How to Maximize Your Online Presence as a Real Estate Investor
Recently we’ve explored how you can make the most of your website and social media as a real estate investor, and how those platforms fit together into a singular objective.
To realize the full advantage of websites and social media in general, though, you need to populate both with content.
As a real estate investor, what constitutes good content, and what should the underlying objective behind it be? How should you go about creating it and why?
Be true to your brand and objective.
Ultimately, even before you decide on what medium to use, you need to first determine what larger overall objective the content is supposed to serve in general, and then what immediate purpose it needs to serve in particular. Your content should be a stepping-stone to your larger goal, and even though it has an immediate purpose in the short term, it should still be a means to an end.
So think about how you want your brand to be represented. If you wouldn’t put it on a billboard advertising your business, don’t use it as content. Also consider what your goals are as a business. Your content is a marketing strategy; it should work towards your overall objective. Speaking of which:
Content is branding. Period.
We’ll talk about this more in a minute, but whichever medium you choose for different pieces of content, you are effectively contributing to the image of your brand. You need to think of your content as branding, pure and simple.
Always keep this in mind. Your content and how you project it is, for the most part, the outside world’s first impression of your business. It’s what the market sees, and the market doesn’t know your intentions and doesn’t care about your sincerity; it will judge your brand by what it appears to offer and how it presents itself. For example, if you keep up a steady stream of Instagram posts, that content should represent your brand even if it doesn’t directly pertain to it.
In other words, even if you put up something humorous, it should avoid off-color humor if your brand is built on a professional image, and it should be relevant to your market, which brings us to our next point.
Know your audience: relevance and affinity can make or break content.
Much like understanding your overall objective, understanding your audience and your target demographic is crucial. That is, you should know the inclinations of customers you already have as well as those whom you hope to attract.
How relevant content is depends on two things. The first is that it relates to your field or profession. The second is your desired audience’s affinity towards that content, as well as their likelihood of taking the action you want them to take. In other words, the more relevant content is, the more effective it will be.
As an investor, you’re probably focused on leads and deals but in a different way than a real estate agent might be; your content, therefore, might differ from theirs because your audiences are different. Where an agent might want to attract average consumers and homeowners, you might want to attract a mixture of real estate professionals and a certain type of seller. Your content should reflect that.
Figure out which medium is most effective.
This should be the last step you take. You shouldn’t worry about whether to post a blog, a video, or an image until you’ve gone through the above considerations. Those will inform your decisions on creating content through different mediums.
If you’re an investor, blogs are a good way to attract the attention of other professionals and lend an air of legitimacy to your brand. The same might be true of a real estate agent, but the tone and subjects of your blogs might be different.
Videos can be a great way to visually attract audiences and lead them to point-of-action centers, such as squeeze pages or social media follows. Images of your work, or images of listings, clue audiences in to what you’re doing and encourage them to engage either by sharing (because it’s relevant to them) or by taking action (because it leads them to do something that benefits them). Even simple text posts or pictograms can have a powerful effect. You should try different mediums and platforms and measure the results.
Remember, the content should always accurately represent your brand, attract the right type of audience, and serve an immediate purpose that is itself in the service of your overall objective. For more perspectives on real estate investment, check back with us each week as we post new blogs and be sure to sign up for our Priority Access List for advance listings and market updates. You can also keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter!
– Get It Right Solutions