Social Media Best Practices – CINC Academy

By: Rachel Bradley, former Social Media Analyst

I’m addicted to social media: the ins and outs, the changes and updates. You name it; I’m tracking it! I’m constantly on the lookout for the best new strategies and then spend the rest of my time testing, analyzing and testing some more. So, you can rest assured that the social media promotion and efforts for your site here at Commissions Inc. are constantly being pushed to get the highest converting results possible.

Now, people ask me all the time what are the “best practices” when it comes to social media? Twitter? Facebook? Pinterest? Are there ‘secrets’ I can share? OF COURSE…but it really is simple.

Before we get started, these suggestions are for people who really want to leverage their social media presence. You likely can’t implement all of them, but you might be able to do just a few. A truly successful social media presences takes a lot of effort and deliberate cultivation. It's better to do one network really well than do all networks haphazardly.

At the very least make sure that whatever networks you do have are integrated with any website you have and that they are included in your email signature.

Without further ado…here are your social media best practices:

Facebook
Profile:

Have a business profile that is separate or at least segregated between your personal and business life. You can do this by using “custom lists” and only sharing certain content with certain people
Be very relational
Make your profile be all about you and your knowledge and your committment to the community and clients

Pages:

Pages can be powerful lead generation tools and it helps if they are more generic. Let your profile be more individual, and let your page be more about the market and community. If you already have a very branded team page, then create a new one that's less branded.
Do NOT use a picture of yourself as the profile picture. Instead use your team/office logo or a picture of one of your listings
Name the page something related to your market ex: Gotham City Living, Gotham City Homes, Gotham City Real Estate Experts
DO NOT get your friends and family to like the page unless they care about real estate. The number of likes on a page DOESN’T matter. What matters is the level of engagement that your followers have. You want “likers” who are actually going to engage with your content

Posting:

Make sure you are posting as the page and not yourself
Share content from the page on your own profile
Post pictures and ALWAYS include a link back to your Commissions Inc site
Picture posts perform the best on Facebook, so always upload a picture when you are manually posting about something. If you’re posting about a property, the best thing to do is add a link to the property details page.
Create albums for your listings
If you have the bandwidth, create an album with a few pictures of a specific property and be sure to link back to the property details page on your Commissions Inc site.
When showing a listing be sure to “check in” at the address and upload a photo at the actual showing
Ask questions for potential buyers and sellers. Ex. What is the number one feature you’re looking for in a home? What would make you most likely to sell today?
Follow other people and groups who post content that would be useful to leads and share it on your page
Make yourself relevant to your audience. It’s not about promoting yourself, it’s about giving “likers” content that they care about

Twitter

Make it relevant to your business
Optimized your photos and take advantage of the new Twitter layout
Don’t over #Hashtag, one to three is more than enough
Make sure to retweet often
Mention businesses and/or places that you are interacting with
Manually post photos directly through Twitter’s interface so that they will automatically expand and show in the feed

Google
Local Pages:

Google Local pages have great SEO Value so it’s imperative that you have one linked to your Commissions Inc site
You can easily create a Google local page: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1713911
Be relational and ask questions that can spark engagement
Link your YouTube to your Google page (this is often done automatically if you use the same profile for both networks)
Get people to review your business on your Google page, just like they can do on Facebook

Pinterest
Boards:

Have a variety of boards: listings, décor ideas, renovation ideas, tips for buying/selling, etc.
ALWAYS include a link when you are posting listings (automatic posting does this for you)
Create a Map board and then manually post your recently sold properties to that map board

Pins:

Repin content that fits on your boards when you see it
Create new pins for your listings and sold properties
Put two or three keyword #hashtags with your pin

Other Notes & Ideas
Posting Listings:
If you don’t have someone on your team who is able to manually post new listings, have CINC automatically post your Featured Listings. We can set up automatic posting of your office listings to Facebook, Twitter, Google , Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Please see the help and training article “Social Media and Your Site” for more information on automatic posting and general social media integration.

RESOURCES:

Facebook Articles:

http://leadsandleverage.com/how-to-talk-business-on-your-facebook-personal-profile/

http://www.inman.com/next/facebook-leads-connect-with-idea-location-lifestyle-not-your-profile-picture/

http://www.inman.com/next/custom-friend-lists-make-facebook-a-relationship-machine/

http://www.inman.com/2014/01/15/how-to-cook-up-the-right-blend-of-social-media-content/

http://fbppc.com/advertising/content-get-reach-content/

http://fbppc.com/how-to/definitive-guide-edgerank/

http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul/social-media-courtesy-of-youtube-no-not-google.html

Twitter Articles:

http://marketingland.com/huge-headers-pinned-tweets-better-filters-highlight-twitters-new-profile-design-79391

http://www.inman.com/next/maximizing-your-presence-on-the-new-twitter-7-key-changes-to-your-profile-page/