How Can Social Media Be Used to Attract Prospective Buyers?
With Millennials now comprising 66% of the market for first-time home buyers and 99% of those prospective buyers using the internet to research properties, it is crucial for home owners and agents alike to maintain an active presence on social media networks. These 30-and -under buyers do more than just google a few keywords or locations to find their dream homes. With the rise in popularity of social media, prospective buyers now rely on property-related hashtags and trends to browse when online, and that's only scratching the surface.
The worlds second-largest search engine 'YouTube' is also being used to explore houses and communities, with 86% of prospective buyers stating that they would use virtual tours and videos to learn more about a specific community that they are considering.
It is impossible to stress the importance of maintaining and online presence, whether you are a property owner or an agent. A social media presence ensures you the ability to continuously cultivate interest in your property or properties. The fact is that real estate voyeurism will only continue to expand across social media outlets. So how does a home seller or an agent utilise social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook to attract potential buyers?
Instagram is unique to other social media networks because it encourages instant feedback on videos and images. To a property seller, this translates to instant feedback on your property and neighbourhood photos/videos. It is important to know which hashtags will generate the highest level of feedback for you. To do this requires trial and error, and experimentation with different hashtags, captions and types of image/video. Be sure to include the maximum number of hashtags (you can include up to 30) to continue growing your audience. You will know instantly whether your edited HD image of the lounge is resonating with your target audience, because they will 'like' and/or 'comment' straight away.
Currently, Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform, with 800 million monthly users. Try to create an interactive tone with your audience and encourage their response and feedback. For example, you could include a question in the photo caption. This is a great tool to stay relevant in a community that is already highly saturated with content.
Facebook's reach can be quite phenomenal. Used correctly, it could enable you to target and display a detailed property listing to newly-wed couples in their 30s within a 15-20-mile radius. This would be impossible to achieve in person but Facebook has a fantastic ability to target posts and adverts to whoever you want to reach, regardless of the demographics. This is invaluable! Recent statistics show that 69% of real estate agents use Facebook because it works. Even when a targeted advert doesn't deliver the desired results, the return analysis is highly detailed and will help you to understand what the problem was, and how to avoid it from repeating with future adverts.
It might help to add personal memories about the home, perhaps what it was about the property that encouraged you to buy it in the first place. After all, memories are what make a house a home,and if you can relay those feelings to prospective buyers, chances are that you will pique their interest more so than a general listing post would have done. Share photos of your weekly food shop sprawled across your kitchen counter artistically, or a cosy evening set-up in the lounge. Don't be afraid to be artistic and to highlight the best features and qualities of your property. Use Facebooks' bandwidth to really paint an accurate picture of what life living in that home is like. This is what will resonate with a buyer.
YouTube
Over half of Marketing professionals state that video content is highly effective and has the best return on investment. To upload an area guide or a virtual tour of the property will attract viewers and prospective buyers. This happens organically, once your online presence is boosted from a higher number of views, automatically, it will pop up as a 'suggested' video to YouTube users who have viewed similar content. Furthermore, it means that the property listing becomes easier to find if a prospective buyer is searching for properties in a particular area.
