The term “influencer” may not strike you like something you should put on your list of professional goals, but if you’re in real estate, you might want to rethink that perception. Along with building out a robust, expert brand and building your own real estate app, you need a strong social media presence in real estate.
An influencer in any industry is something who shows they have authority and knowledge that will be beneficial to their audience, and what they say and do on social media influences the purchasing decisions of other people.
Influencers can be celebrities, but they can also be industry experts and content creators.
Does anything sound more in-line with what you want to achieve as a real estate pro?
The following are tips that can help you build your reputation as an influencer in real estate.
Use Your Phone Everywhere You Go
Whenever you’re out and about, and even if you’re doing things in your personal life, take your phone with you and capture photos and videos. Instagram Stories are an especially popular way to connect with your audience. They’re candid and don’t feel too canned or generic.
They give people the chance to follow you around every day and see what it’s like in your life.
Instagram Stories are something people click through and engage with, and you don’t have to do anything to prepare for them.
They create a sense of transparency and authenticity as well, which is important for successful influencers in any industry.
Get to Know Other Influencers
You want to expand your audience as much as you can, but as a real estate agent, you still need your primary focus to be local. You want local people to see your social media content and buy or sell with you.
As part of that, research to find local influencers in your area who already have a large following. Then, you can piggyback off their audience by tagging them in things, including Instagram stories of them and interacting with their current followers.
If you aren’t sure where to start, in the Instagram app, you can type your location in the search bar and it will pull the most popular users and posts from the area. Then you can start going through these posts and people and find some who would be a good fit for you.
A good rule of thumb is to look for people with at least 10,000 followers.
Post Impeccable Photos
Being an influencer is almost entirely visual, and this holds particularly true in real estate. Every time you post a static photo, it needs to be perfect. If you have to work with a graphic designer or photo editor then do it.
Posting a subpar or low-quality photo is going to make you look like an amateur, while influencers in any industry will spend hours or even days getting their images perfect.
Do Video Tours
Along with your Instagram Story videos, make sure that you’re using social media to give video tours of properties. Video tours can be more polished and edited than your Stories, and they are a great way to spread the word about properties you have for sale.
Ultimately, video is more powerful in real estate than even photography. Instagram and the online world, in general, are full of beautiful images, but a video has the advantage of giving people a better idea of space and flow and can be more engaging.
When you’re doing video tours, you might want to work with a company that specializes in videography, because what you’re putting on social media is that important.
Pay It Until You Make It
Starting out building a big Instagram and social media following is tough, and in the early days, you might want to pay for advertising as you grow your following. Eventually, you might not need to do that because your following will be so big, but it’s okay to pay for ads on social media when you have fewer followers.
Finally, no matter where you live or the type of real estate you specialize in, there’s one thing to always remember as you work toward becoming an influencer—be aspirational.
You want well-curated content that creates and conveys an image that other people want to experience. Don’t be afraid to get personal with it either, because it’s your unique personality and perspective that can set you apart from other agents and your competition.
