- Episode 47 -
I had to laugh when I was visiting my family recently and my 1 ½ year old grand niece took my iPhone and swiped her tiny little finger across it to open the screen. She found her “Small Potato” app, tapped on it and then the theme song began to play, which got stuck in my head for days.
Genius?
I like to think so. But it’s an all too familiar scene that has become so commonplace nowadays that you really don’t “double-take” any more when you see it happening – the age of technology keeping up with Social Media – both are exploding on all levels, even down to those who can’t form full sentences yet.
“There’s an app for that,” “hashtag this,” “Google that,” have all become part of our everyday vocabulary. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are being challenged by up and coming Instagram, Google Plus and Pinterest. And being in real estate you had better be on the fast train with these sites because you don’t want to be left behind “faxing” something to a client when other agents are messaging them through Facebook or sending a property via Snap Chat for them to review.
But how do you determine where to start or even where to devote the most time since there are so many choices for all different kinds of online networking?
If you don’t know by now, Facebook by far is the leader of the pack. According to Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms provided by the Pew Research Center in January 2015, 71% of all online adults use Facebook with one of the largest growing segment of users being those 65 years or older.
LinkedIn and Pinterest both pull in 28% of adult internet users with LinkedIn being the only platform where those ages 30-64 are more likely to be users than those ages 18-29. Pinterest is dominated by women users at 42% over only 13% of men and a growing number of total users are now over 50 years of age. Instagram has now surpassed Twitter, coming in fourth with 26% of online users between the ages of 18 – 29 but Twitter stills pulls in 23% of adult users and remains popular with those 50 and under who are college educated and have household incomes of $50K or more.
With these types of demographics, agents can market to all sorts of buyers, sellers and renters from the baby boomers wanting to downsize to those first time homebuyers needing assistance every step of the way. A well rounded agent determines strategies for all outlets to hit the target in each. And while you can get lost on each of these sites and spend all of your time “liking, tweeting, or pinning” you do have to calculate your ROI with each. In most cases, it’s not a monetary amount but more time being spent and the cost of that time based on what you get out of it in the way of listings, sales, buyers or rentals You also have to remember not to constantly remind people you’re a Realtor or they may de-friend you.
Instead, become an expert in your area by posting things like the new Trader Joe’s that is opening soon, or a DIY project that might be fun to participate in at the local Home Depot this weekend. Sites like HootSuite can help with auto posts to your social media stages and provide relevant information about real estate without having to show every sale or listing you have had recently.
But showing that you are closing deals is also good to highlight in smaller doses and not as frequent because they do provide the human factor to this online web we call socializing.
It’s truly a mishmash of trying to be everywhere all the time.
My advice is to tackle one social media giant per day for a full week. Find an auto posting provider that you like and have it take charge going forward. But remember to come back at least once a week, perhaps on your “Marketing Monday” and post something local, something relevant from you that shows you are still human on this side of the computer.
And if you become totally overwhelmed, just remember that the typewriter and fax machine are standing idle in the corner waiting to be used.
Kay Conageski is a professional Realtor® with The Keyes Company based in Plantation, Florida. Check out her RESAAS profile ›