Social Media For Real Estate Brokers
Learn the current trends and best practices in social media usage by the top real estate brokers on ActiveRain, the largest social network and blogging platform in real estate.
ActiveRain CEO Nikesh (Niki) Parekh is speaking at the 2012 Inman Connect San Francisco Real Estate Conference this week on the topic of social media for real estate brokers on a panel entitled "Top Down Social Media" or "Social Isn't Just For Agents."
So what is social media for real estate brokers? What should real estate brokers be doing?
Of course, the real estate industry must go where the consumers are spending time and social media is dominating consumer & agent attention. In anticipation of this panel discussion, ActiveRain conducted a survey of the ActiveRain real estate community to understand how important social media is to real estate broker owners and managers.
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Should Real Estate Brokers, Team Leaders and Managers Be Active on Social Media?
Most agents believe that it is important to maintain an active presence on social media for real estate brokers. Real estate broker owners and office managers actually feel it SIGNIFICANTLY MORE important for real estate broker owners & team leaders to be active on social media, than real estate agents do. Why?
- Real estate broker owners must lead by example.
- Real estate broker owners must maintain a strong finger on the pulse of the real estate industry.
- Real estate broker owners are responsible for building a visible, local brand (community relations).
- Agents look to their brokers and manager for training on marketing.
- Real estate broker owners and team leaders should support agents with office level marketing & lead generation.
A small percentage of agents who responded that it was NOT important for their real estate broker owner or team leaders to be on social media cited the following reasons:
- Social media does not drive any business or qualified leads.
- Social media is too time consuming.
- My broker does not support any office marketing or training.
- My broker does not even manage our web site, let alone social media.
- I am building my individual real estate agent brand, so my broker's social media presence or marketing does not matter to me.
- Communicate with the real estate colleagues
- Stay abreast of real estate industry news
- Generate leads
- Improve public & community relations
- Train & educate agents
Social media for real estate brokers seems less important to agent recruiting (or at least no one has figured it out yet). Top agents and brokers are starting to use social media to recruit and retain top real estate talent who are a hot commodity in today's recovering real estate market. But it is still ealry days for social media within the real estate office.
How Should Real Estate Brokers Be Using Social Media?
Based on the results of our survey of ActiveRain, social media for real estate brokers should be focused on following sites as much as possible.
- FaceBook is the dominant social media platform for consumers, agents, and broker owners alike.
- Blogging continues to play a critical role in a social media strategy. ActiveRain is the most used blogging platform, though WordPress is also used by a quarter of agents.
- Twitter has significantly higher daily usage among broker owners & top producing agents earning more than $100k per year.
- Agents maintain a presence on LinkedIn and Google Plus, with low daily usage.
- Pinterest has developed a surprisingly large and loyal following in less than 2 years, bsaed on the visual and addictive nature of real estate and "house porn" - beautiful homes that mere mortals could never afford.
What Do You Think? Leave Your Comments Below! Please Share This Research on Social Media.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL ACTIVERAIN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR REAL ESTATE BROKERS REPORT. Click the image below to see the full results of the survey.
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