Be A Marketer
- People aren’t thinking about you, they are thinking about themselves. If you are constantly out there seeking congratulations constantly you will turn people off.
- We are wired as humans to be searching for things that help us survive and thrive.
- Enter the conversation going on in your customer's head. The clients you would like to have, what do they find valuable.
- Provide Value. Be valuable. Position yourself as a trusted advisor. Let them know that you know what’s going on in real estate. (Zig Ziglar says that you can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want)
- You want your audience to feel good about knowing you. You want their thoughts to be "If I'm ever ready to buy a house or sell my how, THIS is the person I want on my team."
Be An Expert
The only way to genuinely provide value is to know your stuff. Read Realtor Magazine, subscribe to newsletters from Mike Ferry, The Close, New York Times Real Estate, Briefcase, Geek Estate Blog, and a hundred other newsletters you can subscribe to help you stay informed.
(I pay about $200/month in subscriptions to Dan Kennedy and Russel Brunson marketing newsletters, plus Bloomberg Business News, Entrepreneur Magazine, INC, Forbes, and Success Magazine - I want to maintain an expertise in business development and marketing. And because I pay, I read the material.)
I want to stress how important it is to position yourself as an expert in an area by actually being an expert. Most people don’t see themselves as experts in anything, so it’s sometimes hard to choose that position for yourself. But if you are keeping up to date with even a few of these newsletters daily or weekly, you will soon know more than 95% of the agents in Erie who are not doing this. I am 100% certain that everyone here can be the expert you would like to be, by simply deciding that you will be more informed.
Soon enough, this expertise will show up in your conversations, it will show up in your posts, and it will show up in your videos - without having to TRY TO BE anything.
Don’t try to impress people with your knowledge - use your knowledge to help and guide them.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Optimize your profile: Decide exactly what steps you want potential customers to take, and point your profile towards that step. Have great pictures that show what you do - use your page. Send invites for people to like your page.
People don’t know what to do. You have to tell them what to do. Make it clear how you want them to get ahold of you. My favorite is CALL OR TEXT ME AT 814-555-1212. You’re giving extroverts permission to call, and introverts permission to text. But if you’d rather do thing through messenger or email, your profile should point that out. However you choose, make it easy to reach you.
Use hashtags. I pay for keyword research tools, so feel free to shoot me an email anytime to ask what keywords to use on your posts. If you are posting somewhere where your audience can see the actual hashtags, only use 3-5. For instance, in a Facebook post, you can see all the hashtags, and if you use 20 it looks spammy and too much like marketing. So stick with 3-5. On YouTube, the hashtags aren’t in the description, so feel free to us all 500 character that YouTube allows.
Keep in mind that however the algorithm works for the platform that you are using, the interest of the platform will be to keep people on the platform. If you post a YouTube video on Facebook, then Facebook will show it to fewer people, because they won’t want people to leave Facebook to watch your video. Keep it organic as much as possible (upload vids to the platform, use fewer links, etc.) This is why I also like to include your phone number in the post if possible.
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- Pick a platform: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Podcast, Google Business Manager, etc… Every platform you try to get on is another mouth to feed. Become an expert at one platform at a time, even if it takes a while. This doesn’t have to be a hard decision - pick whichever one resonates with you the most.
- Joe has provided us with excellent training, at his expense, in the Social Agent Academy. Whichever platform you choose, watch the material for that platform.
- Make a commitment: Without a committed effort, no effort is worthwhile. We are trusting in the compound effect, or as another book calls it, the Slight Edge. Pick a schedule and stick to it.
- Plan your posts ahead of time, and batch material if possible. If you sit down once a month and schedule your posts (Facebook Page->Meta Business Suite->Planner), it’s taken care of for the month. Then all you’ll have to post during the month are current announcements like a closing or a listing you have.
- Use Canva for graphics - use their templates which are proven to work.
- If you over plan, and overwhelm yourself, there is a greater chance that you’ll give up. So pick a strategy that you’ll be able to stick with. Consistency is better than sporadic effort, and something is better than nothing.
- Stick with it. In the first 8 weeks it may seem like nothing is happening - you are playing the long game if you are not spending money on advertising. So just keep playing the game. Your main goal here is to stay on top of people’s minds so that if they decide to buy or sell, you are the one they call.
- Value is always more important than quality.
- I have to say it, and it’s difficult to do, but if you’re using a platform for business, don’t use it for personal feelings about politics or any other controversial subjects. And don’t whine or complain about life in your feed. This is a turn-off for potential customers.
Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
Action Steps Right Now:
- Be well informed - pick a couple of sources to read often.
- Pick your platform.
- Learn the platform.
- Search for ideas for your next 20 posts. If you need help, call me.
- Pick a day to spend 4-6 hours creating your posts, and then schedule them.
Links
Stay Informed
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/realestate/home-prices-hollywood-hills-san-clemente-tustin-california.html?te=1&nl=real-estate%3A-what-you-get&emc=edit_re_20230213 ($1/week subscription)
Ideas for Newsletters, Posts, etc...
https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/real-estate-newsletter-ideas-email-marketing
https://theclose.com/real-estate-newsletter-ideas/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/real-estate-social-media-posts/
https://agentfire.com/80-social-media-post-ideas/