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Brokers have heard it earlier than: Having a social media presence is essential to succeeding in actual property as we speak.
That’s what audio system reiterated throughout a panel known as “Social Media 2025: The New Rules of Engagement” at Inman Join New York on Wednesday. However these social media savvy brokers additionally mentioned greatest practices and tips on how to get began for these nonetheless new to utilizing social for his or her enterprise.
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On authenticity
Andrew Jevin of Compass in Los Angeles informed panel moderator Holly Meyer Lucas, additionally of Compass, that he thought brokers ought to solely have one social media web page that focuses on their private life, quite than attempting to juggle private {and professional} pages concurrently.
Andrew Jevin
“I could not for the life of me get my friends to follow my real estate page,” Jevin mentioned of the times when he tried to have two separate accounts.
“I think people care about us as individuals and what our interests are,” he added.
Since social media by nature usually finally ends up being a extra informal house, Meyer Lucas additionally puzzled how panelist Kourtney Pulitzer of Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty in Palm Seaside balanced the extra formal Sotheby’s model together with her content material on social media.
Pulitzer mentioned that when she determined to do social media, she dedicated to going all in. However her character by nature can be slightly extra polished, which inserts proper in with the Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty model and is mirrored in her social media content material.
“So I’m being authentic; that’s who I am,” Pulitzer mentioned. “That’s my encouragement: to be yourself.”
“Our clients hire us to market that property, and I think in today’s age, we can’t ignore social media,” she added. “We can’t skip any of the steps, and this is a really important step in today’s market.”
Panelist Lindsey Tronolone of The Jupiter Group at Compass just lately launched her group and has used social media to make the group conscious of its presence.
“My biggest piece of advice would be to keep it simple,” Tronolone mentioned. “I would focus on who you are, where you are and what value you offer.”
Since she lives and works in Jupiter, Florida, and is married to a yacht captain, Tronolone mentioned her content material tends to concentrate on what it’s prefer to stay in a water-oriented group.
“Don’t overthink it,” Tronolone mentioned. “If you have an urge to grow on social media, just get out there and record.”
Centered branding
Lindsey Tronolone
Tronolone additionally leverages her partnerships with native companies in Jupiter to collaborate with them on social media.
“To me, that’s tapping into a local market that I might not have had access to,” she mentioned.
Tronolone gives to come back out to the enterprise and movie content material with them onsite, then she posts and collaborates with them on social media, which finally helps her develop native followers.
Jevin additionally used social media to pivot his private branding final 12 months. When he first began his social media accounts, he used the deal with “The Snapping Realtor” in reference to his use of Snapchat. However, after some time, he uninterested in individuals misinterpreting the identify.
“It started because when I would see people at an event, people would come up to me and start snapping at me,” Jevin mentioned.
“We’ve come such a far way of embracing social media,” he added, “but I just got tired of people not knowing my name and just knowing me as the snapping Realtor.”
Jevin additionally coaches brokers, and mentioned considered one of his ideas when he’s requested about social media handles is to incorporate one’s identify within the deal with as an alternative of one thing generic about “homes.”
“I think my name best fits my business,” he mentioned. “Put some thought into what your handle is going to be.”
Inform your story
Kourtney Pulitzer
Consistent with her personal “buttoned up” model, Pulitzer has a videographer come to her home as soon as a month for one to 2 hours to movie content material that she organizes upfront and feels will add worth to her purchasers and her enterprise. Out of that longer movie session, she’ll create quick movies that get put out on social for the following month or so.
Regardless of her efforts to supply extra polished content material, Pulitzer mentioned that she shortly realized that the items of content material gaining essentially the most traction had been some “behind-the-scenes” clips that she produced.
“I realized that the behind-the-scenes videos were really what was propelling the entire page,” she mentioned. So now she embraces these clips and makes use of them to indicate individuals who she is and what her days are like.
That includes that form of off-the-cuff content material is without doubt one of the methods to construct belief with customers, Tronolone added, quite than solely specializing in strict actual property matters.
One of many mottos she shared with the viewers is, “Facts tell; stories sell.”
“I can go on and talk about the facts of my property,” Tronolone mentioned. “But the stories section about me, about the property, that’s what people want to know. That’s why we love reality TV because we want to know what happens behind the scenes.”
Meyer Lucas beneficial that anybody attending Inman Join New York who needs to raise their social media accounts needs to be filming some form of content material whereas on the occasion, which exhibits their followers that they’re investing of their profession.
Don’t be afraid
Holly Meyer Lucas
And regardless that many individuals really feel they should do one thing new or modern to face out on social media, Jevin mentioned there’s no disgrace in following tendencies.
“We’re all copying things on social media, so it’s OK to copy,” he mentioned. “Do a trend. If you see a bunch of agents doing it, do your own version of it.”
Though social media has helped Jevin acquire consideration professionally, he mentioned he doesn’t actually do it for the metrics anymore — he does it due to the way in which he can affect different individuals.
“I know I’m doing good if I go to dinner with friends and they start talking about my content,” he mentioned, additionally recounting a time when a good friend mentioned Jevin being open about being a homosexual man on social media helped their son in his personal journey of popping out.
Tales like which have helped Jevin see “how I could change the world by being me.”
Pulitzer additionally touched on the controversial subject of shopping for followers on social media and mentioned that folks shouldn’t be ashamed to take this step (as she did) if it helps them construct their enterprise.
“Here’s the thing — none of us are writing the rules for social media. No one is. They’re being written as we’re going,” Pulitzer mentioned. Finally, shopping for followers ended up hurting engagement on her pages, she mentioned, so as soon as she realized that, she determined to delete these followers.
“That’s a big part of this: People are afraid to start; they’re afraid to break the rules,” Pulitzer mentioned. “There’s so much fear. Just do it.”
Tronolone mentioned that brokers who’re simply getting began in a critical means on social shouldn’t even have a look at the metrics, however simply concentrate on constructing any form of following, so long as they’re engaged.
“Two hundred followers who are highly invested in your business are way better than 2,000 followers,” she mentioned.
Pulitzer mentioned that any agent who seems like social media isn’t proper for his or her enterprise ought to rethink and provides it a shot.
“Some people say, ‘It’s great for your business, but it wouldn’t work for my business.’ And I’m like, we’re in the same business,” Pulitzer mentioned with a chuckle. “We’re in the same office.”
