The rise of social media and brand presence through social media platforms has given real estate agents a huge opportunity to extend themselves to more people online. The main advantage of social media is the ability to attract customers to your profile, with minimal work and face-to face contact, making it more time efficient than traditional marketing models.
The advantage of being popular on social media is that more people know you, follow you and share your content. Building a big following on social media is about showing your personality, likable traits and providing 3 important things:
1. Value
2. Entertainment
3. Advice
If it doesn’t fall into these categories, you have to think, why would they follow me? People like you because of who you are, not what you sell. To be frank, people don’t actually care about what you sell.
Sales is just bad marketing
Now I guess you may be thinking, well, if i’m not promoting my services, how will I sell them? That’s simple. It’s all about building a relationship with your leads. Build the trust by offering FREE valuable content and genuine help, then you will be a ‘trusted authority’ in their minds.
Why does building your brand matter?
Your brand builds trust and credibility, sales is a byproduct of having a trusted brand.
If you enter a store and the sales person immediately tries to sell you a product, it doesn’t build your trust with them, let alone give you a reason to like them… You might want to leave, or even feel guilted into buying their product. This is NOT the way to build trust and longevity in your relationships with customers.
Social media is a bit like this, if you visit someone’s page and they are 24/7 posting sales related content, you won’t follow them. You don’t trust that they are actually trying to help you.
If you visit someone’s profile and they have engaging content with limited sales posts and lot’s of value, entertainment and advice, you’re more likely to give them a follow because they are actually helping you. This builds trust and is the first point of contact in your relationship with the customer!
A good trusting brand attracts leads, rather than you chasing leads
Why chase leads, when you can have them come to you? If you give away value to people, they are more likely to follow you and be thoughtfully engaged in your content. When the time comes that they need to buy or sell a house, or utilise your service, they are likely to go with you, as you’ve built that trustworthy relationship already!
Opens up new opportunities and brand deals at scale.
Agents with big brand followings are also the same agents that score big brand deals, partnerships and are constantly given opportunities to collaborate and grow their business. Big consumer brands love to work with influencers and people who are liked in the industry.
Follow the lead of key influencers:
- Ryan Serhant
- Mike Sherrard
- Josh Altman
They all focus on brand, not on selling. Have you noticed that all their content falls into: Value, Entertainment or Advice?
Open your eyes, think like an entrepreneur
Have you heard the advice that a millionaire has multiple revenue streams? Building a brand is the first step towards opening yourself up to more revenue streams.
Instead of only selling houses, you can add revenue through brand deals, real estate courses, B2B training, podcast and social media revenue and so much more.
Key takeaways:
If your potential leads visit your social media profile and it’s all about selling and your listings, they are likely to leave instantly.
People like you because of who you are, not what you sell.
By Max Hobson