Has your creative marketing brain run dry on ideas for engaging posts to populate your social media strategy beyond sales results and new listings?

By now you know that while posting listing ads is a great way to sell properties, it isn’t enough to grow a strong effective real estate brand that generates leads and attracts new business.

Below are some content suggestions to help you engage with clients, whether you’re a real estate agent or property manager. 

It’s also worth remembering that whatever you post, engagement is a two-way thing. Don’t forget to check in on your campaigns to answer questions or acknowledge comments on your posts - and add names to your database! And our top tip: Don’t be tempted to get too political, or push your own opinions. Focus on what your audience might find fun or useful.

Create a poll or quiz 

These are great tools for engagement that can help with market research or simply be a topic of fun debate. You can opt for simple yes or no answer options. Or put together a more complex survey, then offer to share the results with anybody interested, in exchange for their email address.

Some short real estate-focused polls might be: 

• Would you buy a house with a pool? 
• Should tenants be able to plant gardens? 
• What is your deal-breaker when you visit open homes?
• What do you think are the features that sell homes?

Some fun more broad ideas could be:

• What’s your favourite property/home reno tv show?
• What’s your favourite local cafe/playground/park?

Run a contest

Everybody likes getting something for free - particularly if it’s a reward for their creativity or smart thinking. Put together a basic competition offering something free as a prize such as a free valuation, a home staging voucher, or even a gift card for lunch at the local cafe. 

Caption competitions can be a fun, simple idea as they spark people’s creativity, or go more complex and ask for photos of the best local mail boxes or bright front doors. Just be transparent about how judging is handled or if it’s a simple lucky draw.

DIY walkthrough-videos

If you have a listing with particularly visually exciting features, film a DIY walkthrough video of yourself showcasing them - with your client’s permission, of course. It’s a great way to not only show off your listing, but your personality and knowledge as well.

Community updates

Posts that talk to your local community about changes, new businesses or business anniversaries, events, even public transport or road works, demonstrate that you are connected and engaged with your local community. 

You can shoot short videos with local updates, or use great photos. Near school holidays run a list of free or family-focused activities. Run a campaign allowing your audience to nominate local heroes or charities and find a way to reward them, or run a series of short video interviews or written profiles of key community leaders.

All of these types of posts help raise your profile in your selling area and help build a sense of your commitment to the community, and trust with new potential vendors.

Spotlight your team

Use one post every two to four weeks to showcase members of your sales, property management or admin team. Include a great photo - or use video - and keep to about four or five questions that show off what they do, who they are, and what they like to do outside of work.

This kind of content, which creates a regular series can be used for a lot of topics, showcasing local businesses or popular figures, or even a run-down of local sales, and is good for building engagement with your audience if they know to expect the next instalment at a certain time each week.

Celebrate milestones

There’s a balance to hit when showcasing your achievements on social media - and that’s using your sales results and awards to demonstrate you have the skills and expertise vendors are looking for, while still keeping the focus on what those vendors need from you.

Talk about what those awards and results mean, in the context of being able to provide the best service to vendors - or landlords if you’re a property manager. So, instead of a post with the tone of ‘I’m great, you should let me sell/manage your property for you’, shift the tone and focus to ‘In this market you want someone who knows the market better than anyone and will work hard for you. These results/this award shows that I know how to get you the best price in these conditions.

Show off your knowledge

Blog posts or e-books can be a practical way to offer support for vendors, landlords, buyers, and renters that helps you build your audience and generate leads.

Put together checklists, e-books or blogs on topics like things to do before listing; how to prepare for an open home; tips for first-time landlords; what should you look for at an open home; what are your rights as a tenant; how to pack your house safely and quickly; how to move with pets; how to keep your rental properties well maintained.

Package your content up into downloadable sets so you become a one-stop shop for reliable information that helps your audience, then share them via social campaigns.

Top tip: If you’re not a confident writer, hire someone who is, or at least make sure your work is proofed and free of spelling or grammatical errors!

Share testimonials

Social proof is one of your biggest weapons in growing an engaged online audience and database. People who don’t know you are much more likely to listen when someone else says you’re great, than when you try to say it yourself!

Testimonials can come in many forms. There are the standard quick quotes you share from satisfied customers. But if you’re able to get an occasional video testimonial is a great idea, because the audience can actually see the people who are recommending you, giving their words extra weight. 

The perfect testimonial is the one that comes when someone recommends you in a post and tags you without being prompted. Make sure you like and reply to thank them, then share the post with your audience. If the owner of the post agrees you can then add that testimonial to your paid brand campaigns as well.

Other quick post ideas to consider:

• Share home DIY tips and tricks
• Repost older content that performed well with your audience; check it’s not out of date first
• Shout out to other agents in your team for their successes

Further reading:

How to get the best from Facebook

Tips for Instagram marketing success

E-book: Build an extraordinary online real estate brand