Managing expectations from social media if you are an Estate Agency.
What can you really expect from social media and how long before you should see results – These questions probably rank fairly high when it comes to deciding if social media is correct for your estate agency or indeed if you are recent to it all and now awaiting to see the results… Let us take a very simple overview of what social media is and in turn, what you should really see in ROI for your estate agency.
Social Media for Estate Agents is really starting to be a norm now when it comes to choosing which marketing avenues to take to build brand awareness. Many estate agents lead with not only the property portals they are on or the local papers they advertise with, but also let their clients know that they are active on social media, at times they will also refer to Zoopla’s #ZPP100 or our own #EAUK500 to showcase that they have been recognised for their activities on the likes of Facebook and Twitter etc. So, we know that social media is important to the UK Estate Agency industry, but just what should you be expecting to see in return for your efforts (if you are managing social media internally) or from the company you have outsourced the work to?
Firstly, be prepared that unless you have a large budget for competitions and viral style marketing, then social media will be a slow process. There is no quick route for building your agency a quality target audience following, it is very hard and sometimes pot luck that your branch will ever go viral and be the next ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ sensation. Mostly, you want to be delivering daily property / local themed content with relevant keywords to attract interest in your account and then ideally to push visitors through to your website / listings on portals – The more you do and bigger audience you build, then the better results you will see week on week.
- I would allow three months social media before you can expect any kind of ‘real results’.
- Social Media should not be judged on the amount of sales it brings in. Though we hear more and more about sales being created on social media, it is mostly a brand awareness channel for your agency.
- You can only judge the results of social media if you remain constant on the channels and look to post daily and engage daily too.
- Not all social media channels will be right for your agency, look to pick the best one for your ROI.
You must first realise what you are looking to achieve with social media, set out a plan of action to achieve these results and then after 3 months look to review what has been done and the results.
- Social media really needs other forms of marketing to improve the results it can achieve, ie blogs, images and videos.
- Allow your social media to express yourself as an estate agent rather than you as an estate agency – Show that it is a real person behind the accounts and not simply ‘ANOther company’. Be relaxed when using it, express your personality and engage with others in your local community on topics that are safe.
- Study performance. Your social media management agency should provide you with monthly reports and you should also track website visitors to see if people are coming from social media to your website.
There is no point running social media without knowing if what you are doing actually is working. It is all well and good to have a presence (and for many estate agents, that is all they require, ie they have ticked the ‘we are on social media‘ box), but you also need to see if what you are doing is giving the results you expect – You may find that daytime posts are not attracting interest, but if you were to post evening time you’d get a better response, using Twitter is better than using Facebook etc.
Give social media a push via your other marketing avenues too, use the icons on emails, business cards, most certainly on your website and local newspaper advertising and do not forget for those agencies with window fronts, this is a great place to tell people you are on social media. You will no doubt have your Rightmove, Zoople, NAEA, OnTheMarket or similar stickers, then why not one for Twitter and Facebook too? Companies such as www.Logotag.com provide solutions for social media stickers for UK business shop windows.
For 50 Top Tips on Social Media for Estate Agents, visit the Marketme website: Social Media for Estate Agents.
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