Social Media is a marketing powerhouse and a necessity for any business that wants to get noticed by audiences.
- 55% of customers learn about new brands through social media, and
- 68% say social media lets them interact with brands
We live in a digitally-driven society, and social media matters. You need a presence on social media if you are to improve lead generation and your brand identity.
What is Social Media Marketing?
As you can guess, social media marketing refers to the use of social media and social networks to market your products and services. It lets you engage with your current audience and reach new leads through targeted content and purpose-built data analytics, so the social media algorithms know when to show your posts or social media ads.
You can tailor posts based on geographical and demographic information, and employ keyword lists to reach your seller persona types in your real estate market.
What are the Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing?
Every form of marketing has its advantages and disadvantages. Social media marketing is no different.
Advantages
Your Customers Are There
Social media is for everyone, of any age and background. You can use social media marketing to inform your target audiences about who you are and what you offer. This way, you create relationships with the people who are interested in selling and may not otherwise know who you are without the help of a social media presence.
Improves Brand Awareness
A company without a social media page is questionable. It makes you “real” to your leads, provides basic information, links to your website, and is a platform where you can interface with audiences and show your expertise.
Personality is key to branding. Posting regularly, and showing your personality through your writing style and tone, instead of being robotic, develops a good impression. This way, you stand out, and are memorable and build credibility.
Broadens Your Digital Footprint
Social media has the largest audience base for you to target. Facebook alone has 2.80 billion monthly active users, and 1.84 billion users visit the social network site daily. Imagine if you could reach even 1% of those people.
If you want to get noticed on the internet, having a website is not enough. Think about this: each time a follower shares one of your posts, it puts you on a unique social network. Your brand is exposed to people who may not have discovered you otherwise.
Low Cost
Creating a business profile is free on most social media platforms. Posting is free. Commenting and carrying online conversations is free. The only things you pay for are boosts on your posts and social media ads. The latter charges per click, while boosts are adjustable to your budget.
Gives You Insights to Audiences
Most social media platforms provide you with analytics on your posts. This way, you know what visitors like and respond to, so you can expand and follow up on topics of interest. You can also discover demographics and age groups that engage more than others, and what they like, share, or comment on most frequently. Also, you’ll learn the best time (of the day and the week) to post and where posts generate interest in a particular state, region, or country.
Disadvantages
Takes Time
Rome was not built in a day, and your presence on social media is not a one-and-done shot. It takes time to build a profile, manage content, answer comments, and build an audience of followers.
It takes patience and practice to make it work for you. You must create a content strategy, post often, and engage with your audiences daily, while also gathering their likes and responses to help evolve your strategy. Dedicated planning and effort are essential. It will help to keep a social media calendar that plans your content out several weeks in advance.
Slow ROI
The biggest drawback to social media marketing is you will not see results right away. It takes at least 90 days to 6 months to see results from your organic tactics. So long as you are consistent in your content strategy, people will eventually notice you despite the competition that was already there. But it takes time to perfect your content strategy, and there will be some trial and error before you get it right.
Special Challenges of Social Ads
Due to the nature of the real estate investing industry, when advertising on social media, the ads fall under the Special Ads: Housing category. Using Facebook as an example, when an ad is in a special category, it has limitations, such as:
- Locked age range from 18 to 65+
- Forbids using Zip Codes
- Prohibits the use of any excluding attributes based on employment, income, etc.
Before the Special Ads Category was implemented, real estate investors could literally target “homeowners,” but that possibility has since been eliminated. However, the data is still there.
Special Ads require an experienced Paid Media Specialist to make it work. Once optimized, and with enough data, the ads will start showing to (mostly) just homeowners and within the ideal age group, as they are the most likely to convert.
Risk of Public Backlash
Anything you publish is open to criticism. There will always be people who negatively comment on your business feed, whether they have personal experience with you or not. You’ll have to learn to navigate bad comments to protect your brand reputation.
Hiding all negative comments is not the best solution, as it decreases the engagement score of your post or ad. Whenever possible, address the objection with an answer. This way, others who read it have their seller objection answered as well.
Potential PR Risk
Social activism and political correctness are an essential part of any social media marketing campaign. You need to self-monitor your content and filter out trigger words and sensitive topics that spark animosity. Even if you delete a controversial post, the damage is done, and bad press does not go away.
GoForClose Finds Leads on Social Media for You
Social media carries a lot of value for real estate investors, and we know how to make social media work to your advantage both through ads and organically. Our active content strategy drives organic traffic daily and initiates relationships with visitors who may never have found us otherwise. We then nurture and retarget leads through social media ads and bring them back to our site to fill out a “Request Your Offer” form.
Once a lead clicks to call or fills out the form, our Inside Sales Associate (ISA) nurtures them, prequalifies, and schedules an appointment with you or your sales team. This way, your time and effort are better spent making sales and closing deals, while we full-time manage a successful social media marketing campaign on your behalf.
If you have questions or are curious to know more, request a free consultation below.
