Is Social Media Out of Bounds for “Luxury Listings”?

I often see agents that specialize in luxury home sales frown on using social media to market those homes. The rules that surround luxury marketing are said to be different than those used by the larger real estate market. Social Media has become an essential element in the Steps to Selling a House.

Years ago one of the first luxury ads I ran was in a popular luxury real estate specific publication. I had our production artist put it together and submit it to our sales representative. A short while later I got a call from my sales rep, she said “I received your ad and it seems to have a bit too much personal branding in it”. Yes, I was a newbie but this ad was really expensive and I thought to myself, “I’d really like to get a little milage out of it”, so I put a little more personal promotion into the piece than I probably should have.

The point is that I had to learn that lesson and many others about luxury home marketing the hard way. There are some basic rules like professional photography, thoughtful descriptions, professional staging and more but a large part is learned through experience.

One of the modern no no’s is to avoid social media when it comes to this type of property. Ironically, In a 2017 report The New Affluent, Sotheby’s International Real Estate looks at the habits & preferences of both their established as well as their new affluent luxury clientele. The findings of this study illustrate the emergence of social media as an important source for the newer affluent home buyers. 62% of the “New Affluent” browse real estate social media as a leisure activity.

This information is contrary to what many luxury agents believe. These agent's usually stick to a very traditional playbook when it comes to marketing these homes. Creativity in the category usually involves social events for the “right” people or expensive giveaways.

Ironically, many luxury agents do leverage the power of social media but they tend to use it for personal promotion. This platform doesn’t seem to translate to the actually marketing homes. I can’t imagine that the luxury market couldn’t lead the way in the creative use of social media to expose these properties to a wider range of potential buyers, ones that don’t fall into the traditional category of luxury home buyers.