Why should Realtors Work with Real Estate Influencers?
Real estate can be a stressful endeavor, especially if you’re new to the scene. The world of real estate marketing has changed drastically in the last few years, with social media playing an increasingly significant role in how people find new homes, property listings, and real estate agents. Real estate agencies and individual realtors now have to compete not only with each other but also with the likes of social media celebrities and bloggers who may have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram or Facebook alone. Luckily, you can use the help of some of these influencers to take some of the pressure off and ultimately grow your own real estate business, if you know what you’re doing.
What is a Real Estate Influencer?
Influencers in the real estate industry have spent years perfecting their craft and honing their skills, and they have an established audience that trusts them when it comes to buying and selling homes. A true real estate influencer has an audience of tens of thousands (or more) and isn’t afraid to reach out to Realtors online and offline. They may be agents themselves, DIYers that give remodeling tips, home decorators, or any number of other categories that overlap with people in their homes.
Public figures or celebrities use their platforms to communicate valuable insight about market trends or new home products for sale. While many people initially think of these as “influencers”, much more of influencer marketing is built around non-celebrities that 1) consumers trust more on average and 2) will be easier for you as an individual agent or team to work with.
In short, if you aren’t already working with an influencer of some type, it may be time to start considering it.
Why is Influencer Marketing for Real Estate Important?
The beauty of working with an influencer is that it allows you to tap into their audience who otherwise may not have ever known you existed. A big part of your job as a Realtor and/or agent is about building your business in addition to helping clients buy and sell homes. When you work with a successful influencer, they can help you do both, and can help the influencer with their individual goals as well. As someone who has built up a large following on social media, their followers are often interested in everything they post about – including things related to real estate.
- They help you Increase Your ROI
An influencer’s ability to reach thousands or millions of people means that your efforts will be multiplied in ways you could never have imagined. If even a tiny percentage of those people call you, view your listings, buy one of your homes, or even just sign up to receive listing alerts from your website, it’s a win. And when you consider how little it costs to work with an influencer (not all of which includes a payment to them) compared to traditional forms of advertising, these wins are all yours.
- You can Reach the Right People
Real estate professionals have a lot of options when it comes to marketing. But, when you work with a real estate influencer who already has a following, you’re able to reach people in your area that wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to your business.
- Micro-Influencers
A large percentage of real estate agents and brokerages don’t realize how powerful micro-influencers can be.
Micro-influencers are everyday people who have a significant following on social media. Because they aren’t celebrities, you don’t have to pay them large amounts of money. Micro-influencers can significantly increase brand awareness and attract quality leads through their audience and the stories they share.
Next Steps in Influencer Marketing
I hope you’re excited to take another step in influencer marketing and understand how it can be helpful in your individual business. Having started one of the earlier influencer marketing platforms, I’ve worked with many large international brands but my heart warms when I hear the stories of individuals and SMBs that take some of my tips and 10x their business in a short time with these same practices.
As a next step, read my article on the 3 types of influencers and then read my article on how to incentivize influencers.
Kurt is a globally-recognized 10x marketer, operator, and speaker. He has built and run early-stage companies as well as those over $1B in annual revenue, assembled teams across six continents, been part of the small team leading an IPO ($880M), and participated in dozens of acquisitions. His unique experience being inside hundreds of high-growth companies with the opportunity to analyze, scale, make changes of leadership, and oversee operations has labeled him “the king of scaling companies”. This has enabled him to advise thousands of leaders, from startup founders to the President of the United States.
