Sold Magazine’s “Tech in the City” Lisa B. turns her attention to how social media can be used as a marketing tool in Property Management.
First of all, let’s get that question out of the way. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Is there an expected return on investment using social media marketing in property management?
Well, it’s like this. Creating a Facebook page, or creating a social media presence, won’t mean that you are automatically going to be sent cheques or that its automatically going to grow your rent roll every month. You do have to work to achieve a result.
Social media is about focusing on building relationships. If you do the right things, then the return on investment will come. You actually need to consider what the ROI is of not using the latest, greatest, and best technologies available to you as a business.
In the short term, not being on social media may not affect you, however long term it could see you working hard to play catch up. Let me put it this way – remember when nobody had a website – remember when no one had a mobile phone? Technology advances and then people play catch up.
Now let’s talk about why you should use social media in your property management division. What are the advantages?
To Position Yourself or Your Company as The Expert in Your Area or Your Niche
Social media allows you to demonstrate to potential clients, that you are the expert with in your local area. You can quickly niche to certain areas and develop a strong brand within that niche.Niching your property management division online allows you to also then niche to certain suburbs, or types of property – for example waterfronts or apartments. The idea online, is to market more generally, then niche down into other divisions. You should aim to build a massive online profile in your area, demonstrating through various methods that you are the expert and therefore the logical choice.You are a location-based business. This means you only have to be the best at online marketing in your area. If your competitors are not using the Internet and they are not using social media, you have a massive head start. If they are however, it would be wise to make a start now, instead of playing catch up later. Don’t be left behind. You have a massive window of opportunity now. The same things apply to property management as they do to sales: use video, have a blog, tackle some of the tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Promote yourself and Your Company Online Free of Charge
Social media allows you to promote yourself and your company online free of charge. Every piece of content you place online, stays online. When you advertise in print media, it’s gone tomorrow. Distributing content online, will assist you to build a substantial online profile fast! You have the potential to promote your business to a pool of 800 million people! That’s the potential database of Facebook. You already have a captive audience already glued to Facebook. Tap into your target market.
Use Social Media to Drive Traffice to Your Website
The purpose of using social media is to build relationships. Think about social media strategies similar to throwing out a net. You are fishing on social media for new landlords and tenants. Once you find someone that might be interested in what you are doing, the aim is to capture those people and entice them to your own website. Once they arrive at your website, you should then have a system for collecting their names and details.
Become the Human Touch
The fantastic thing about social media, is that you can project and enhance the human side to your property management department. It personalises your company and shows potential clients that you are more than just a logo. It is also easy to become the face of your business. If you are effective at doing this, people will get to know you and want to do business with you.
Protect Your Brand
If you are not active online and you are not trying to build a massive online profile, it is a fact that you are at the mercy of any disgruntled tenant or landlord. I know of one property manager who did all the right things with a tenant – the tenant didn’t like the fact they had to repair a few things at the property he was living in – so he then posted not so nice things about the property manager and the company on a blog. Now, when you Google the property managers name, the tenants article comes up on page one of Google.Having this on page one of Google, could be potentially damaging to your reputation and to your brand. If you are not on top of this, it could cost you business. Remember that it’s essential to have brand protection strategies in place.
You Can Magnify Your Brand
If you are new to property management or your company is new, the great thing is that you can create massive amounts of content online, to give you a solid foundation so that landlords or tenants feel comfortable dealing with you. Through creating a lot of content online, your company can appear to have a solid history in your area, giving you more credibility and therefore instilling confidence to potential customers.
Keep In Contact with Your Past, Present and Future Clients
Think of social media like a database. The aim in any business I believe is to create raving fans, who in turn become friends. If your customers become your friends, they can also become your social media friends.Recently I was lucky enough to ask Tim Ferris (author of The 4 Hour Work Week) a question about how he built his name and his following – he said he “just built raving fans”. Basically his advice was to build 100 loyal raving fans and keep building onto that. He said, that you want to get to a point where your raving fans are doing your marketing for you.Social media allows, past, present and future clients to relate to you on a personal level. They can see your values, your hopes, and dreams. You can build commonality with someone before you even meet. Just remember too, that 80% of people will Google you before they even meet you. Work at building great positive content online.
A word of warning though – remember when you have your clients, friends, and followers on display for everyone to see on social media – you are also on display. Always be responsible for your own reputation. Don’t outsource your status updates as this outsources your reputation. For example, there have been numerous cases of intoxicated people making posts they thought they were making on their personal page, onto their business page. Those posts have gone viral and once it’s out there, your company is at the mercy of the public scrutiny. Be careful who manages your social media – it’s your reputation and your business.
Social media is fun, its free, its effective and there is a lot of training and tips out there, I encourage you to get in there and have a go.
I wrote this article for the sold magazine – please see original here.
If you are interested in learning more about online marketing for real estate agents
Video Marketing
Social Media
Getting on page one of Google
how you can work less hours and make more money.
Lisa B. helps real estate agents to use the internet to kick butt online.
Prepare – Position – Profile – Promote – Profit
It’s easy when you know how.
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