Social media is a necessary component of an effective marketing strategy and an incredibly effective means to engage with prospects and clients. The first step is to determine which social media sites to include in your strategy, then engage! You need to use a variety of ways to engage your audience, drive ongoing engagement and ultimately succeed. Here are 9 tips to help you engage with potential clients on social media.
Whether you’re a B2B, B2C or B2B2C firm in the mortgage or real estate industry, social media must be part of your overall marketing strategy. Why? Because it’s an incredibly effective means to engage with your prospects and clients.
But some companies struggle with social media – for some, it’s considered that mysterious marketing component that takes too much time and money to have any real impact. But with a sound social media strategy in place, the mystery of it will disappear and the time and money you invest will reap significant rewards for your business.
The first step is to determine which social media sites to include in your strategy. Those you choose should be based on site demographics and whether your target audience falls within the demographic audiences the site is geared toward.
For example, if you’re a retail mortgage lender, you should consider Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok in that order. And in all cases, whether you’re on the other platforms or not, you need to be on LinkedIn to connect with the industry and build your credibility and awareness for recruiting purposes and branch acquisition. A real estate brokerage should consider the same platforms for the same reasons, always in conjunction with a robust LinkedIn presence.
How to Drive Engagement with Your Social Media Posts
Once you’ve determined which sites you should be active on, it’s time to engage! The key to doing this effectively is variety. Engaging on social media in various ways is necessary to get your audience(s) interested, drive ongoing engagement and, ultimately, succeed.
Here are some recommended activities that nurture genuine engagement:
1. Upload interesting videos – Engaging your target audience with videos is becoming increasingly important. With the explosive rise of video apps and now the explosive rise of TikTok, video has never been more popular. Mastering these tools can push you ahead of your competitors when it comes to social media engagement.
2. Incorporate hashtags – Searching for content is easier when hashtags are used – even for people who aren’t following you. But be careful. If you overdo it, your engagement will drop especially if your hashtags are very loosely relevant or worse, not relevant to the content.
3. Start a dialogue – When you ask questions on social media, you will get responses which can help establish a two-way dialogue with your followers. Questions help increase your comments and likes too. Also, participate on forums like LinkedIn Groups or any relevant groups on other platforms like Facebook. Answer questions in your area of expertise to engage with group members and establish your brand as a credible source of information.
4. Focus on “how to” content – Provide solutions that help people solve their problems. An effective content marketing strategy helps your followers understand how your service, technology, or product can make their lives easier when it comes to a home search, home financing or providing a smoother client experience. “How to” content typically drives higher levels of engagement.
5. Include a Call to Action – Ask your audience to respond to your post by telling them what to do next. A call to action is an essential element to include in your social media posts if you want to increase engagement and your ROI. If you ask them to “Click Here, Subscribe Now, Download, or Learn More,” this creates a sense of urgency and can increase conversion rates by 83%!
6. Showcase your knowledge on LinkedIn – With LinkedIn’s publishing option you can easily boost engagement because LinkedIn notifies your network whenever you publish a new post or article.
7. Avoid overdoing self-promotion – Instead of tooting your own horn all the time, become acknowledged as a source for useful content. The best way to do that is to share content relevant to your audience, both original and curated, that answers their questions. Also, share information about who you are as a company, what you believe in, philanthropic efforts, etc.
8. Feature customer testimonials – Provide social proof that your company is legit by sharing great customer reviews or testimonials. It lends credibility to your brand and demonstrates that you value your customers’ feedback. And posting positive customer reviews has a way of encouraging more customers to share their own experiences with your brand.
9. Repurpose your content – People consume content differently. So, it’s a good idea to take the text you post and repurpose it into a video, podcast, or even an infographic. This will help you engage with a much broader audience than if you only create content in one format.
Social media platforms will continue to evolve and come and go. But what they won’t do is go away. Statistics point to an upward trend in engagement across all generations. Therefore, now is the time to get it right so you don’t get left behind and struggle to catch up when the competition becomes even more fierce. Contact us if you would like some help or a free consultation and advice.