Many letting and estate agents will tell you they have so many hundreds or thousands of followers on twitter or so many likes on facebook.. the more the better. However, you need to stop and ask yourself – why do you want more Facebook likes or twitter followers? Yes, it’s nice to look popular on estate agency or lettings row , but what good will looking popular really achieve? The truth is, nothing at all.
The real value of social media comes from genuine clients, not facebook likes. These are the landlords and sellers that will be past/existing people who largely have an actual interest in your lettings or estate agency business and what you have to say. It is generally worthwhile investing your time into engaging with them as they are far more likely to convert into repeat sellers / landlords, or more importantly, recommend you to others. Remember, all social media is a form of communication. Communication is two sided affair. Say something and listen to the reply.
The low down is, if you focus on just the quantity of likes/followers (quantity over quality) then your facebook likers / twiiter followers won’t have any genuine interest in your estate agency / lettings brand and certainty won’t be receptive to anything you do; in which case they are of little or no real value to you or your agency. It makes much more sense to build a group organically which is always my preferred approach. Sure, this takes a little longer to achieve, but it will result in a much higher quality of person who will have real intrinsic value for your lettings business.
The lesson is this: spend your time coming up with better ideas, give them (landlords – be they new, soon to be, existing or big portfolio landlords) something interesting to read, keep coming up with something new even more interesting to read and eventually, they will come and seek you out. That doesn’t mean talking about tenants rights or landlords rights, neither does it mean dispelling popular misconceptions about the property market, it doesn’t mean talking about the difference between s21 vs s8, neither does it mean talking about protecting deposits or ARLA membership, definitely no horror stories, nothing about landlords due diligence, no gas safety’s …no ..no ..no. This might be interesting to you Mr or Mrs Letting Agent but it isn’t to a landlord .. no it needs to be something else … I have been telling you what to say for the last 4 weeks .. look back at the posts .. decent local content about your local property market
Remember, I had a client who wrote a blog for over two and half years. He ruled out 120 minutes once a month, 60 minutes once a week and eight minutes a day to do his blog … 30 months later his turnover had increased by in excess of £160,000 per year … and he puts it all down to his blog. His Linkedin connections are adequate, his twitter is none existent and he has a facebook account that is old as the ark … social media isn’t about that.
If you want to get greater market share, its easy. You need to write a monthly newsletter about your local property market, email it to over 5000 of the local movers and shakers in your town, the important people, the landlords in your town, hand deliver it to 300 important local dignitaries and signpost them to your daily blog .. and off you go. It really is as simple as that…
Hold on you say Christopher .. write a local newsletter with local content, email that out to 5000 landlords .. how do you do that? Well that’s what I do.. I can teach you how do get those 5000 email addresses, I can write unlimited stories and content on any town, any street or any housing estate in England and Wales … I have written thousands of words about towns I have never visited (and the agents have loved it . all the info is out there – you just need to know where it is and how to make it interesting for landlords).