Great content promotion will allow you to get in front of more people, generate leads and ultimately get listings. Creating your real estate content is half the battle. The war isn't won until you promote it and generate an audience.
Hyperlocal Strategies
A lot of people think that content is king. While this is true… A king is nothing without her queen.
That queen is Content Promotion. Great content promotion will allow you to get in front of more people, generate leads and ultimately get listings. It is the key that separates highly shared content and the stuff that no-one sees. Creating your real estate content is half the battle. The war isn’t won until you promote it and generate an audience.
In this article, we’re going to cover explosive promotion strategies that you can implement today. This will help you to start getting more visitors, views, and shares. You spend countless hours creating high-quality content. You deserve to get recognition for it.
Jump to section:
Optimizing Shareability
Optimize your content before starting to promote. What is the point of putting your precious hours into promotion for content that isn’t inherently prepped for sharing?
It goes without saying that you want to have a high-quality product. Your video production should be great if you’re doing video. And your writing should be engaging if you’re doing articles. With this covered, it’s time to optimize your content. You do this with three primary pillars:
- Creating the right structure.
- Attention grabbing headlines.
- Using the right tools.
Creating Structure
For video:
You want your videos to be quick and high value. Make them dense in useful tips and information. Couple this with good visuals like transitions and captions. If you’re giving tips, start the video off with the highest value information you have. Leading with the meat of your content is a good way to get your viewers hooked. This works for writing as well.
For writing:
Remember these two words… Aesthetic appeal. Stay the hell away from 20 sentence paragraphs. No-one likes text blocks – especially your bounce rate. Break up your writing and use images.
Crafting a Great Headline
Because it is the most intensive, we are going to create a full section below to describe what tools you need to be using on the actual pages of your articles.
Tools For Sharing
We are going to give you two different options. What we use at AgentFire building WordPress real estate websites… And what we think is a good alternative.
Monarch Social Share Buttons
This is the plug-in we use to add social sharing buttons for our clients. It allows all of your readers to share across their favorite social media sites with one click. This is done through floating side-bars, social buttons above/below content as well as on images. We’ll talk more about how you can optimize image sharing later.
Bloom Email Opt-Ins
If you go to any AgentFire site you’ll notice a pop-up that either: offers you the option to search for homes, sign up for the newsletter, or enter your e-mail to gain access to the custom branded buyer and seller guides we provide for our clients. This is run through Bloom.
Using this plug-in you’ll be able to easily create beautiful pop-ups that generate leads rather than annoy your visitors.
SumoMe
Prefer to use something outside of Monarch and Bloom? SumoMe is a full suite of apps that includes social shares and opt-in tools. We use Monarch and Bloom individually because we feel like we are able to do more with devoted tools. However, SumoMe is awesome. We recommend it as an alternative option.
Now let’s move on to sharing on your favorite social media sites.
Social Media Sharing
A lot of realtors we speak with primarily stick to sharing on their social profiles. While this is a good first step, there are many other ways you can promote through social media. In fact, we’re going to list 13 things you can do.
1) Share on your social profiles.
When your content initially goes live, share across all of your profiles like you normally would. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc.
2) Share to Facebook Groups.
What audience are you speaking to? Determine that and find relevant groups. Here’s the best way to do it:
Search for Facebook Groups by the criteria below. (Depending on what audience you are targeting.)
- Selling homes + your city or community name
- Buying homes + your city or community name
- Real Estate + your city or community name
- Real Estate Investing + your city or community name
There are probably more ways to search for groups. Those should keep you busy though. In order to maximize these results, you’ll want to remain semi-active in the groups and build relationships with some of the other members. This will ensure you are perceived as providing value vs. shamelessly promoting yourself.
3) Share on LinkedIn Groups.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn also has some awesome communities you can join and contribute to.
4) Share on Google+ Groups.
As with Facebook and LinkedIn, Google has groups. The cool thing is you can invite people into your circles. You’ll get notifications when people interact with your content. Use this as a way to create a conversation with your audience.
5) Share on Pinterest.
Pinterest is a cool platform for sharing because there are simply Topics and Boards. “Boards” are where people compile their favorite articles. If you can spark interest, you can get hundreds or thousands of shares simply because people “Pin” things they like!
6) Use the Twitter Search.
Go to this page and then use the keywords from point #2. You may find people in the home buying or selling process as well as homeowners looking for advice. Take this is a chance to start a conversation and share your content where relevant.
7) Search Facebook for questions.
Just like Twitter search, you can make a search on Facebook for common terms among homeowners and create an interaction. Use this to again share your content when relevant. Here are some examples of search terms you can enter.
- Good realtors in + your city or community name
- Are there any events + your city or community name
- What to do in + your city or community name
- Remodeling ideas
- How to renovate etc.
8) Re-Share Your Content.
Set up auto re-posting using a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite. Many people don’t see your article the first time. Don’t spam, but re-share your articles across your social profiles at least one time after the initial share. Then, one month, 3 months, 6 months down the road share again.
As long as you aren’t posting every day you won’t annoy your readers.
9) Create images using quotes from your content.
I have written for LifeHack.org. Try searching “Lifehack Quotes” in Google. Creating these quote pictures is a huge opportunity. You give people more (and visual!) content to share. You create an excuse to re-share your content by using these images as an anchor. And you also open yourself up to a whole bunch of organic Google Image traffic.
10) Set-up automatic sharing of the images with quotes.
Create a schedule in your tool (Buffer or Hootsuite) to automatically share your custom images along with a link to your content. Boom… a low-pressure way to get your content out there again.
11) Create a community of your own.
Who says those Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ groups can’t be yours? Here’s an article about growing you facebook page. For now, remember that you gain substantial credibility by leading a community.
A good way to get off the ground is to create strategic partnerships with other agents. If you can find agents that help you build the group and advertise, you’ll be able to leverage each others sphere of influence. The key to building a community is to provide high-quality content and promote user engagement.
12) Create a great linking structure on your blog.
As you develop your content, reference old articles. Link between different articles to give your audience a revolving door of content. They’ll almost be done reading one of your articles when they see a link to another valuable guide. This drives traffic to content which otherwise may have never been seen.
13) Use a platform to feed in all of your social profiles.
I’m about to share with you a powerful piece of software you’ve probably never heard of. For those with multiple social profiles, it could prove to be an invaluable tool.
BuzzBundle
BuzzBundle allows you to feed in your favorite social media and forum feeds. What this means is that you can keep tabs of certain keywords that homeowners, buyers and sellers use in your area. In addition, you can keep track of any time someone mentions your personal name or brokerage.
Imagine feeding in all of your most active sources to know when anyone is talking about what’s going on in the community. And then being able to manage your outreach from one platform. Example: Someone searches for “the best events in New York.” You contact and link them directly to your resources.
Strategic Partnerships
Create a mutually beneficial strategic alignment with non-competing businesses or realtors. These partners can market your content in addition to generating you referrals. You can also co-author content which is a great way to build credibility. We’ll touch on that more later.
Who can you work with?
You’ll want to find businesses or realtors that target homeowners but do not compete with you directly. If you work primarily in the lower-middle class level of home sales, partner with an agent that sells luxury listings. Some of the businesses below may also work.
- Interior Designers/Decorators
- Community/Event Organizers
- Photographers
- Handymen or Tradesmen
- Property managers & mgmt companies
There are also people who simply blog about the above and don’t offer any services per-se. Bloggers can be great strategic partners.
How can you work with strategic partners?
We’re providing you with four powerful methods you can use when working with partners. If you have any other ideas, leave them in the comments and I’ll add them here if they’re valuable!
1) Share each others content.
Align with someone who is also focused on their online presence. Establish a relationship where every time they release a piece of content you share it and vice versa. You’ll be leveraging each others sphere of influence. You’ll also gain credibility by being associated with other active members in the community.
2) Co-author content.
We’re going to go into more detail later about how to do this. You increase credibility and can geometrically increase the value of your content by collaborating with other experts.
3) Co-author lead capture material.
Create a short E-book that you can use as a lead capture item. Set up calls to action on your blog that offer your co-authored E-book in exchange for their email. You can also create a landing page where you strictly advertise the e-book. Building your list of e-mails gives you more high-quality people to re-market to in the future.
4) Advertise your co-authored material.
You can double your paid advertising budget on the content that you develop with partners. This may become tricky as you want to make sure you’re driving traffic to both parties websites equally.
Try going back and forth with where you post the content.
Guest Content & Co-Authoring
Guest posting content & co-authoring allows you to leverage other audiences. This can drive large amounts of new traffic to your content.
Writing For Local Newspapers
This is relatively simple to get into. Although newspaper readership has dramatically declined in recent years, it’s still a definite way to stand out by being seen with more formal or “established” publications. Here’s the simple formula for writing for a local newspaper.
Find the most popular one or two publications in your area. You can choose to go for regular newspapers or see if there are any local real estate publications.
- Go to their website. Their contact page should include the Editor’s e-mail.
- Email the editor with a quick note offering to help or write for them. Below is an example of something close to what I would use. Feel free to take it word for word if you want!
- One thing I do to differentiate myself when offering to write for publications is including more concrete examples of my core knowledge. You’ll see what I mean in the example below.
Offering specific examples of content you want to produce is very valuable. Not only do the Editor’s know you’re ready to go, they don’t have to hold your hand in the idea generation process. Bonus points for reading up on what they regularly post and offering ideas for areas where their content is lacking.
Writing For Blogs & Online Publications
The great news is that once you write for a few publications, it gets relatively easy to write more and move up into bigger audiences. I, for example, started with writing articles for a few smaller blogs. I then reference those articles to leverage my credibility into better publications.
The key is to be short and sweet in your communication. Let your content speak for itself. Create high-quality content and promote it to get lots of shares. This will give you some decent opportunities.
KissMetrics has a great guide to finding guest blogging opportunities. Use their google search formula. To save you time below is a small list of resources and sites you can write for as a real estate agent.
Some good publications accept guest posts but don’t publicly advertise the opportunity. Have any specific blogs in mind that don’t? Reach out to the editor and see if you can contribute.
Co-Authoring Content
Is there anyone in your community or online that you enjoy reading? You should reach out to them and see if they are open to collaboration. Why would you want to co-author content?
- Co-sign your opinions with another expert
- Fill in the gaps of your knowledge
- Create a mastermind
- Conduct interviews (Interesting content)
Here you should also offer specific examples of content you want to co-produce.
Community Outreach
Get more people involved and sharing your content!
1) Write expert round-up articles.
This particular content is amazing for getting shares. Opt to compile information from multiple sources doing research. Or conduct interviews and create completely unique content around expert opinions. If you interview them, you’ll almost guarantee a share.
2) Reach out to people you reference in your content.
I make a point when writing to cite other people and link to their content where possible. All you have to do is send a quick email to let them know you referenced them. Tell them if they like the article to share as a courtesy.
3) Reach out to Real Estate Influencers.
This could be anyone who is prolific or a semi-celebrity in your community. You can also do research to find online influencers with a tool like BuzzSumo. Find your influencers. Then give them a low-pressure cold-email. Doing so may result in some shares.
4) Comment on other blogs in your community.
I’ve actually used this strategy a decent amount. Find 3 to 5 blogs in your community and keep up on when they post. When they do, make informed comments reflecting on their content. Most blogs allow you to make your name a link to a URL. Select specific and relevant articles to use as your URL instead of just linking to your homepage.
Not only does this get you visitors but links also help with your SEO.
5) Answer questions on Quora and Yahoo Answers.
People go to the above when they have questions they can’t find the answer to on Google. Subscribe to the feeds about home-ownership and answer questions. In your answers, you can link back to content on your actual site (just don’t over-do it). This is a great way to drive traffic for free.
In Conclusion
There are 25 individual ways to promote content in this article alone. I use most of these myself. Just don’t try to do everything at once. You’ll become overwhelmed if you do. That’s where using tools for automation like Buffer comes in to make everything easier.
It doesn’t matter if you’re focusing on social, strategic partnerships, guest blogging or community outreach. The most important thing is to find what works for you and double down. You may also want to create a procedure for content promotion. I made one that I literally follow step-by-step any time a new piece of content goes live.
A procedure takes away all of the guesswork when it comes time to promote.
Content can be the catalyst for growth in your real estate brokerage. Remember that a king needs a queen. What do you get when you bring valuable content together with rock-solid promotion?
Results.
