Top 4 Social Media Tools for the Modern Real Estate Agent

HOW DO I LOOK?

As a real estate agent, connecting with your clients is key to your business’s success. Attracting qualified real estate leads through social media is possible when utilizing your social media correctly.

You never know when a potential client may be doing their homework by scrolling through your Instagram or viewing your Facebook reviews. You want to look your best by looking organized, utilizing newest social media trends and close with an invitation to learn more (call to action).

Maintaining your social media profile doesn’t have to be daunting, which is why we curated a list of the most useful social media tools for the modern real estate agent. The following apps are not additional social media outlets, but valuable enhancements to help boost and streamline your current social media process.

BIT.LY

Sharing relevant information with your followers keeps them up-to-date on real estate trends, your listings, innovative trends or local happenings. A great way to do this is by sharing a website link in your post. It is free tool used to shorten website URLs before sharing them. And not only does Bit.ly reformat URLS into a condensed link, but it can track the amount of times your link was clicked on. Great for traffic reporting and you can create these links quickly on your phone. More than 300 Million BitLy links are created monthly by its users. Here’s a free guide to “37 Ways How Brands Use BitLy”:

Before: https://www.gdisain.com/blog/2019/3/26/top-4-social-media-tools-for-the-modern-real-estate-agent

After: bit.ly/2HSVbpW

FEEDLY

Never miss an important story! If you are spending a significant time locating articles worthy of sharing, this next tool will come in handy. Feedly is a content aggregator that helps you organize and share what matters most to you and your clients. Feedly for mobile and desktop are free for up to 100 sources and up to 3 feeds.

Gathering information on niche and broad publications, blogs, social media posts, RSS feeds, YouTube channels and everything that matter to you, Feedly is a one-stop shop for content and will save you the time and hassle of searching multiple sites for relevant topics.

LINKTREE

With your newfound access to a multitude of articles, the next step is finding a way to share them all.

Insert LinkTree —the FREE tool to optimize your Instagram traffic and send followers to multiple destinations (links) from your Instagram bio link. Easy to use and colors can be customized.

This app aims to “let your content live longer than the feed” by allowing one link where you can house all the content you would like to share. The app also keeps statistics on the clicked links, letting you know what your followers are interested in.

STORIESADS

Instagram Stories has quickly changed online advertising with reports expecting it to surpass traditional feed sharing. With 400 million people use Instagram Stories every day, it’s time to starting using your Stories!

Creating stunning Instagram Stories ads for your open house events or new listings, all made easy though StoriesAds. Their user-friendly program walks you through step-by-step creation on adding color, font, and graphics to your images to bring them to life.

For more on how to use your Instagram Stories, visit our blog.
Feel free contact us to help you navigate these platforms. We would be delighted to assist and answer any questions.

Say It Right

Why how you say something is just as important as what you say.

Ah, the power of words. Some people love them, some people hate them. And we’ve all been in those situations where we’ve said or written exactly what we’re thinking or feeling, and it just comes out all wrong. Yeah, you know those times. Well, we can’t promise to help you right your personal word wrongs, but we can make sure your business and marketing communications are clear, concise, and compelling.

Say It Ain’t So.

You may or may not consciously know this, but you love reading good writing. Writing comes in many forms: taglines, emails, advertisements, marketing, short and long form journalism, novels, magazines - even a naming structure or title requires the right words. Words are everywhere! A phrase can be grammatically correct and void of typos, but that doesn’t always mean that it’s accurately or effectively conveying a message.  

Consider these examples:

1. ”Find Your New Home” vs. “Helping You Make The Right Move”

2. ”Amazing New Home For Sale” vs. “Contemporary Concordia Bungalow For Sale”

Both of these phrases are essentially saying the same thing, but which ones are more descriptive and interesting?

The right words have the power to make or break your message. Compelling statements capture your client, are memorable and can even help generate new business.

Show, Don’t Tell (sometimes).

The goal of most writing is to give the reader an experience. Let the reader decide for him or herself what kind of journey they wish to go on by setting a scene or a tone. Instead of telling your audience what to see, hear, and feel, use words to convey actions, thoughts, a setting. This isn’t to say there isn’t a time or a place for telling - sometimes it’s necessary to move a story along, or to convey factual, brief information in an efficient way; being able to strike a balance is the key to great writing.

Here are two examples of showing vs. telling (excerpted from JerichoWriters.com)

1. Telling: The night was cold and moonlit. The sleigh moved fast through the forest.

Showing: Ekaterina was shocked by the cold. She’d known winters before, but never this far north and never this deep. Burrowed under furs as she was, she still felt her eyelashes freeze. There were crystals of ice on her face where her own breath had frozen solid. It was a clear night, and they raced through the whispering pines, like a feather drawn over a sheet of silver. It seemed magical. Impossible. Temporary. Forbidden.

2. Telling: The parties were dazzling and opulent. They spilled out of the house, into the  garden and even the beach.

Showing: In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive… floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside… the lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.

10 Tips For Worthy Writing.

As you’re working on your next piece of writing, be it a marketing piece, bio for your website, your latest blog post, or any other text, keep the following tips in mind to help guide you:

1. Have a plan

2. Know your audience

3. Use the right style (ie., conversational versus informational)

4. Be wary of lists

5. Use adjectives sparingly

6. Be specific

7. Vary sentence structure

8. Less is (usually) more; don’t ramble

9. Avoid redundancy

10. Edit, edit, edit! (or ask someone else to)

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Ready to write that novel? We thought so! Or, if you’re like many people and want to avoid crafting written material like the plague, you can always rely on the wordsmiths at GDisain for a little assistance. Write on!

Managing and Utilizing Instagram Stories

It may seem like an arbitrary feature, but Instagram Stories are a highly useful tool for those looking to increase engagement and work their way into people’s feed. Instagram is constantly updating and adding new features to their Story section, so we’ll go over a few items that you should test and try out.

GO AHEAD. YOU CAN DO THIS.

First, take your photo or video. Then you’ll find all kinds of options for emojis, stickers, filters, and text to add to the media you’d like to share.

Step 1: Tap the camera icon in the top left corner of the Instagram app to open your Story.

Step 2: Select an image from your gallery or take a new photo or video, then find the sticker options icon (circled in green in this image).

Step 3: Select a sticker option to add to your selected image or video.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

A more recent addition to the Story stickers is the “countdown.” By adding a countdown clock (that updates in real time!) your followers can turn on reminders and share your countdown to their own Story. Fun ideas for countdowns might be for a product launch, open house, new listing, vacation, birthday, work-related event you’re excited about, the start of summer, etc.

Qs

Another easy sticker option that boosts engagement is the “questions” sticker. This is a more open-ended poll option where you can ask a question and your viewers can answer it; or you can open the floor to your viewers to ask you questions and then you can share your answers. We’ve seen many different uses for this sticker (like caption contests!) and it seems to lead to loads of engagement.

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YAY OR NAY?

One of our favorite items to add to an Instagram Story is a “poll.” This is another sticker option that goes over an image and includes a single question and two answers (that you can edit). Once it’s posted to your story, viewers can choose their answer from the ones you’ve supplied. The Instagram algorithm loves to see engaged viewers, so getting your followers to click an answer shows that people are interested in your content.

PASS THE SLIDERS

A more open-ended sticker option for encouraging engagement is the “slider” sticker. This is most frequently accompanied with a question in the title of the slider. You can even change the emoji people use to answer with.

HAVE FUN WITH IT

Whatever items you use in your story, the ultimate goal is to get your viewers to engage by clicking, voting, writing an answer, sending a response, etc. Engagement can also be achieved by adding hashtags, mentioning other users and profiles, and tagging your location. This may feel like it’s creating a busy image but we encourage you to get creative and test the different colors, backgrounds, and extra shapes. Most importantly, have fun!

Feel free contact us to help you navigate these features. We would be delighted to assist and answer any questions.

Everything You Need to Know about Instagram TV (IGTV)

WHAT IS IT?

IGTV is the best of several social worlds in one; it has the video sharing capabilities of YouTube with the social aspect and ease of Instagram. Videos posted to the platform are saved to a feed and don’t disappear like Instagram Stories. Those with IGTV accounts can see the number of likes, comments, and views on their uploaded videos, much like Instagram Stories. When users tap into the IGTV tab in Instagram (it’s a separate app from the regular Instagram app but is also integrated) they can expect to see a video pop up and start to play immediately, like a traditional television, and from there can browse videos that are suggested or posted by accounts they already follow. This longer, vertical IGTV video integration allows for users to get in front of a broader audience and is meant to be a simple and intuitive extension of the Instagram app.

WHY DOES IT EXIST?

Instagram’s IGTV is a direct answer to users’ demand for longer videos. The platform was first released in June of 2018 and is integrated with Instagram but is also a separate application. The IGTV app can host videos up to 10 minutes in length (and keeps them on your profile). More recently, IGTV began allowing larger accounts and verified accounts the ability to post videos up to 60 minutes long, though they need to be uploaded from a computer. These videos must be uploaded from the IGTV app, or website, but can be viewed by your audience through the Instagram app in the top right corner next to your direct messages icon, or often in the “Explore” tab of your Instagram account.

As of early March 2019, Instagram has started rolling out clips of IGTV posts in the regular Instagram feed, with the ability to click through to view the full length video. The integration allows for the opportunity to use paid promotion on your IGTV videos as well as sharing a notification about your IGTV uploads directly to your Instagram Story, where viewers can “swipe up” and be directed to the full IGTV video. (This “swipe up” feature is typically reserved for users with over 10,000 followers but anyone can use it for IGTV video-to-story sharing.) Currently, IGTV is the only option for uploading one, continuous clip longer than 60 seconds.

WHO DOES THIS BENEFIT?

Marketers seeking the widespread reach of Instagram with younger generations can utilize IGTV to get their commercials, behind-the-scenes videos, product launch announcements, company updates, directly in front of clients. Video is one of the fastest growing mediums for personal and business use. IGTV for business is still a newer concept, so getting creative with how you use it can really make you stand out. IGTV is a perfect answer to hosting and promoting longer edits of real estate videos, music videos, baking how-to’s, behind-the-scenes office tours, photoshoot sneak peeks, and more.

TECH SPECS

Requirements for IGTV video are as follows: must be portrait orientation, 9:16 ratio, and 1080 pixels wide x 1920 pixels tall. (These are the same pixel dimensions as Instagram Stories.) Videos must be MP4 file format. Find more requirements and information on the IGTV help page or feel free contact us to help you navigate this new platform.