Have You Checked Your Social Media Spirit Level?
I’m often asked what I think about social media.
I usually answer this question with a question – “What’s your objective?”
- Meet new friends
- Find a date
- Recruit staff
- Start a social uprising
- Arrange a party
- See the latest trends
- Get breaking news
- Share industry gossip
- Brand yourself
- Generate leads
You see, you can do all of the above using various social media profiles if you have the knowledge and time, but I imagine most agents are only interested in finding more lead opportunities.
Indeed the big drawback with social media is that it does take time to create useful engaging content.
There are social media experts selling you on the idea that you can get hundreds of leads easily.
I disagree with the easy part and it’s not entirely free unless you don’t value your time, and for the record I’m not anti social media for agents.
Time Suck
Far too many agents are buying into the notion of a “15-minute social media plan”. If you doing it the right way, you have to allocate more time than that, believe me.
Another question I get is, should I outsource my social media?
My answer is only if you can find a partner or agency that can be the authentic voice of your brand, otherwise keep it in house, go on courses and learn the nitty-gritty nuances of each platform you intend on using.
Think of each tweet, post, pin, blog and video as a content brick that helps people to get to know, like and trust you. Here’s the thing though – you need to take out your sprit level and ensure that the type of content you’re putting out there is resonating with your audience.
Content Balance and Lead Magnets
Ensure you distributing great content and if you are looking for prospects, develop a range of lead generation magnets that will entice them onto your database.
Here are 3 types of lead magnets you could make to create demand for services
Lead magnet #1 – White Paper or Report
:A short written document that contains information designed help your audience solve a problem or learn something new.
Lead Magnet #2 – Case Study
This can be written or it can be a video, but either way it should be designed as a long form testimonial that shows how a past client has benefited from using your service,
Lead magnet #3 Action Plans and Check lists
Offering free downloadable pdf action plans and check lists is another great way to separate the suspects from the prospects.
Don’t become a social media addict with no end game
There are dozens of good lead generation ideas, however they have to be scalable and what I mean by scalable is you can buy relevant traffic to target your clients.
If you’re new to social media don’t be blind ided by the debate that social media is free.
Yes, it’s free to join, but that’s where the free ride ends. Have you seen the accounts of the big players like Google and Facebook? They make tens of millions by selling sponsored ads.
The only guaranteed way to get in front of your prospects is to pay.(Just like your portals.) Of course you can make lots of good posts and they may have some impact, but in a recent official blog post from Facebook they stated that only 4 % of your posts would be seen by your followers.
It’s even less on Twitter, which is where many agents invest huge amounts of their time and resources tweeting out recent property instructions.
Get out your social media spirit level out and post informative content ,but measure the results vs time spent .