveness of your CTAs by asking your audience rhetorical questions. For example, you might get them to sign up for your newsletter by writing, “Don’t you wish you knew more about your target neighborhood?” This question makes them answer “yes” unconsciously, provoking them to take action.
You can also use CTAs to show users where to go next. Interactive polls or contests are excellent examples where you reel them and offer them more insights if they hand over their email address.
Optimize Your Approach For Every Platform
Finally, create content that makes sense for the specific platform you want to target. For example, TikTok is useless for long-from prose – no successful company uses it for that – but it is an excellent tool for short-form videos.
The same is true for Instagram. It isn’t a place where real estate businesses would post full-length articles like this. But it is somewhere to cut and paste images of idyllic-looking properties that many people want to buy.
Top Real Estate Content Ideas
So, what real estate content should you be putting out to audiences across social media channels? Let’s take a look at some of your options.
Dream Home Polls
Dream home polls are an excellent way to get people interested in your brand on social media. These let audiences select the residences they love and what everyone else chose.
Most social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram allow you to conduct polls with in-built features, so hosting them is relatively straightforward. Some platforms also allow you to take a straw poll from two options, (i.e. asking people to rate their favorite luxury mansion). However, this option is highly platform-dependent.
Behind-The-Scenes Glimpses
Behind-the-scenes glimpses allow your audience to see more of what you do when nobody’s looking. It transforms you from being a faceless organization into something clients can relate to.
You can provide behind-the-scenes glimpses by talking about the lengths you go to to support your audiences’ interests. For example, you might show them how you negotiate on their behalf to get the best deals or enact due diligence to manage the paperwork.
You could also show them the effort that goes into sourcing properties. Reviewing your processes shows them you’re not just twiddling your thumbs and waiting for the commission to roll in.
Once you start offering these insights into how you operate, audiences on social media can relate to you more. A significant handful will then click through to your website or sign-up pages, adding themselves to your email list.
Home Maintenance Tips
Home maintenance tips show followers how to take care of their properties. Content pieces like these are valuable for investors and homeowners who want their apartments and houses to appreciate over time. The best articles and videos show them how to do this at the lowest possible cost to prevent improvements from eating into their margins.
Posting home maintenance checklists – things property owners must do to keep their houses and apartments shipshape – also works. These are helpful for novices or individuals who’ve seen declining values because of upkeep issues.
Mortgage Q&A Sessions Or Webinars
Mortgage products are challenging to understand, and many audiences can’t get their heads around them (even if they are seasoned professionals). Therefore, real estate enterprises should also consider running mortgage question-and-answer sessions.
Some realtors put out a request for questions before the event starts to gauge the mood and prepare answers. Others trust in their expertise and respond to incoming queries on the fly, but both can work.
This content should be educational. Audiences need complicated things like mortgage costs and refinancing terms explained to them in a language they can understand.
Must-Have Lists For First-Time Homebuyers
First-time homebuyers don’t always know what they need to enter the property market. It can be shrouded in mystery (especially if conveyancers don’t explain things clearly).
Therefore, posting must-have lists for first-time homebuyers on social media can help. Telling them what to do to enter the market (in a concise checklist) gives them something they can refer to later if they get stuck. For example, you might include mortgage pre-approval arrangements with the bank, house deeds from the registry office, and insurance.
You can also regionalize these checklists and tailor them to buyer subgroups. For instance, you might have checklists for buyers who want to use only cash (no mortgage) or those purchasing for investment purposes at auction. Doing this makes them more relevant and insightful.
Price-Guessing Contests
Real estate content can sometimes feel dry. Therefore, injecting some suspense and the possibility of winning a prize into your work can help liven it up a little.
Some real estate companies do this by asking their audiences to guess the price of a specific home. The user guessing the closest receives a prize. Others do it by estimating the cost of land.
However, regardless of the setup, these competitions can be an excellent way to keep people coming back to you for more content. Competitions give them a feel-good feeling and draw out positive emotions.
Write About Specific Neighborhoods
Property buyers (and sellers) don’t always know as much as they would like about specific neighborhoods. Therefore, content addressing this knowledge gap can help drive customers to your social media pages and website.
For example, discussing specific areas helps determine likely future property appreciation and a fair price today. People can discern whether a property is where they would like to live. What are the transport links like? Are there any decent schools nearby? Does it have nearby parks and amenities?
Seller Tips
Sellers also need help flogging properties and getting fair prices for them (essentially considering how much more educated the market is today than in the past). But knowing what to do doesn’t come naturally to many.
Therefore, you could choose “seller tips” as a content pillar and work around it. Including social media posts on how to navigate negotiations and use pricing strategies effectively could be extremely helpful for many individuals.
You could also create content regarding property staging (i.e. how to make them look good on camera and in-person for viewings). Some investors and sellers find this part challenging, so robust and straightforward advice could be helpful.
Market Updates
Buyers and sellers in the real estate market must stay current with the latest changes. This rule applies to newcomers, homeowners, and investors who plan to be in the sector long-term.
However, finding content that condenses everything they should know into a handy narrative is easier said than done. Audiences often have to dart between sites while attempting to synthesize the information. It’s not always feasible.
Therefore, social media posts on general market trends and updates can be helpful. Providing audiences with broad overviews of what’s happening in a bite-sized manner keeps them informed and able to make better decisions.
Investment Basics Advice
Some people want to get into real estate investing but don’t know the first step. With so much information swirling around online, it isn’t always clear where to begin.
Given this reality, your real estate brand could write a guide to help them. Providing them with this information would give them a leg up and make them more interested in working with you in the future.
However, you need to be careful with these types of guides. Avoid saying anything that might be construed as financial advice.
Compare Neighborhoods And Properties
Buyers, homeowners, and investors must often contend with multiple options before proceeding with a transaction. Therefore, comparative analysis can be helpful. Content could focus on neighborhoods, properties, or anything related to real estate and make it more straightforward for audiences to come to better decisions about where to locate and what to buy.
Comparisons are most helpful when they cover investing in one region or another. For example, you might explore whether it is better to pour money into property in Dallas or Miami.
Seasonal Content
Finally, audiences interested in real estate often want to see seasonal content on social media. These pieces instruct them on what to do at specific times of the year. (After all, property is a seasonal market).
For example, you could do a feature on an old, rustic house for Halloween or tell your audience what to do during winter when demand is minimal. You could also focus on spring cleaning in March or National Homeownership Month (in June in the U.S.) to discuss the benefits of buying and owning a property outright.
How To Create Engaging Facebook Posts As A Realtor
Facebook is the biggest social media network in the world, so getting specific advice on generating engaging posts on the platform is essential. Knowing what to do is paramount.
Here’s our advice:
- Make use of Facebook stories and Interactive Features. Add polls, quizzes, and questions to your audiences’ feeds to start comments and debates.
- Use targeted Facebook ads if you’re just starting. Use the social media network’s Ad Manager console to learn more about your audience’s demographics and how to target them more effectively.
- Integrate any properties you want to sell with Facebook Marketplace. Provide links to homes and apartments from your home page to create a more effective sales funnel (than going through to your site separately).
- Use Facebook Live to interact with your audience weekly. Host lecture series, Q&A sessions, and educational seminars to deal with buyer and seller pain points.
- Create a Facebook group. Get people talking about real estate in your area, or join a group where they already are obsessed with it.
These techniques are low-cost but often provide substantial return on investment. The more you can take advantage of them, the more likely you will succeed on the platform.
How To Generate Engaging Instagram Posts As A Realtor
Instagram is the second-most successful social network, so, again, paying attention to it is critical. Here are some specific strategies to deploy on the platform:
- Only post high-quality images and videos. Instagram is almost entirely visual-content-driven with many audiences wanting to see 3D property tours and expert photography that shows them what the property is like.
- Interactive pools and Q&A Stickers. As on Facebook, these interactive elements help you communicate with your audience and start conversations without sounding awkward.
- Daily work routine stories. Offering a “day in the life” story tells audiences more about who you are, what you offer, and why they should choose you for real estate services.
- User-generated content (UGC) competitions. Getting audiences to post content they create can drive interest and engagement (and allow you to repost incredible content you don’t have to write yourself).
- Stories Takeovers. Finally, you could take over the Instagram account of another firm and use it to spread your message. For example, you could work with home stagers or interior designers to celebrate the properties in your portfolio.
Instagram can be tricky for real estate businesses only just starting. However, the site has over a billion active accounts, making it particularly effective for reaching niche demographics.
Now You Know How To Make Your Content Successful On Social Media
Reading this article, you should know more about how to make your content more successful on social media. Getting your branding right and linking that up to your content is a formula that works for virtually all real estate businesses.