STOP Marketing Like It's 1998

By Warren Weeks

To remain relevant, real estate professionals need to embrace and master social media. As someone who has gone through the home selling/buying process several times over the past decade, I noticed that the majority of real estate professionals are stuck in the stone age when it comes to marketing. Want proof? Check out my blue box (and those of my neighbours, I’m sure). It’s filled with direct mail from area real estate agents.

Before I tossed out their direct mail, I audited what some of those agents were doing with respect to their online presences, websites, social media, etc. and I have to say the results were disappointing.

You’re not alone

Please understand that I’m not singling out the real estate industry. There are plenty of industries that are still marketing like it’s 1998, including the dental profession, healthcare in general, malls and retail outlets, accountants, lawyers, etc. For every Taco Bell or Oreo, which have mastered social media, there are thousands of companies that are floundering.

It doesn’t have to be expensive

I’m not talking about making a six-figure investment in people, platforms and strategies. But you should consider where you’re spending marketing dollars today and whether you’re getting the best ROI with those tactics. Consider redeploying some resources (human and financial) toward some of these tools and measure your ROI over the next few years.

Where to begin

• Get a Facebook page for your company. Your audience is already there and the platform’s targeting abilities make it the most powerful (and cost-effective) advertising tool around.

• Get a Twitter account. Twitter isn’t too useful for ‘push’ marketing. But you can use it to monitor key terms that potential customers are using in your area, network with people and share thought leadership.

• Get an Instagram account. Instagram is where all the eyeballs are right now and some people in real estate are crushing on this platform (check out Sarah Johnson in Calgary on Instagram).

• Get a YouTube account. Video is the future and YouTube (along with Facebook) is the king of video. Do explainer videos, profiles of local neighbouhoods, document the process of running your business, etc.

• Include the social icons on your home page and contact us page.

Be patient and do it right

One of the most common mistakes companies make it to post a few things on Facebook or upload a video or two to YouTube. They get 11 views. And then, thinking they’ve failed, they quit. There are two key points here. First, you have to embrace the concepts of storytelling and audience engagement. No one is interested in your self-serving news releases. But they will be interested in welltold stories around different aspects of your business. If you don’t have the skills in-house, hire an intern or new grad who does. Or outsource it to a social media company. The second piece is to be patient. With practice and persistence, you’ll get better, your audience will grow and the ROI will climb.

Learn from the best

If you haven’t heard of a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk, this is the time to look him up and start following him. He’s the best social media practitioner in the world. Buy his books. Watch his YouTube videos. Interact with him on social media. He shares real-world tactics and he has tons of advice for real estate professionals. Following Gary and implementing his tactics will have a significant positive impact on your business.

Give it a shot

I hear some of you saying, ‘I’m too busy’. I get it. I run a very busy one-person business as well. But starting in 2008, I made a concerted effort to put my business online. Back then, it was blog posts. Today, it’s LinkedIn posts, documenting my business on Instagram, interacting with people on Twitter. And the difference it has made to my business has been mind-blowing. Today, nearly all of my leads are inbound, meaning clients are finding me online because of that content. So please, embrace social media. Become a practitioner. Learn from the best and stick with it. You will be pleased with the results. I promise you. •

Warren Weeks sold his first newspaper to his grandmother at the age of five, he was Wayne Gretzky's PR handler for a day in 1998, and over the past two decades he has become one of Canada's most popular and trusted media trainers.