Once upon a time, you joined the ranks of newly minted real estate agents, full of high hopes for your eminent success in this fast moving marketplace. You began showing properties, started advertising, created a website and maybe a Facebook page to draw in customers, and waited for the phone calls. However, time is passing, the buyers aren’t coming in as much as you would like, and consequently you’ve started looking into social media marketing strategies to strengthen your business. Maybe you try to buy ads on Facebook or offer special listings to your Twitter followers, but the social media scene is complex and dizzyingly fast moving with new possibilities arising all the time. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, oh my… When you catch your breath you realise you’re in over your head, and while chances are you have at least a bit of experiance with Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, your attempts to market listings on these platforms are coming up short. Not only are you still trying get your sea legs on a ship in stormy seas, you also don’t know what you don’t know about tying all this together. Feel like you could use some help? Luckily, you’ve come to the right place, and I have a secret to share. Ladies and gentleman, there’s a dark horse in this race that can pull traffic into the nets you’ve already set, and you may want to add it to your arsenal. Allow me to introduce Pinterest…
Pinterest is a social website where members find and collect photos, GIFs, and links about subjects that interest them. Looking for more funny photos to share or fun places to visit? Browse Pinterest for memes or vacation ideas and “pin” them to your profile for future use. Want to show someone that favorite recipe you found online? You can create a new “pin”—either by uploading a photo you already have or creating a link to a website that becomes a new pin—on your profile to show that recipe to the world. You can even organize these pins into specific “boards,” which are essentially albums or file folders that are based on category. While Facebook tries to do a little of everything,Twitter focuses on endless conversation streams, and Instagram is just Facebook with less drama, Pinterest’s goal is to have people contribute to each other’s pastimes and interests in a visually interactive fashion. It’s proving to be very popular…
Statistics earlier this year showed that millennials use Pinterest as much as Instagram, while there are a total of 70 million users in the US, and an additional 80 million internationally, who have created a total of over 50 billion pins. Why should you care? If you are working with real estate you’re very aware of the power of a photo, so consider this – most of the activity on Pinterest is focused on visual content.
Starting to see how this site, if used properly, could be a great way to promote your business? But that begs a question;
How do you use Pinterest properly?
Use Pinterest to Make Friends
While it may not have the same kind of conversational dynamic you can find on Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is still a social network, so after you create an account, start making friends. First, find your potential contacts (prior customers, for example) on Pinterest, friend them, and comment on their pins. This not only strengthens the relationship you have with people you know or have already helped, it also creates the opportunity to make new friends from their friends. After all, potential buyers are more willing to trust agencies that someone they know trusts. The key, however, is commenting; mere re-pins of their pins are too impersonal to make any difference. Remember, social media is all about the personal touch…
Second, and this is the ninja bit, when you comment leave a hashtag (such as #branningrealestate), a link, a phone number, and/or any other ways to give your friends (and potential friends) a chance to find out more about you. Leaving a request to get in touch with you—e.g., “Call me!” or1 “Visit my site!” or so on—is also recommended. Made contacts, built connections, and gotten your information out, all in one fell swoop. Nifty, eh?
Make Pins for your Houses
Once your profile and friends are established, it’s time to show off property. Create a pin for each house you list, creating unique descriptions and information for each pin. Whenever you make a new pin, your friends will see it on their Home Screen when they log into Pinterest. Friends you already know can see the new houses you’re offering (possibly enticing someone who is ready to move to give you a call) and contacts you’ve made through mutual Pinterest friends will now know for sure that you are a realtor. When creating these pins be as creative and unique with each one as you can, and remember that people who may not be interested in the houses per say may find a kind of informative entertainment in your posts and pin it for others to see. More pins, more eyes…
Strategically Re-pin Pertinent Topics
Building a strong base of buyers requires that you establish, and more importantly maintain, credibility as a realtor; Pinterest can help with this as well. Surf through the various boards the site has to offer, keeping an eye out for whole boards or individual posts related to the real estate market. When you find something pertinent, re-pin it to your profile for friends to see. The act of re-pinning is essentially a public display of your ability to keep an eye on the market, and the content of the re-pin, plus any comments you may make on it, can show how well you understand the dynamics of the marketplace. Once you have placed your re-pins (and original pins, for that matter), start conversations with your friends in the comments section of these pins – these can build relationships off of the credibility you have established. Its public relations at the touch of a button, all for free.
Make a Contest Board
If you have a blog (and every business should these days), one of the best ways of drawing traffic to that blog is creating interesting, interactive content and pinning it to Pinterest. A technique I like to call “The Giveaway Funnel” is a prime example of this strategy, and I’ll use it to illustrate the process. To start, create a “Contests and Giveaways” board on Pinterest that will only hold pins for events of this variety. Now, put together something that will offer the possibility of winning or receiving a free deal – a drawing for a couple tickets to a concert, restaurant coupons, or a free open house, for example – and along with all the other advertising you usually do, post a write up of the event to your blog and pin it to the “Contest and Giveaways board” on Pinterest. Now you have one more way to draw in participation and interest in your business, and therefore your listings, using this incredibly active platform, all while catching the attention of a highly visual audience who might miss other avenues of exposure. Think of it as diversifying your advertising portfolio…
(For more information on the logistics of setting up this type of event in a real estate setting, see have a look at this blog post I did a while back.
https://alexbranning.com/2017/08/04/real-estate-marketing-funnel-generated-26-appointment-requests/)
Give your Blog a Pin It Button
This one is an absolute must when using Pinterest to help your business!
Using social networking for business is a two-way street: people post links that lead from a social network to another site, and then people post that website page back into the social network on their own profiles. In order to make sure that the website page is reposted as much as possible, websites include various styles of “Share” button to click that instantly posts to a specific social network. Facebook’s Share button is one of the most prolific examples, while Twitter’s blue bird is another version of the same concept you’ll often see just below it. When clicked, these buttons post a sound bite-worthy phrase and link from the web page to the social network in question. Pinterest is no exception and has their own variation called the “Pin It” button. When clicked, a “Pin It” creates a new pin on one of the user’s boards that contains the meat of the webpage. Including a Pin It, along with any other Share buttons you care to include, will help increase your presence on the whatever social network a potential customer is inclined to use. Its advertising in a single click…
Include Calls to Action
Finally, think about all the powerful marketing strategies you have been learning and applying to your advertisements and blog posts. For example, the “call to actions” method, where you tell or ask people to do something, has been shown to increase engagement all across the internet. If these strategies work everywhere else, why wouldn’t they also work on Pinterest? In fact, CTAs have been shown to increase the re-pins, comments, and likes—i.e., engagement—of a pin by as much as eighty percent. Whenever pinning new listings, be sure to include a “click here!” and a “comment below”, with a “re-pin this!” thrown in for good measure. Even the actual image of a pin can include a CTA (try a “click here” note above an arrow pointing to the front door) to help show potential buyers how to take the next step, rather than waiting for them to figure out how to follow up on the lead all on their own.
Real estate is a tricky enterprise, and using all the tools at your disposal gives you that edge needed to succeed. Try adding Pinterest to your networking arsenal – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
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