Hootsuite for Real Estate Agents

HootSuite for Real Estate Agents

A HootSuite Industry Sheet

Real CaseEstate Study

Introduction HootSuite is an ideal plaftform for real estate agents using social media for unique applications and outreach efforts. From amplifying listings and open houses, to providing local resources to clients, social savvy agents can find success while gaining efficiencies for their business.

This paper will share practical tips and tactics for agents and agencies to start using HootSuite today to build awareness and measure success.

For Starters...

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The real estate business has moved to the Internet and the Internet has moved to social channels. There has never been a better time for real estate agents to reach more potential home buyers and sellers for less money.

Ken Horst (@Agentopolis)

Amongst the 2 million HootSuite users are countless real estate agents.

We asked them which social media tools and tactics they find most useful, and discovered all the surveyed agents use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles in the dashboard as part of a complete strategy. This strategy includes active communication and outreach to multiple social networks in order to reach the widest audience. For example, use Twitter to promote listings, LinkedIn to connect with colleagues and Facebook to build a community in their area.

Based on the feedback from the HootSuite survey, this Industry Sheet outlines four specific HootSuite features to help real estate agents plan and execute compelling social media campaigns.

More about HootSuite: blog.hootsuite.com

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twitter.com/hootsuite

HootSuite for Real Estate Agents Real CaseEstate Study

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A HootSuite Industry Sheet

I use HootSuite to manage multiple lists

Creating Filters

of people to monitor and keep up with based on different criteria. It’s a simple way to monitor my @ mentions, those lists, and keyword searches.

The amount of content available through social media can be difficult to keep up with. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the vast number of messages from colleagues, clients, prospects, news, and more.

Kenny Silva (@kennysilva)

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Every Agent should always share their

Create Twitter Lists so you can actively follow those who are most important to you. Organize these lists to follow those who are interested in buying a new home, clients seeking local resources, and even other agents who are offering interesting industry information. A public list of community resources, for example, is a great way to show your followers that you’re the best source of information and turn the conversation towards you.

clients listings on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other social network they can. They owe it to their listing client. Build a list of people who are interested in home in a specific city or metro area and using RSS feeds, automate the tweeting of new listings as they come onto the local market.

Ken Horst (@Agentopolis)

Lists are easy to manage and maintain right in the HootSuite dashboard. You can also update your lists with HootSuite’s mobile applications (iOS, Android and BlackBerry).

Search for all mentions of your name, your areas of expertise, your core neighborhood and other keywords which set you apart from the crowd. For example, search “Home show in San Francisco” to follow specific news, reactions and updates on the event.

Schedule and Relax Certainly one of the most powerful things about social media is the conversation you can create. You can also augment your real time thoughts and remarks with pre-made messages so your broadcasts are going out even when you are with clients, hosting an open house, or in the daily grind at the office.

Maximize your outreach by offering interesting information at the precise time your followers are plugged in to their social networks. For example, when you are showing an open house, schedule some Tweets during that time to let people know your property is ready to view. This will help online prospects know you are at the house and it’s available to see.

The Publisher view within HootSuite also helps manage social media campaigns with an editorial calendar view to assist in planning and publishing updates across social networks.

More about HootSuite: blog.hootsuite.com

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twitter.com/hootsuite

HootSuite for Real Estate Agents Real CaseEstate Study

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A HootSuite Industry Sheet

The freedom HootSuite provides to stay in touch with my network while I am busy on a project is invaluable through scheduled updates. This is an amazing time management tool for those heavily involved in social networking.

Kelly Mitchell (@HawaiiRealty)

Schedule interesting information, new offers, tips, listings and more to keep your conversation going. Become a resource for local anecdotes by sharing information about free concerts, farmers markets, and other interesting local activities. When your community needs to make a decision, you’ll be the one they seek out, since you’ve branded yourself as a priceless source of relevant news.

TIP: HootSuite Pro allows you to bulk schedule 50 Tweets at a time and publish unlimited automatic news feeds from your blog and bookmarks. Let HootSuite do the work for you while you focus on your clients and business.

Stay Local General search terms can often return an overwhelming amount of information. This means your social searches can turn up a broad range of information that will take hours to search. For example, a search for “real estate” is going to return thousands of hits.

Narrow your focus on the areas you serve. Use the geolocation feature in HootSuite to filter your search results according to distance and see only the messages sent from close by. For example, set up a geo search for #realestate or “new house” and you will be able to strategically engage with local prospects who are interested in real estate. Also, consider monitoring your competitors to build from their successes and learn from their mistakes.

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With HootSuite I seek out locals and target specific audiences to build online relationships that I engage and converse with.

Mike Bowler (@MIrealestate)

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Targeted listening and audience engagement is important for organizations of all types and sizes, but it is especially relevant for real estate agents that want to connect with potential local customers.

Shorten URLs In order to gauge the success of your social efforts - especially when compared with other marketing tactics like radio, bus signs, and billboards you need to analyze which updates are working and which are not.

SM is a communications platform.

Focus should be on engaging - NOT broadcasting!

Teri Conrad (@TLCHOME)

By using the integrated URL shorteners in HootSuite, you can monitor which links attract clicks and where those clicks come from (geographically and web source).

More about HootSuite: blog.hootsuite.com

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twitter.com/hootsuite

HootSuite for Real Estate Agents Real CaseEstate Study

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A HootSuite Industry Sheet

I believe most practitioners will begin to understand how much reach they will have in the social media space.

Katherine Tarbox (@REALTORMAG)

Use The Quick Analytics resource within HootSuite to decrease the amount of time you spend analyzing your messages. At a glance, you can see which of your followers are more likely to visit your links and which of your posts were the most successful.

Analyze the most successful Tweets and investigate why they were interesting for your users: Was it the tone? The content? A specific campaign? The use of hashtags? Constantly modify and refine your strategy to improve your communication outreach.

Advanced analytics takes measurement one step further by tracking the relationship between your Twitter clicks, Facebook visits and web site visits.

Plus, you can monitor your follower growth, mentions, keyword volume and much more.

Special – Case Study: Inman News “If it wasn’t for HootSuite, I would not have found the success in social media that I did. We have had record numbers at our Connect conferences, and one big reason is our social media strategy. We’ve made an intense focus on scheduling posts, looking at key influencers via their Klout score, and connecting with people quickly. I love the mobile app too - so easy to use!! We have grown our social media base tremendously since I started managing it Jan. 2010. In the last year and a half, we raised our main Twitter account from 6K followers to over 23,000.

We also have over 15K fans over 6 different Facebook accounts (grown from about 2K). Facebook and Twitter are usually always in our top 3 refers of traffic to our site - including ht.ly links! We’ve also increased our news readership tremendously by having a platform to post out all of our news stories quickly. The ability to schedule posts was a complete game changer for our social strategy. I can’t say enough how much I love HootSuite - it is the #1 social media application - hands down.”

Katie Lance (@katielance, @InmanNews team)

More about HootSuite: blog.hootsuite.com

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twitter.com/hootsuite

Photo credit: Kris Krug – flickr.com/kk