Social Media should be as cheap as chips.

The topic of Social Media is becoming less and less of a mystery as it becomes more and more accessible to the majority of people and as the platforms evolve themselves, it becomes easier and easier to use.

When the likes of Twitter or Periscope etc first released, news and information about them may have been scarce so anyone adopting one of them had to tackle head on much of the unknown and the errors the website held, like walking through a jungle with no map / GPS! Today, especially for the established social media platforms, there are not only millions of useful blogs/videos/info-graphics to help you on using them, but we’ve also success stories from people who’ve made their millions by using them who share with their audiences the secret top tips that you should be adopting to improve your ROI.

On top of all of this, we’ve specialised external companies helping you to use social media more efficiently such as management softwares like Hootsuite and SproutSocial as well as dedicated Social Media Management companies who will charge monthly fees and take everything over for you which is ideal for those who need to tick the ‘I’m on Social Media‘ box.

It is now no longer ‘does social media work‘ but more so ‘how can I get social media to work for me‘ as we spend more and more time on these platforms and companies pump in more and more money to increase their brand awareness on them. The idea of building a target audience of 1,000’s that you can market to at anytime suddenly becomes really appealing, but the task of getting there becomes harder and harder as more and more businesses enter the market.

Social Media needn’t be as big a challenge as many see it as. It certainly should not be seen as being in the ‘rocket science bracket‘ as in-fact using the likes of Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Youtube and others is very simple – It is the time to management them which is the overall biggest challenge. Can you really afford to spend the hours per week required to both maintain a presence on social media and to deal with the likes of interacting and engaging with others on it which is part of the procedure required – Just like normal business networking (ie BNI) which requires you to be present and to deliver content on the day to showcase who you are and what you offer, standing silent at these events just will not work.

So, how can you make social media as cheap as chips? Yes, you can outsource your social media management for £100 monthly, but why can you not do this yourself also? You have no doubt Facebook and/or Twitter on your mobile phone and you probably know the log in to these or in-fact, many of you will admit, when you’ve a spare five minutes you’ll check the latest updates from your community, such as what others thought of the weekend football results or the photos from your night out at the weekend?

So, if you have social media at your finger tips as well as the likes of a camera and video recorder (what a marvelous invention mobile phones are), then why can you not simply share out some content daily? Nothing stopping you from taking images when you are at the office or out at a viewing and sharing that as an update, ie check out the size of this garden, photo here: or even choosing Periscope and sharing a live feed of the property as you walk around it? Videos. which I see as integral to social media success, doesn’t mean you need a film crew, it means you need time and effort such as a daily/weekly update from your office on the latest local property news which could cost you merely 20 minutes of your time and no financial costs.

You can schedule ahead updates also so that your social media accounts have something going out daily if you simply have no time to manage them on a daily/weekly basis and this can be done free with Hootsuite. The younger generation mostly loves social media, so why not give that junior member of your staff the freedom to increase your brand awareness online by running the social media for you? Yes, loath or reject social media you may, but what doesn’t fit your train of thought does in-fact tune in to many millions of which some will be potentially the next enquiry you receive and if that happens to be someone asking for further details via Facebook on that latest listing you put out, then I am sure you’ll find it in your heart to give it a chance.

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

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