social media marketing

Is TikTok a Good Place for Real Estate Agents to Market for More Listings?

May 16, 2023

In real estate, as in other businesses, it’s important to remember that you need to know who your “audience” consists of if you ever hope to effectively target them with your marketing. Many agents target “anyone who is breathing,” and that’s understandable.

It was how they generated leads as a newbie. They had little other choice. But, think back to those days. That type of marketing is not only expensive but time-consuming as well.

As we grow into our business, we know better than to shoot arrows and hope something sticks. Target marketing is far saner and more efficient.

Who is your audience on social media? It depends a great deal on the platform, first. Some are chock-full of folks you should be reaching out to, while others simply waste time and effort.

It’s time to update our social media recommendations for real estate agents, and we begin with TikTok.

First, let’s nail down your target audience

While it was somewhat lucrative to target first-time buyers in the past, you may want to change your strategy this year. They made up only 26% of last year’s real estate consumers, which is a huge drop from the previous year’s 34%, according to the folks at the NAR.

With the country’s current wonky economy, don’t look for that number to improve this year.

If you plan on sticking with the first-timers, you’ll be targeting folks in their mid-to-late 30s (NAR calls the 36-year-old “The typical first-time buyer.”)

Repeat buyers are always worth an agent’s consideration because of the very real chance that they also have a home to sell. This target’s age is 59 years.

Your largest buyer pool will be the baby boomers, who comprise 39% of all buyers. Millennials have dropped to 28% of the pool.

Finally, if you’re after listings, stick with older Gen X folks and baby boomers. “The typical home seller was 60 years old,” according to the NAR.

When it comes to social media marketing, spend your time on platforms with the robust participation of baby boomers (folks age 59 to 77).

Does that include TikTok?

Not at all. Let’s take a look at who hangs out on TikTok.

According to the platform’s survey of its users:

80 million Americans are “active users” of TikTok.
The largest share of these users (60%) are age 16 to 24. “80% are between the ages 16-34.”
Although Gen X (age 47-58 in 2023) “is highly active on social media … less than 5% of them are on TikTok,” according to digital content provider Gitnux.com.
Baby boomers are almost invisible on the platform. Those who are age 55+ make up 5.1% of users. Throw in the next youngest demographic (age 45-54), and that number nudges up to about 13%, according to Oberlo.com.

Your TikTok takeaway

Unless you love hanging out there, we believe other platforms are far more worth your marketing time and effort (Facebook is one).

Wherever you decide to market on social media, remember that your post needs to be relevant to your target audience.

Check back soon when we look at Instagram and whether it’s worth your marketing time and energy.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Become-A-Listing-Legend-3D-Book-White-274x300.jpg

Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

Social Media Marketing Strategies For 2021 – Where to Spend Your Time

Dec 3, 2020

So, here we are, finally nearing the end of the year, and what a year it’s been!

COVID-19 disrupted many of the normal ways that agents do business. From completely virtual showings to drive-through closings in some areas, it’s hard to imagine the industry ever getting back to “normal.”

What does this mean for your 2021 marketing plan?

When talking to agents about their 2021 plans, the majority said, social media marketing will definitely play a role in their marketing strategy.

If you’re among them, make it easier on yourself by creating a section in next year’s marketing plan devoted to everything digital.

The best digital marketers fish where the fish are

When researching where to spend your digital marketing dollars, it’s important to remember that:

You are a B2C marketer, not B2B. User statistics aimed at B2B marketers are useless for real estate agents.
You have a very specific target audience (Millennials and gen x, age 32 to 56 for buyers’ agents and gen x and baby boomers, age 45 to 75, for listing agents).
Your target audience of buyers earns a median household income between $102,800 and $110,900, depending upon age and location.
Your target audience of sellers has a median age of 58 and earns a median household income of $128,800.

Courtesy: NAR 2020 Generational Trends Report

The fish are hanging out on social media

If we had to choose just one digital marketing medium to spend the bulk of our time and money on next year, social media would be our choice. We will, however, be talking about some of the other strategies in upcoming blog posts.

Which social media platform does a real estate agent’s “fish” hang out in? For the past few years, Facebook was hands down the best place to drop your hook. And, not much has changed in that regard.

The platform is popular with Americans in the homebuyer age bracket (“79% of 30 to 49-year olds use Facebook,” according to SproutSocial.com.)
Listing agents will be glad to know that 68% of those age 50 to 64-years old and 46% of adults age 65 and older use Facebook.
Finally, Facebook users hit the sweet spot in household income as well, with 74% earning more than $75,000.

Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest

We’ve mentioned before that the time it takes to be and remain active on Instagram doesn’t typically translate into the number of leads and deals most agents need and want.

At least not now.

This could be due to the fact that the platform’s demographics just don’t fit your target audience. Instagram is most popular with users between the ages of 13 to 29 years of age.

Twitter is similar in that it is most popular with younger folks, especially those in the 18 to 24 age brackets. As ages rise, the platform’s popularity decreases.

Listing agents especially, should understand that just 17% of Americans in your target audience’s age range use Twitter.

Buyers’ agents may find spending time at LinkedIn lucrative. Join some groups, post some content, because the site is quite popular with 30-to-49-year-olds.

Pinterest is another time and labor-intensive platform, but its demographics fit tidily with your target audience. “The median age of a Pinterest user is 40,” according to Salman Aslam, founder and CEO of Omincore.

Check out these boards to help you decide if Pinterest is worth your time:

Consider hiring a social media manager to do the heavy lifting, freeing you to focus on other parts of your real estate business.

Send the Should I Stay or Go postcard from the Get More Listings Series to your Farm or an area where you’re currently prospecting.

PLUS: When you have time…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

2. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Real-Estate-Mailing-List-Guide2-3-D-999x1024.jpg

The Real Estate Mailing List Guide outlines the top tools for generating targeted prospecting lists including Baby Boomers, Empty Nesters, Investors, Lifestyle Interests, High-Income Renters, Move-Up Markets, and more. The Guide also defines done-for-you marketing campaigns to match these markets. –Click Here

3. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 2020-Planner-3D-999x1024.jpg

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

4. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Business-Plan-3D-Book-New1-270x300.png

Treat your business like a business it is vital to long-term success in this industry. Some agents may put together elaborate business plans, yet there’s something powerful about keeping it simple. Check out our one page Online Real Estate Business Plan. – Click Here

5. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is CRUSH-IT-Guide-3-d-298x300.jpg

The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted prospect list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

Which Social Media Platforms to Focus on and Which to Avoid for the Best ROI

Apr 2, 2020

A few months ago, we began to sift through the various social media platforms and whittle down which were most worthy of a real estate agent’s time. At that time we compared Instagram and Facebook.

We promised to continue this quest in a “part two” article down the road.

And, right now, with stay-at-home orders in place, and many agents focusing on social media, we decided there was no better time than the present to complete this topic.

The following statistics define what additional social media platforms to focus on and what to avoid to ensure the best ROI.

Always start with the demographics

In their attempts to pitch their services to real estate agents, social media marketing companies are notorious for using vague statistics.

For instance, one company gives agents “10 Reasons Why Every Realtor Needs An Awesome Instagram Account.” Reason number one is that Instagram

“… boasts over one billion active monthly users and over 500 million daily users.”

While that’s impressive, unless you sell real estate internationally, this number is completely useless to you. Why pay to advertise to someone who lives on the other side of the globe?

What you need to know is how many Americans use a platform. In Instagram’s case, it’s 116 million, which is only 11 percent of the total active monthly users.

Then, you should find out the primary age groups that use the platform. Instagram’s largest user group (64 percent of all users) is between the ages of 18 and 34 (Gen Z and younger millennials).

Remember, NAR’s studies show that the largest group of homebuyers are those between the ages of 25 and 43 (millennials) and baby boomers (age 56 to 74) make up the largest group of sellers.

Realtor marketing postcards for neighborhood updates — The Neighborhood Update postcard is available in the Neighborhood Update Series under Postcards

The average age of each, however, is 47 and 57, respectively.

Thinking of Pinterest?

Pinterest is wildly popular with American women, or “deciders” as the folks at Pinterest call them. Here are the details you need to know to determine if it’s a platform you want to spend time on:

83 percent of American women between the ages of 24 and 54 use Pinterest (Pinterest.com)
43 percent of these users say they’ll buy a house sometime between now and 2025. (Pinterest.com)
When looking for information on buying a home, 21 percent of Millennials use Pinterest (Better Homes & Gardens survey of homebuyers)

You may want to do a cost-benefit analysis before you jump on the Pinterest bandwagon. It’s quite time-consuming so unless you have a dedicated marketing person or social media manager on the team, it could end up eating much of your valuable time.

When your pins and boards are optimized, however, Pinterest can be a powerful way to steer traffic to your website.

How is Twitter for real estate agents?

Because it’s in the media so often, Twitter seems a lot more popular than it is – at least with adults.

Nearly 80 percent of all Twitter users live outside the U.S. (Omnicore Agency)
More than 65 percent of Twitter users are males
Nearly 40 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 29

Real estate agents should look long and hard at the first and third Twitter facts in the above list. The U.S. audience is small and it’s composed largely of people outside the home buying and selling age range.

The Looking For Expert Advice postcard is from the Get More Listings Series under the postcard section

If you love Twitter, there’s certainly nothing wrong with using it for personal stuff, however.

TikTok

Just what every real estate agent needs: yet another social media/video app to consider as a marketing tool.

Since the majority of real estate agents aren’t in Gen Z and aren’t even Millennials, an explanation is probably in order here.

TikTok is “The app where Gen Z vies for 15 seconds of fame,” according to Slate.com’s Heather Schwedel. She goes on to describe it “as a social network for amateur music videos.”

This newcomer to the “Oh-my-God-you-need-to-be-using-this” video-sharing platform has become an obsession with teens. In fact, half of TikTok’s users (globally) are under the age of 34, with the vast majority of them between 16 and 24.

When was the last time you had a 16, 17,18 or even 20-year-old real estate client?

Then, 80 percent of the app’s most frequent users reside in China, but India accounts for nearly half of all new users.

Are you licensed to sell real estate in China or India?

What you’ll hear from marketers trying to get your business:

Users spend about 52 minutes each day on the app
The app is the most downloaded from the Apple App Store
“One of the great reasons why it’s so great for real estate is because, simply, not many people in real estate are using it”
“You see a lot of people like Gary Vee . . . talking about how TikTok is something you need to be going all-in on.”

We had to laugh at that last one, since Gary Vee sells, among other things, sneakers. TikTok supplies the ideal targeted audience for that product.

You, on the other hand, hopefully, sell HOMES. TikTok, at least right now, is an utter waste of time for real estate agents.

What’s not a waste of time? Facebook, whom we highlighted in our last article on social media marketing and LinkedIn.

The Neighborhood Update Free Offer postcard is available in the Neighborhood Update Free Offer Series under Postcards.

For buying ads, we would seriously consider NextDoor.

Send the Neighborhood Update Free Offer postcard from the Neighborhood Update Free Offer Series to your Farm or an area where you want more listings.

Keep them informed about what’s going on right now in their marketplace.

Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are some Free resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

3. The Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted mailing list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

Real Estate Social Media Marketing in 2020: Facebook vs. Instagram

Jan 20, 2020

Can someone point out where it’s written that real estate agents need to be active on every social media platform?

I didn’t think so.

Real estate agents, if they’re doing it right, have insanely busy schedules and little help with the scut work.

Not that marketing your business is necessarily scut work, but the actual implementation of social media marketing methods often is.

Since demographics on these platforms ebb and flow, it’s challenging to figure out which ones are worthy of your precious time and money and which to cut loose.

The Valentine’s Day postcards are available under the Holiday Series in the Postcard Section

So, we thought we’d help you out a bit by doing some of the research for you.

It’s all about the demographics

“Popularity was fickle and elusive, like trying to catch fireflies in a jar,” according to author Melissa de la Cruz. While she wasn’t referring to social media, the quote certainly fits.

It’s important to not buy into the hype when researching social media platforms. That Twitter boasts 330 million monthly active users means nothing other than that a whole bunch of people use it.

The two most important statistics for real estate agents to know are:

How many of these users are located in the U.S.?
A breakdown of these U.S. users by age group

For instance, of those 330 million monthly Twitter users, only 20 percent are located in the U.S. There are other social media platforms that offer a larger U.S. user base.

The age of the average user is critically important for real estate agents when choosing where to market their businesses.

The NAR breaks down buyers and sellers according to generational cohorts:

Millennials will be between the ages of 25-43 in 2020. They represent:

37 percent of buyers
20% of sellers

Gen X members are between the ages of 44 and 55 this year and they represent:

24% of buyers
25% of sellers

Baby Boomers are age 56-74 in 2020 and they make up:

32% of the buyer pool
43% of sellers

Keep in mind that the average age of a homebuyer is 47 and the average age of a home seller is 57, according to the NAR.

Obviously, if you are a listing agent you are going to want to put your marketing money and time into the platform that attracts baby boomers and older members of Gen X.

The Valentine’s Day postcards are available under the Holiday Series in teh Postcard Section

Buyers’ agents should go all-in on platforms that are popular with Gen X but figure out where millennials hang out as well.

Facebook

Every year when we take a look back at social media user statistics Facebook comes out the clear winner and, although its popularity is waning, 2020 should be no exception.

Last year, the largest group of U.S. Facebook users were millennials, at 84 percent. The next largest age group, 30 to 49, includes younger members of Gen X.

Older generations are well-represented as well, with two-thirds of older Gen Xers and boomers and nearly half of older boomers (older than 65) using Facebook.

Facebook remains a no-brainer for real estate agents, whether trying to boost organic traffic to websites or using targeted advertising.

Instagram

Our opinion? For real estate agents, Instagram is mostly not as effective as Facebook.

Of the platform’s 1 billion users, only 11 percent reside in the U.S.
Only one-third of the most-viewed stories are from businesses.
Instagram ranks sixth in global popularity (Hootsuite).
Instagram’s largest user base (64 percent) is between the ages of 18 and 34.

Consider this as well:

If your looking to target a younger demographic this is a great platform.

Don’t be sucked in by the number of businesses that use the platform. Their targeted demographics are most likely not nearly as narrow as yours. For instance, they may be after a global audience or want to appeal to teens and young adults.

If you are already creating posts for Facebook, it should be fairly easy to copy them and post to Instagram as well. The more reach and visibility you can generate from posting your brand or listings the better!

Remember to keep a close eye on your targeted audience and make sure your content matches the demographic.

Check back soon when we compare two more popular social media platforms.

Send Valentine’s Day postcard from the Holiday Series to your Sphere of Influence. Let them know you are thinking about them.

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan – NEW 2020!

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan – NEW 2020!

3. Get the ALL-NEW Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”