Is Social Media really necessary within Estate Agency?
This is a common question thrown around within the industry, infact within most industries the subject of whether social media can really benefit businesses is spoken about and discussed.
I was recently at an awards event in Birmingham where there was a panel of Theo Paphitis (ex Dragons Den star), Judy Naake (founder of St.Tropez self tanning range), Rob Forkan (co-founder of Gandys Flip Flops) and Julien Callede (co-founder and COO, MADE.com) where many questions on social media were asked. Each panel member agreed that things have changed immensely in the world of marketing and that there was an increasing importance placed on social media, each declaring they use social media and have dedicated staff to manage their businesses on the varied portals.
One question I remember from the audience was about marketing budget spends, “should I invest an amount on my website or should I look to spending it on social media” where Theo took the question and replied. He stated that you can not ignore social media and that if you can, you need to seriously think of an equal spend on both as they require each other to succeed. Without a website, you have no destination place for your customers to visit, yet without social media, you could be missing out on an important marketing avenue that can drive traffic to your website.
Looking at Estate Agency, without question nearly all estate agents are using it which can only tell us that it is considered to be important for brand awareness.
I also attend the recent ‘PropertyFlock’ #TweetUp in London where there was a speaker who was within the property industry and also spoke of the importance of using the likes of Twitter and Facebook to drive audiences to websites. They stated that sales can be generated from social media and that infact they can show a ROI on using it over the last few years.
So if property portals, estate agents, news channels, service providers and more within the industry are using social media, can your estate agency really take the risk and not use it? Personally, I believe your presence on social media will overtake the importance of your Google ranking, maybe I can go as far as saying that your social media account(s) will be more important that your own website… …
So, can you really afford not to be on social media?
- It’s a free to use platform (currently) and really only takes your time as an investment (though you can outsource the social media management to an external marketing company).
- Everyone else is using it so why shouldn’t you and more and more stories of success from using it are being shared.
- Correctly used, it can steer target traffic to your website / listings and can improve your brand awareness within your local community and build an active target audience.
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