For real estate owners, the explosion of social media has been a blessing. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest have provided ways of advertising and marketing real estate listings for rent and sale that reach out to more potential clients than ever before. They allow owners to load pictures of their new luxury condos, homes, and waterfront properties for sale, and keep consumers informed.
Simply put, this is a new way to communicate with the home buying public. Owners can now update their social media accounts every day, hour or minute if they want, and promote any real estate deals. With billions of people on social media outlets, approximately 500 billion after combining all of these outlets, this could be the best way to market any property for rent or sale.
Here are 3 significant ways that social media can impact selling or renting a property.
- Conversation
Did you know that companies that blog have 424% more indexed pages than ones that do not? This means that consumers want to be able to interact with the owners of websites, and ask questions in a forum-like space. The same can be achieved with social media sites. On Facebook, owners or real estate firms can create pages that allow users to comment on listings, ask questions, and stay up to date on current listing. Consumers can do this using hashtags via Twitter as well. This gives owners a customer-friendly vibe, and could also encourage potential customers to promote the page among their friends.
- Multiple Social Media Effect
Social media sites also give property owners and realtors a chance to utilize a multi-pronged approach to marketing. On any given Facebook page, there could also be a series of hashtags to promote a Twitter account, and on Twitter, someone could hashtag their Pinterest post. In addition, most of these outlets allow the use of YouTube videos. YouTube boasts more than 6 billion hours of videos watched each month, and a creatively done video can add appeal to new luxury condos, waterfront properties and other real estate listings. This essentially gets the word out in more ways than one.
- Communication
Perhaps the most straight forward advantage of social media is the increase in the speed of communication. Even though Target Marketing Magazine found a 28% increase in direct mail budgets in 2013, concentrating solely on real estate postcards and flyers would be a mistake. It takes at least an average of a day or two to get any piece of mail from a real estate sale to homeowners. With social media, this time is virtually nullified. Within seconds, listings can be loaded to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other accounts. This informs users almost immediately of any new sales or rental properties. The average smartphone user checks their phone every 6.5 minutes, so for people who are on the lookout for new luxury condos, homes, and other rental properties, instant access to updates can be helpful.
As social media continues to expand and acquire more users, it will become increasingly important to use this outlet as a real estate tool. Social media allows real estate companies and owners to reach out the maximum number of potential home buyers and renters, and this will undoubtedly positively impact exposure, and maximize profits. Links like this.
