Social media marketing is an invaluable tool for realtors hoping to expand their businesses and remain competitive in an increasingly tech-driven market. If you’re hoping to build your own online presence, you know that it’s essential to create profiles on all of the most popular social media platforms to share information about your business and get connected with clients, leads, and other realtors.
With over 200 million active users, Twitter certainly counts as a top-performing platform. Realtors have been using the platform for years to share updates on their projects and events, market their businesses, and stay up to date on real estate news, but the number of professionals on Twitter is steadily increasing over time.
If you’re interested in taking part in one of the largest and most active online communities, keep reading for some tips and information that will help you market your real estate business on Twitter like a social media pro.
Develop a Smart Strategy
Whether you’re a pro with online marketing or you’re just starting out, it’s important to note that all social media platforms are a little bit different. When you start new profiles, it’s important to think ahead and develop a platform-specific strategy to ensure maximum success and exposure for your business.
A great place to start is to look into the new platform’s format and demographics, which can help you decide what types of posts you should make and what results you can expect. Here are some quick tips that will help you come up with the perfect marketing tactics to employ on Twitter.
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you get started, it’s smart to do a bit of research and determine whether or not your target audience has an active presence on the platform you’re using. Depending on your business plan and current marketing practices, you may need to adjust your strategies a bit to better suit your new audience.
While the purpose of marketing is to expand your business’s reach, you should have an ideal demographic in mind when you develop your business plan. If you’re hoping to fill a niche in the real estate market or promote specialized services, it’s wise to know who will be most likely to take interest in your business and follow them to their most-used platforms.
According to Statista, nearly 40% of Twitter users are between 25 and 34 years old. Since it is especially popular with younger users, it may be the ideal platform for reaching first-time home buyers and current renters. That said, Twitter is a broad platform that hosts users from all different age groups and backgrounds. You may have the most ease and certain success if you’re targeting the millennial bracket, but you can tailor your content and posting strategies to reach a more diverse audience.
Set Goals
Figuring out your target audience and the best ways to reach them is only the first step to creating a solid marketing plan. From there, you can set more specific goals that will help you make the most out of Twitter’s unique features and maximize lead generation and reach.
For instance, you may want to ensure that your new Twitter page has high engagement from the get-go. To achieve this, you can do a bit of research into your target audience’s needs, interests, and behaviors and start planning the type of content you will post. If you have plenty of content ideas ready and have an idea of when your audience is most active on the platform, you can develop a regular posting schedule that is sure to perform well.
No matter what your goals are, it’s wise to read up on platform statistics to inform your plans. Once you have a solid idea of what your audience may want or expect from you, you can set productive and achievable goals. If you take advantage of Twitter’s analytics features later on in your social media marketing journey, you can even measure your progress and adjust your methods to reach your goals sooner and maximize your results.
Check Out the Competition
The last step before you get started on Twitter is to check out how the competition is faring on the platform. Other realtors’ posts and profiles can help you determine the most effective practices and etiquette for a platform that’s new to you. To get a good idea of what you should strive for, check out how leading real estate agents are using Twitter for their benefit.
Some tips that you can pick up from a quick sweep of other realtors’ profiles are how they represent themselves in their photos and descriptions, how often they post, what they post, and how many followers they have. If their pages are particularly popular, you can follow their lead and share that success.
After doing your research, make sure to follow the pages you found most compelling and inspirational. While Twitter is great for marketing your business to potential clients, its primary purpose is to connect people and spark conversations. Don’t neglect to reach out to other realtors to network, share information, and show support. Maintaining relationships with colleagues and gaining endorsements from other professionals on a public platform will bolster your reputation and show leads that you’re the real deal.
Establish Your Brand
After doing some research and creating a solid plan, you can start implementing some tried and true Twitter marketing tactics on your own profile. While Twitter profiles don’t provide as much information as those on other social media platforms do, there are still plenty of ways for you to build your brand’s image and establish a presence on the platform.
With these tips, you can create a Twitter profile that stands out from other realtors’ pages and encourages users to follow you and interact with your posts.
Choose a Catchy Handle & a Descriptive Display Name
To give other Twitter users a good first impression of your business, you should come up with an easy-to-remember handle and a display name that has character. Twitter is a fast-paced platform that doesn’t offer much space for extended explanations of your business’s goals, so condensing your information into a catchy tagline is a great way to get users to pause their scrolling and take a look at your profile.
Many realtors opt to use their names in both spaces, which is a great way to help potential clients find you across all different online platforms. That said, it doesn’t offer much information for people who are finding you for the first time on a short-form site like Twitter.
To give new leads a better idea of what you and your business are about, try to include some buzzwords or descriptors in your Twitter name that will make your profile stand out from other realtors’ pages. Use terms that reflect your personal philosophy toward real estate, the niche your business fills in the larger market, or simply a bit about you and your attitude. If you’re hoping to get noticed within a sea of tweets, you’ll have to make it easy for new followers to learn what you’re about.
Think About Tone & Aesthetics
As you start creating content for your page, you will have to consider what kind of tone and vibe you want your audience to get from your business. Are you hoping to establish yourself as an authority on all things related to real estate? Or would you prefer to build a reputation in a niche market, like luxury home sales or location-specific work? No matter what you choose, you can reflect your strengths and attitude in the tone of your text posts and with photos that fit the brand you’re trying to build.
For instance, educational posts about the state of the real estate market and tips about buying or selling houses should have a much more authoritative, instructional tone than posts about design preferences and aspirations. Whatever your business vision may be, you can use certain vocabulary and writing styles to make your mission come through in your posts.
Further, choosing the right images for your posts can help sell your vision to your audience and draw in potential leads. Twitter’s fast-moving format can make it hard for individual posts to catch the eyes of every user that scrolls past them. If you make sure to post eye-catching images that align with your business’s brand, you can attract your target audience more easily and connect through shared aspirations and aesthetic goals.
Promote Your Business’s Mission
While social media encourages its users to represent their values on the surface to find new connections, don’t rely on style over substance. After you get a handle on how you’d like to represent yourself and your business on Twitter, you can start thinking about the content of your posts and how you can translate your business’s mission into 280 character tweets.
Before you start creating content, take some time to think about the best way to convey your business’s mission on this particular platform. If you are hoping to increase sales, you may want to post regular updates on your listings and promote open houses. If your business is still growing and you need more exposure, you may need to focus on building your follower count with posts that will appeal to a broader audience before narrowing your focus.
It’s important to remember that your marketing strategies will evolve with your business’s needs, so be prepared to change up your content here and there to reflect your current goals. If you take the time to think about the best ways to achieve your current goals, you will get the most out of the time and energy you put into creating content for your social media profiles.
Post Compelling Content
As you start fleshing out your social media marketing plan, you can start coming up with creative and relevant content ideas that will interest your followers. Once you determine what you want your followers to know about your business and how you want to represent your brand, you should be able to decide what to post and when to post it.
Tweeting may be quick and easy, but you have to focus on strategy to turn a fun social platform into a business-building tool. Check out the following tips for a few reliable real estate post ideas and some insight on how to maximize the effects of your posts.
Link to Your Website or Blog
One of the best ways to educate your Twitter following and drive more traffic to your other online content is to include links to your primary website or blog in your tweets. If your goal is to inform your followers about real estate and respond to their comments and requests, take every possible opportunity to present your own business and superior services as the answer to common real estate problems.
While Twitter has a lower character limit for text posts than other platforms do, you can use this format to your advantage. Rather than reproduce your existing content on a new platform, you can simply link to a relevant blog post or informational page on your website and hook your followers with a short (but informative) tagline that describes the link’s content.
For instance, you may want to promote a recent blog post on your Twitter account to encourage your followers to check it out. If the post describes the ins and outs of staging a home, you can write a tweet that covers the main points of the article in just a few sentences without giving away too much detail. Not only does this save you the time and effort that it would take to produce even more original content–but it also encourages anyone who sees the tweet to follow the link for more information.
Provide Updates on Your Projects
If you’re hoping to demonstrate your skill and successes in your field, you can opt to use Twitter as most people do and share daily updates on your work and projects. Just like the average user would, you can share how your day is going at the office, post updates on property renovations, or simply discuss your thoughts about your day’s events.
While it may seem frivolous to share this information, your potential clients will be happy to get a glimpse into your professional life and see what a realtor’s day-to-day is really like. The aspects of your job that you find mundane might be interesting and helpful for your followers to hear.
For example, sharing the work you do to prepare a property for an open house can show prospective sellers the work that goes into staging their homes and preparing them for showings. If they were planning to attempt the process on their own, your insight could make them reconsider and hire you to handle the sale of their properties instead.
Promote Your Listings
Finally, you can use Twitter as yet another avenue for promoting your current listings. While some social platforms like LinkedIn discourage sales content to prevent crowding your followers’ feeds, Twitter’s format makes it easy to intersperse your regular posts with a few true ads and promotions here and there.
If you choose to link to one of your listings, try to include a short sales pitch in the body of your tweet. Outlining the property’s features is one way to attract interested leads, but that information will be included in your listing if they choose to click your link. Instead, make use of your distinctive brand voice and describe the vibe of the property and sell some of its less obvious benefits. Who could you see living in this home? Is it a great spot for a family? What is the surrounding area like, and what is unique about the property?
If you draw users in with more descriptive text, they could be more likely to review the listing itself or express their interest to you directly. Selling homes isn’t just about matching people with appropriate properties–it’s also about helping your clients envision their future in a new place. If you can paint a picture with your words in a short tweet, you will be able to generate more views for your listings and gain more leads quickly and easily.
Take Advantage of Trending Topics
After you determine what types of tweets you should post to achieve your goals, you should familiarize yourself further with Twitter’s unique format. While original content performs well, it may take a long time for your page to grow if you don’t take part in the larger conversations taking place on the platform.
If you want to draw more people to your page, you can increase organic traffic by addressing trending topics and engaging with others on the platform. If you’re new to Twitter, keep reading for some tips that will help you branch out and maximize your reach through simple changes to your content and posting methods.
Utilize Hashtags
To help more users find you and your posts on Twitter, it’s essential that you make ample use of hashtags in your tweets. While your tweets can be found by searching for included terms, hashtags are the easiest way for other users to track topics that they enjoy reading about on the platform and search for new content. Whether you intend to make your posts easier to find, research popular hashtags for your industry, or use trending hashtags in the hopes of reaching a wider audience, you should always be on the lookout for useful tags and learn how to use them strategically.
For instance, you can make note of common tags that other realtors use to contribute to their conversations. You may also choose to follow a hashtag so you can keep up with any new posts that mention the topic you’re tracking.
In your own posts, you can use general hashtags relating to real estate or create your own. If you hope to spark a conversation amongst your followers, you can prompt them to use your chosen tag and go through their responses at a later time. This is a great way to communicate with your followers and develop your brand with unique and original discussions.
Pay Attention to Real Estate Discussions
While tracking hashtags related to real estate is one way to engage with your industry on Twitter, there are plenty of other ways for you to get in touch with other realtors and use the platform for its original purpose: networking. Realtors may use social media primarily to promote their own businesses, but it can be beneficial to stay in touch with contacts and colleagues for industry insight and endorsements.
When you created your Twitter account, you likely checked out other realtors on the platform to see how they managed their pages and get ideas for your own strategy. Now that you’ve been using Twitter for some time, you probably still check in now and then to measure your progress against theirs and compare your performances.
It may be useful to put your account into context through comparison, but don’t forget that there are plenty of positive and productive ways to interact with other realtors on the platform. For instance, you can reference their pages for updates on local or national real estate trends. You may also want to respond to posts that they make about the industry to maintain your connection. If you follow other realtors that you have worked with in the past, you may even be able to show support for one another that will help potential leads know that your business is legitimate and you are respected in your field.
Post About Current Events
Real estate may be the most relevant subject for you to post about, but you don’t have to limit yourself to one topic of discussion. To broaden your reach and promote your business to more people on the platform, try tweeting about current events and contributing to larger conversations when you get a chance.
On Twitter, trending topics can stem from anywhere. Ranging from global news headlines to the latest episode of a popular television show, there’s bound to be something going on that interests you and (most importantly) interests your followers.
While it may not seem directly beneficial to your business to branch out and post about unrelated issues, broaching hot topics can prompt more engagement on your posts and encourage your followers to respond to your tweets. This can help your followers grow more comfortable interacting with you and encourage more leads to reach out when they’re ready to hire a realtor.
Even more importantly, your tweets will show up when other users browse popular tags. The content of the post they find may not be related to real estate, but interested users may notice your name and check out your page. If they’re in the market for a realtor or simply like your message, they may choose to follow you on Twitter and reconnect when they’re ready to buy or sell a home.
Show Your Personality
When you become accustomed to posting about a variety of different topics, you may even want to start sharing more details about your personal life to show your followers the person behind the business. Many realtors’ social media profiles include a blend of personal and professional content, which can help them connect with clients on a closer level and appear more approachable to new leads.
If you’re interested in making your profile reflect your personality, check out the following ways to express yourself while still promoting your business.
Let Your Followers Get to Know You
Realtors may deal in property sales, but their real strengths lie in networking skills and the ability to build long-lasting client relationships. If you can win a client over and make them feel comfortable, you may have an in to serve as their realtor every time they buy or sell a property. To strengthen the bonds you have with your clients, you can share a bit more about yourself on your social media platforms. This simple addition will make them feel like they’re following a friend, not just a business.
On Twitter, big businesses are notorious for hiring social media managers that treat their professional profiles like private ones. While major corporations have to fake their fun and relatable exchanges, you don’t! As a realtor, you get the opportunity to represent yourself and your business at the same time. Have a good time interacting with your followers and don’t hesitate to be yourself.
For instance, you may want to tweet about your thoughts as you watch a new show or show support for your favorite team during a big sporting event. You may even want to tweet about your personal accomplishments, like major life events, birthdays, or completed projects, to show your followers what you’ve been up to in your free time. Some realtors may prefer to keep their public and private information totally separate, but being open with your followers and clients can help you develop a reputation as an approachable, down-to-earth realtor.
Share Design Ideas & Opinions
Another great way to add your own personal twist to your Twitter content is to share your home design insights and opinions on current real estate trends. While it may seem counterproductive to say you don’t like certain home features or styles while trying to sell homes, you can earn favor with your followers for speaking your mind and offering creative solutions to home problems and design issues that they are dealing with themselves.
For instance, you can tweet about your biggest home design pet peeves and give ideas for how to resolve them. Briefly explain how trim and molding can elevate unfinished rooms, lighter colors can make spaces appear bigger, and trimming hedges and taming foliage can boost your home’s curb appeal tenfold. Your opinions and insight can help someone in need of a home makeover or prompt your followers to reply with their own ideas, which helps your page continue to grow.
In addition to sharing your thoughts on design elements, it’s becoming more and more popular for realtors to comment on home trends on social media to create buzz around their profiles. For instance, there may be a popular home feature that you find overhyped or underwhelming. Tell your followers why you don’t agree that it’s a must-have for their new home. Commentary like this gets people talking and shows that you’re taking interest in your industry’s current trends, which can attract leads who are looking to hire a realtor with a fresh sense of style and an eye for cutting-edge designs.
Express Your Values
Finally, your personal values can be a major asset to your company. As you build your brand, your values and philosophy on real estate should be implied in your content. That said, clients often appreciate when realtors plainly state how they feel about the current market and where they think they fit in the industry.
While your business’s tagline should reference your goals, discussing them candidly goes a long way as you develop your business’s brand and carve out a spot for yourself in your local market. Both potential and current clients will be interested in hearing where you see yourself in relation to other realtors.
For instance, your goal may be to help families buy homes in safe neighborhoods with access to all of the best resources and amenities. On your social media accounts, you should make sure to express how much you value spending time with your family, volunteering in your community, and exploring the area’s best venues for family-friendly activities.
When leads look your business up on social media, they will be happy to see that your business’s goals are reflected in your real feelings and actions. Seeing your posts can prove that your values are genuine, which may give leads the final push to reach out and express interest in your services.
Engage with Other Users
When you set up a business profile on a new social media site, most of your work revolves around creating content and setting yourself up for success. After some time passes and your page is better developed, you can start working on engaging with other users on the platform to increase your follower count and promote your business to more people.
While expanding your reach is important for a successful marketing campaign, better engagement also leads to better relationships with your leads and current clients. Check out the following suggestions to find new ways to connect with others on Twitter.
Reach Out to Real Estate Influencers
If you’re happy with your current content strategy and you’re hoping to expand your reach to include more people, be on the lookout for real estate influencers who can help you reach a broader audience. Influencer endorsements are some of the most popular online marketing tactics, so don’t shy away from working with established content creators who can give your profile (and your business) a real boost.
Influencers can build their followings around anything, and there are more real estate influencers on social media than you might think. Most of them are even realtors themselves. If you reach out to an influencer who has a large following on Twitter, they may be willing to plug your page in a tweet and help you connect with their community. Sometimes, you can earn more followers simply from engaging with the influencer’s content.
On a vast and varied platform like Twitter, you may even be able to reach out to different types of influencers who can help you reach a totally different user base. To remain somewhat relevant to your industry, you could start working with influencers who specialize in interior design, home improvement, DIY projects, or travel. If your business serves a particular city or community, you can even find local influencers who can endorse your business and guide their followers to your page.
Ask Questions & Post Polls
If you’d like to focus on building better engagement on your own profile, you can start by prompting conversations amongst your followers with open-ended questions and polls. Twitter polls are a great way to gauge the opinions of your followers to get ideas for future content, gain insight for your business, or spark a debate in your online community.
Twitter is an especially useful platform for crowdsourcing information due to its vast user base and high engagement. Whether you’re interested in knowing which home feature your followers couldn’t live without or what their favorite restaurant in your city is, asking questions is a sure-fire way to get responses and create opportunities to chat with leads, make connections, and better understand your audience’s needs and preferences.
Realtors may be able to use the information they learn from Twitter polls to update their business practices, better serve current clients, and stay up to date on local trends even when they differ from the norm. For instance, you may notice that the leads in your area prefer a certain type of home or decorating style that isn’t as widely used across the country. Rather than market a generic standard to your clients, you can promote homes that you know your clients will love.
Retweet & Reply
It may seem obvious, but the best way to engage with other users on Twitter is to consistently retweet and reply to other users’ posts. As you begin your marketing journey, you may feel as though you have to rely solely on original content to establish your business’s online presence and control your message. On a highly collaborative platform like Twitter, that isn’t necessarily the case.
Sometimes, other users will make posts that align directly with your philosophies or help you clarify your own points. Instead of trying to reword their statements and questions, simply retweet their posts so your followers can see them too. This is a great way to show your followers that you are actively using the platform and that you recognize when someone shares your same values.
Further, you should reply to interesting prompts and questions that other users post. If you read a tweet that is requesting a realtor’s insight, don’t hesitate to reply with your opinion or advice. For instance, a Twitter user may post about having trouble finding a home with certain features in their area or being unable to navigate a listing platform. To show them (and your followers) that you know your industry inside and out, you can publicly respond with a few real estate tips and tricks that consumers might not be aware of. This is a great way to convey your knowledge and authority while increasing your reach on the platform!
Check Your Progress & Performance
After putting in the work to build your profile and boost engagement, you should pay special attention to how your posts are performing and how well your efforts are paying off. Like most other social media platforms, Twitter allows you to view analytics reports that display information about your account and your posts. If you check those metrics regularly and track changes, you can determine what aspects of your social media marketing plan are succeeding and where you need to put in more work.
Learn More About Your Tweet Activity
When you review your page analytics, you can see how well your tweets are performing and track improvements in your follower engagement. This is a great point to reassess after making new types of posts, like polls, links, and conversation starters. Ideally, your engagement should steadily increase throughout your time on the platform. If you notice a drop or plateau, you may need to switch up your posting methods.
For example, you can try posting about different subjects or post your tweets at different times. After getting used to the platform, you may notice that your followers are more active on certain days of the week or at certain times. Take advantage of those periods of higher activity and tweet during those windows.
Monitor Your Page’s Growth
Twitter also allows you to see insights about your followers. In addition to tracking your follower count, you can also check out your followers’ interests, locations, and demographics. These metrics don’t just help you better understand your page’s performance; they can also help you determine what topics will appeal to your followers and make educated guesses about their buying habits.
For instance, if your followers are mostly older users in your immediate area, you may market your properties a bit differently to attract their attention and suit their needs. You can also post more location-specific content to show them that your page is relevant to their daily lives and interests.
Make Use of Twitter’s Ad Features
Finally, don’t neglect to make use of Twitter’s advertising features. While there are plenty of ways to market your business and promote your listings through your own content, Twitter also provides opportunities for business owners to advertise more effectively and reach more people on the platform.
For instance, you may want to look into using Twitter Cards to optimize your posts and better promote your business. Anyone can include a link in a tweet, but Cards allow you to represent the link’s content with eye-catching images, click-worthy titles, and useful descriptions. Since all of that information would be a lot to fit into a typical tweet, Cards make it easier to compile your link’s details into an attractive and easy-to-share post.
If you choose to take advantage of Twitter Cards, you can track their performance in your analytics tab and see how many users interacted with your link and content. While the primary benefit is to push more users to view your website or listings, it can also help you keep track of how many page visitors you can attribute to Twitter when you’re taking stock of your social media marketing outcomes.
Conclusion
With these tips and insights into how Twitter can serve your social media marketing goals, you can determine the best ways to represent your business’s unique goals on the platform. With so many opportunities to promote your business on Twitter, it’s no wonder why it’s a staple for many of the best realtors!
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