Online Marketing for Realtors: Where to focus your efforts

In an industry as competitive as real estate, getting noticed is getting harder than ever. Despite so many marketing venues being available to you, realtors like you know the value of marketing and advertising and are quick to jump on nearly every opportunity.
To stay ahead of your competitors, where should realtors concentrate their advertising/marketing budgets to get maximum impact – the most leads, the most connections and the best return on investment?
The obvious answer is your website, but as you know, the SEO game is a long-haul match, and an expensive one at that. In this blog post, we won’t touch on realtors’ websites (that’s a whole can of worms for another day) and instead, we’ll focus on external venues that bring business to you.
According to our in-house findings, here’s what the Legendary Social Media team recommends as the top online marketing platforms for max ROI:

1. Google Adwords

The beauty of Google’s Adwords is that your target clients find you. By setting up your Adwords campaign properly, with highly effective ads (including Call Ads – they’re unreal for realtors and definitely worth a try!) displayed in the right locations at the right time, you’re bound to attract dozens of leads a week, all for a modest budget.
What you need to know
Budget: Market dependent. For a medium-sized city (about 1 million), start with an Adwords budget of $2,000 per month.
Pro tip: Use call ads for mobile users to make it easy for people to get in touch.
Pro tip: Review your ads frequently (several times a week) and compare the performance of one ad versus another to see which words work with your audience and which fall flat.

2. Facebook

As social media management experts, we see a lot of realtors really miss the boat when it comes to social marketing. The fact is, the way we “sell” to people has changed, and the pushy tactics of last decade don’t fly anymore.
Thankfully, Facebook is the perfect platform for realtors to engage in a different kind of interaction with potential leads. The key to success for realtors on Facebook is providing value:
Don’t post only listings and real estate news.
Do post funny content, videos, events, helpful articles and other valuable content.
Also, be aware that the number of page likes you have on Facebook is virtually meaningless these days unless your page’s audience is insanely engaged with the content you do post. Focus your Facebook advertising not on page likes, but on boosting posts that provide major value to your target audience.
What you need to know
Budget: We recommend $800-$1400 per month for boosting posts
Pro tip: Having people stay “active” with your Facebook page is critical to having your content, including listings and open houses, seen. When you’re not posting listings, post articles and photos with questions that are easy to respond to like, “Who would you bring as a date to this new restaurant opening this weekend?”

3. Instagram

By following the same principles as Facebook, realtors can be massively successful at turning audiences into leads with Instagram. Once again, the key is providing value. Therefore, your posts shouldn’t 100% featured listings. Post photos of home decor ideas, stuff going on in your city and, of course, cute animals (we’re half-joking about that last one).
What you need to know
Budget: $0 although Instagram now allows advertising
Pro tip: Make sure your contact information is in your bio, including your full name, phone number, email address and website. Also include this information in most, if not all, posts.

Do you use Twitter and/or Pinterest to market your real estate listings! That’s great! Many realtors have seen great success with these two platforms as well. We’d love to have you share your success stories with other realtors and professionals on how to maximize your marketing ROI.
Want to get into online marketing, but don’t have the time? That’s where we come in, to help professionals create a loyal community of fans by doing social and online marketing the way it was meant to be done. We’re a boutique agency that puts time and love into everything we do online. Contact us to tell us about your business and goals today.