When it comes to online personal or business branding, the creation of your social media profile is absolutely essential; social networking profiles are of great benefit as they will rank highly in google and other search engines when people search for your name.
Consider each social media profile you create as a landing page for your brand. Your page is possibly the first encounter that someone is going to have with you. You will want that first impression to be golden and entice the prospective client to want to know more about you.
That said, in Canada’s socialy-savvy world of real estate; you are going to need at least 1 social media profile, but 2 would be better if you plan on connecting with colleagues and prospects online.
Here are the some techniques you can implement to create an attractive social media profile:
Write something special about you
What kind of people do you help? What is your particular niche? Why do you enjoy being a real estate agent? Show your prospect that you are an expert at something you do and it helps if it is somehow related to real estate. By doing this, you can gain respect and capture the imagination of people, and they will be more inclined to contact you.
But go easy on the buzzwords: A recent study found that 200,000 people on twitter refer to themselves in their biographies as social media “ninjas”, “gurus,”, “mavens”; although these titles sound cool – they also sound informal/unprofessional. If you have an official title, by all means type it out in your profile.
Tell a short anecdotal story that your visitors most likely would enjoy reading. People enjoy feeling a connection with other people they discover online. Do you like a certain sport, hobby, or ambition? It could be anything really, something in your past, or even something you plan to do in the future; something you’re passionate about. It might help your visitors to want to strike up a conversation with you.
Your profile picture
Since Real Estate is a personal face-to-face profession, your personal picture is much better than a logo. People are more likely to want to engage with a recognizable person than just a brand logo.
Once you have selected your best photo, you can use the same picture as your default photo on all social networks, but variety can help form a better picture of you to your prospective clients.
On a side-note, there is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value in naming your photo file to include your name before uploading it. Be sure you have named it YourName.jpg or YourBusiness.jpg instead of IMG1234.jpg.
Make sure your name (and full business name) is visible in your profile.
If you have a twitter name add it in too, such as @Agent007. If you’re using your personal account to post real estate information and listings, remember to include the name of your company or brokerage somewhere in your profile.
Although this one is limited to select networks, such as your Twitter and YouTube channel profiles, this is one to invest in for those networks that allow it. A customized background will allow you to share additional information that may not fit in the fields of your profile.
Remember to include the link to you website!
This is the most important suggestion of all; it is quite mandatory. If people are interested in you and your business, they will want to learn more. Add your real estate website address, so they can link to it—and hopefully fall right into your lap!
Be consistent across networks
Personal branding has become a key component of social media success and consistency of your image is an important factor for building that personal brand. When your presence branches across many networks, you’ll want to make sure that people will recognize you on all those channels. You don’t have to keep the wording of your bios exactly the same, but include enough of the same phrases and the same tone that your name will ring a bell on any network.
If you can, it is helpful to add something funny
With humor on your social profile, always approach with caution. We can’t all be funny and we don’t all share the same sense of humor. But if you’re genuinely a comedian, adding something harmless (like a pun) can’t hurt!
We wish you the greatest success in real estate.
