How estate agents successfully use social media to help sell properties
In this blog, we explore the new-normal approach to marketing properties on social media.
With a third of the world’s population living under some sort of lockdown quarantine recently, open houses and on-site auctions would be impossible if they weren’t already banned.
The real estate world has responded by quickly upgrading their processes through marketing and technology. As we ponder about what might stick beyond the crisis, in this blog we explore the new normal approach to marketing and selling properties on social media.
Use positive social validation and statistics in your messaging
If everyone else is doing it, it makes it easier for us to get a handle on it too. Including facts in your marketing is a powerful way to prove, for example:
a) it's a prime time to sell and buy houses, we've sold x this month
b) the market is doing x% better than this time last year, and
c) adjustments for safety reasons are making all these people feel comfortable.
No number exaggeration (we can see right through those), just exemplify real people doing real things.
Hello Social client Kitty & Miles has released a playlist of videos to confront the feelings of uncertainty buyers or sellers are faced with. In this particular video, Kitty Parker describes the process of virtual viewings and how normal it can be. Check out the rest on Instagram or Linkedin.
Hello Social client Ray White Upper North Shore effectively uses IGTV to talk directly with their clients and prospects to show how people are still buying properties despite the pandemic.
Conduct virtual home tours live on Facebook
Check out innovations like Matterport 3D Camera which are making an impact on the Australian real estate market, especially in the off-the-plan world. The camera scans rooms throughout a house to create a 3D virtual walk-through. Potential buyers can virtually walk around the property from room to room. As an agent, consider running a virtual tour live on Facebook by sharing your browser as you guide people around a property.
Kindred Property Group has been using virtual house tours for some time now with 90% of their properties digitally mapped, ready for virtual tours. This will 100% become more common in the future.
Connect with locals, not to the masses
Having spent so much time in their local areas recently, people are valuing the local community, like fruit and veg stores, pharmacies, butchers more than ever. Property buyers want to know about the areas they could be investing in so community-focused content is prime.
Use stories to highlight the aesthetics of properties
Ray White is helping the world see what Australia has to offer. Showing off a unique property in a style which beautifully integrates with Instagram makes us want to follow the channel, even if we’re not looking to buy a property. The interactive features, like polling and voting, add an emotive and sociable connection which we all crave.
Upgrade from static photography to video
The quality of real-estate marketing has always been high however a giant leap forward has been taken in the face of COVID-19. How will you uphold higher buyer expectations through your content? Check out this drone-shot walk through of a property:
So in conclusion, we’ve seen a key shift from generic global branding to communicating with community-based, localised marketing. In other words, you don’t need to lose the filters, but you do need to bring in some humanity. Your actions for successfully marketing properties over social media (whether there’s a pandemic or not) are to:
- Talk to people through your marketing as if you were face to face.
- Increase awareness of the great communities people can be moving into.
- Release content with socially validating information.
- Allow great access to properties online.
- Produce breathtaking and captivating content people would never expect from estate agents!
Over to you! If you need help, you know where to find us. 👋🏻 Say Hello!
