content marketing

In the last 30 days I’ve had 3 real estate agents send me other real estate agents TikTok videos of them dancing, lip syncing etc asking “should I be doing this?”. My answer is – it depends.

Two words. Social Media.

Back when I was a sales exec in the title industry (2002 – 2014) helping real estate agents grow their business online I used WordPess, Video Marketing and Content Marketing Strategies, back then social media meant Facebook and Twitter, even YouTube was not seen as a social network by most back then, it was merely a place to host your videos. Today social media is ubiquitous. It’s facebook, twitter, snapchat, linkedin, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok and the newest addition… Instagram’s answer to TikTok, Reels.

So should real estate agents be using TikTok and Reels in their business? YES! Now before I go into the specs I need you to understand one thing, this thing is something most of your real estate gurus won’t tell you….. ready?

YOU CAN’T HAVE AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY WITHOUT AN EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY FIRST.

Social media is merely the vehicle.

Most real estate agents will share things on social media without understanding what they are sharing, why they are sharing it or even what the end goal is. Agents are taught to model other agents but don’t usually stop to think why they should. Some in the real estate space will tell you “the goal of social media is to educate and inform while building brand awareness” and while this is partly true, the real goal of social media is to pull people away from it to your website, sales pages, funnels, CRM’s etc. You can’t pay your bills with awareness – trust me.

One agent who I’m sure you have seen online dancing, lip-syncing on TikTok called me the other day asking for some tips in making her next video, so I took the opportunity to ask her if her videos were successful. She said, “yes! I’ve gotten so many comments and likes it’s awesome!” But then I ask her the million dollar question…. have you been able to trace any increase in your business directly to your TikTok videos? “Weeeeeell, no.”

Views Are Not Created The Same.

Views don’t always mean more leads, deals and/or money in your real estate business. Why? Because not all views are the same. It doesn’t matter if you got 1 million views on social media, youtube or even TV if the views are from people that don’t need your product or service. If you gave me the choice between 5 million views or 5 views from people that were interested in what I do I would take the 5 views every day of the week and twice on Sunday. “But Stephen, my coach said my goal is to create awareness!”, ok great, but let me ask you this…. how does 1 million or even 5 million more people being “aware” that your a real estate agent increase your business? Who doesn’t know a real estate agent?

You Must Have A Stategy

I’m not saying you should not be using TikTok or Reels, what I’m saying is you should have a plan, a strategy when using them. First rule of marketing, mine anyway, is to go where the fish are and the fish are on TikTok and Reels so it makes sense to post your content there. But that content would be best served to differentiate you from your competition, nothing wrong with singing and dancing just make sure you are singing and dancing about something you do, like sell homes. Sing about the steps of selling a home, dance out the steps of buying a home, sing and dance about the home inspection process, appraisal process, loan or refi process, sing abut your favorite communities, dance about your latest sale, your latest listings selling points, dance out frequently asked questions, post 15 second snippets that point to longer videos, you get the point…. just make sure you are pointing the viewers of your videos to your website and sales pages where they can learn more about your what you do and what problem you solve.

Targeted Content Is On Purpose

Keep in mind, singing and dancing are fun but targeted content is what will help you get found online by buyers and sellers at multiple stages of the buying or selling process. When I say online, I don’t necessarily mean social media, that’s because social media for the most part is where content is discovered by accident. People that find you on social media could be at any stage of the sales process or none at all, so social media doesn’t measure intent. But you know what does? Search. Google and YouTube. Someone that types into a search engine, (and YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine behind Google), 4 bedroom homes close to Intel in 85248 or 3 bedroom homes near Chaparral High School don’t just show intent, they are towards the end of the sales cycle.

He/She Who Has The Most Content – Wins.

My suggestion? In 2021 focus on creating content, valuable content, content that educates and informs, content that clearly shows how you are better and different than your competition and syndicate it on social media – facebook, twitter, linkedin, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Reels. While everyone is talking about real estate now, that will not always be the case, when the market changes – and it will, it always does, it will be the real estate agents that have the most valuable content online that are in the best position to win, not just for themselves, but their clients as well.