5 social media trends real estate agents should care about in 2017

Social media continues to be a go-to marketing channel in 2017. From marketing your listings to building your brand, social media is a relatively easy way to get the word out and interact with potential clients using a format they care about.

If you’ve already been investing in social media, great! And keep doing it. And if you’re just getting into the game with social media, now’s a great time to learn the ropes and hit the ground running in 2017.

For any real estate agent, broker, or team that’s looking to get more out of their marketing this year, getting better at social media should be a priority. Understanding this marketing channel can really help you better serve your clients, and if done right, it should impact your bottom line by giving you one more way to communicate with your clients.

So take a look at these 5 social media trends that are predicted to impact marketing this year, and think about how you could incorporate them into your existing marketing plan.

1. Social searching (are you there?)

Zillow Group’s Consumer Housing Trends Report 2016 reports that “[a]cross all generations, almost nine out of 10 buyers (87 percent) use an online resource at some point in their search for a home to buy,” and “[h]alf of home buyers in the U.S. are under 36, meaning a new generation—Millennials—is shaping the future of real estate.”

And it used to be that people turned to search engines to find what they were looking for. That’s not always the case now.

Last year Facebook reported seeing “2 billion searches per day, up from 1.5 billion a year ago” (Buffer). Compare that to Google’s claim of “3.5 billion searches per day” and you can see that search on social media is something to take note of.

“Social usage isn’t slowing. It’s accelerating, especially as a discovery and research tool to find and buy from brands,” says Cameron Uganec, Senior Director for Growth at Hootsuite.

Granted lots of people are still using search engines to find what they’re looking for, younger demographics are searching on social media.

The takeaway? If potential buyers and sellers can’t find you online, and they can’t find you on Facebook, Twitter, etc., you may lose out on more business.

Is it easy to find you on social media? Are you there? Make a plan to get in the game this year.

2. Getting visual with video

Quick quiz. Imagine you’re scrolling through your newsfeed on Facebook, and you encounter two posts about some topic you’re interested in. One is a long, text-heavy post and the other is a video. Which one would you click first?

More importantly, which one would your target audience click first?

A lot of people opt for video. But not every agent or broker feels completely comfortable using video. As a result, they never explore this marketing tool and miss out on a fantastic opportunity to engage their audience, build their brand, and grow their business.

It’s no wonder that video is a perennial player in the world of marketing. Video’s interesting, it’s eye-catching, and it’s engaging. Grant Findlay-Shirras of Parkbench.com predicts that in “2017 video will no longer be a luxury but a marketing necessity for your content strategy.”

And live video is predicted to trend this year.

Maybe it’s time for you to get in front of the camera with interviews, reviews, market updates, live open houses and more!

3. Paying to play on Facebook

Have you ever noticed that your Facebook business Page posts don’t seem to reach all of your followers? Organic reach (essentially unpaid, free marketing) is in decline for a number of reasons. One reason is that lots of people and businesses are posting lots of information, making Facebook a more competitive space.

The antidote? Pay to play. This phrase means just what it says; in order to reach more of your audience on Facebook, you’re going to need to invest in things like paid advertisements, boosted posts, “Like” campaigns, etc. The good news is that advertising on Facebook is still pretty cheap; the price to “pay to play” will likely increase in the future.

4. Connecting via Twitter

Instead of seeing Twitter as merely a place to get your message out, it can be used to build better interactions with your audience. According to Erik Fisher, “marketers will need to tweet less but with more quality, with the goal of tweeting to connect with others and create interaction.”

This jives with the idea that social media should actually be social. “Be social on social media” says Jordan Scheltgen of CAVE Social. Remember that social media isn’t a place to just promote yourself. Think of it as a community and seek to add real value to your followers.

It doesn’t mean that you never post anything promotional on Twitter or any other social media channel. It just means that you should consider using social media as a relational tool as well as an advertising tool.

5. Consider using messaging services to reach clients

It may be time to start experimenting with messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and others.

These modes of communication give you the ability to reach individual clients fast. In fact, “many brands are using messaging apps to communicate one-on-one with customers, which is completely changing the way customer service gets done” (Hubspot).

Over to you…

What social media trends have shaped your real estate marketing plans for 2017? Connect with us on social, and let us know about any other trends you see coming down the pike.