Choose Your Tools

You don’t have to go it alone.

A small investment in the form of paid access to a social media management tool is worth its weight in gold when it comes to the time and effort you’ll save.

These tools can help you plan and schedule content, post automatically and give you insight into your results.

We like Later.com for how easy it is to use. It can be used with most major social media platforms but it really shines when it comes to Instagram — the platform we recommend most for real estate agents.

Schedule Brainstorming and Creation Sessions

Coming up with content ideas and creating the content (finding images, writing captions and so on) is the most time-consuming part of social media marketing for real estate agents.

The fix: don’t do it post by post. Schedule sessions to brainstorm and create content in batches.

How far in advance you have these sessions is up to you, though a month in advance often makes the most sense — it keeps you ahead of the ball while ensuring your ideas won’t get stale.

What these sessions look like is also up to you and how you prefer to work.

You might want to schedule one hour for brainstorming, and another two hours on a different day for content creation. Or you might prefer to brainstorm and create at the same time, either during one longer session or across two shorter sessions.

Whatever you decide works best for you, the goal is this: develop and create social media posts weeks in advance so that you don’t have to think about it.

Save Inspiration

Good ideas aren’t always easy to come by. That’s why you should be saving inspiration for social media content when you see it.

Visuals, topics, caption styles, music and audio, calls-to-action… if you see something during your online travels that you want to try to emulate in some way, save it!

The Instagram save option makes this easy (tip: create a collection called ‘Inspiration’ to keep your inspo organized). You can also use Pinterest to pin things you see or simply save screenshots and/or downloads to a desktop (or phone) album.

These references can be a huge help during a brainstorming session.

Create Content Pillars

Content pillars are topics or themes that you will consistently post about.

They’re important because they give your content purpose and focus. They’re helpful because they keep you organized — instead of starting from scratch each time you brainstorm for next month’s content, you’re planning posts for each of your pillars.

Too few pillars will limit you; too many defeat the purpose. Four to six is the sweet spot for most real estate agents. Your real estate social media content calendar will comprise a mix of posts that belong to these different pillars.

Here’s a long list of real estate content pillars you can choose from:

• Listings (a must for every agent)
• Market updates and insights
• Buyer and seller tips
• Personal snippets (letting your followers get to know you, the person, is a big part of winning business; this pillar is also a must)
• Local expertise (neighbourhood guides, events, business profiles, etcetera)
• Home improvement and design
• Humour (real estate memes, for instance)
• Home inspiration
• Client stories

Take Advantage of Seasonality and Timeliness

Don’t work harder than you have to.

Take advantage of holidays, seasons, fun days-of-the-year (e.g., National Chocolate Day) and other calendar dates (e.g., tax season, daylight savings) to flesh out your real estate social media content calendar.

Use these kinds of posts sparingly (once or twice a month). The bulk of your real estate social media content calendar should be valuable content, aligned with your content pillars.

If it makes sense to do so, you can draw a connection between these kinds of posts and real estate. For instance, a post about tax season can talk about homebuyer’s credits.

Develop Series

Another way to work smarter, not harder: create regular content series.

Serialized content, like “Mortgage Mondays” or “Ask Me Anything”, takes the pressure off content planning by creating structure.

It also gives your content consistency and gives followers a reason to engage.

You can create series on a weekly or monthly cadence. You might even have both.

Just don’t turn your entire calendar into serialized content — two or three series creates structure while still leaving room for other types of content.

Other tips for serialized real estate content:

• Align them with your content pillars
• Make sure they offer value to your followers
• Choose a broad and rich area of focus for your series so that you’ll never run out of instalments
• Create distinctive visual branding for your series to help build familiarity
• Be consistent with the posting cadence you choose

Schedule in Advance

One of the best features of a social media management tool is the ability to schedule content in advance for automatic posting.

It’s a huge time-saver. Take the content you batch-create, choose your desired posting days and times and hit the schedule button.

Gone are the days of forgetting to post, or posting at an inopportune time because it’s the only window you have.

Be Flexible

Social media is hyper-current and reactive. Your brainstormed, prepared and scheduled social media content calendar needs to allow for some flexibility — replacing a planned post for something timely as needed.

News headlines, personal news, business changes and industry changes are all examples of of-the-moment topics that you should create social media content in response to.

Your pre-planned content doesn’t have to go to waste. Just tweak it as necessary and reschedule it for another day.