02 Feb Social Media to Market My House?

Social Media is sweeping the world of marketing and business, including marketing homes for sale! 

If your home is currently for sale in Burnsville, Eagan or Savage, you may be wondering, “Should my Home have a Social Media Marketing Campaign?”

Last weekend, I was explaining my opinion to a new client whose home we are listing in Lakeville next week.  I outlined it this way, there are two groups of potential buyers out there, ‘Declared Buyers’ and ‘Undeclared Buyers’.

‘Declared Buyers’ are people actively looking to purchase a home, they have decided to act and are now taking steps such as mortgage pre approval,  listing or selling their current property or giving notice to vacate from their rental.  This group of Buyers is fairly easy to reach, they are readily found on all the major home search websites and have auto-searches set up to capture the newest listings.

Successfully Marketing a Home in the Southern Suburbs to Declared Buyers is straightforward and best accomplished with professional photos, custom text, virtual tours, property specific websites, slide shows and other top presentation materials on all major websites frequented by these buyers.

The ‘Undeclared Buyer’ group is the population at large, reaching them used to be called Mass Marketing.  In the past, Mass Marketing activities included posting a flyer at the local coffee shop, putting flyers on bulletin boards of nearby businesses,or running a star tribune ad to the entire Minneapolis Metro Area.  Mass Marketing of a Home has gotten a facelift, at least it has in my marketing plan.

Enter Social Media! It’s the fastest, most reliable, and captivating form of Mass Marketing ever known to Realtors!

Use Social Media and Youtube to Reach More HomeBuyers

I love watching the quick circulation of information through Social Media.  The other day, Laura posted one of our listings on facebook, turned around for just a few seconds to say something and when she turned back to the computer, the home already had a ‘Like” and a comment.  Wow! When we post a story about a listing we are able to track the views through Google Analytics, this past week one home received 82 click-throughs back to the website to read the whole story.  These 82 click-throughs came in the first 24 hours!

Because the Social Media audience is ‘Undeclared Buyers’, we can’t rely on standard Home Advertising styles to catch their attention.  These potential buyers do not have their ‘HomeforSale-Dar’ turned on, so they easily overlook the ho-hum This home has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths…jargon.

The Solution is  to publish information about the home in an original, entertaining manner.  If the marketing materials are fun to watch and personalized more people will feel comfortable to share it on their own facebook or twitter account.  To accomplish this, we provide 4 distinct marketing pieces, designed to work well for the Social Media audience.  In addition, we mix it up, putting a property on facebook, twitter, linked in and more.

There are limits to the effectiveness of Social Media, it should be kept in perspective.  Remember, it’s really just a digital flyer on the cyber space bulletin board of the general public.  We know it’s a long shot to find the buyer for a particular home with this method, what we are really hoping for is that someone will mention the Apple Valley Home we just listed to colleagues at work, and someone will say, “My (insert friend or relative here) is looking for a house in Apple Valley, where is that one? Can you send it to me?” All exposure is good exposure.

For a closer look at the role Social Media can play in marketing your South of the River home, take a look at our Selling South of the River Facebook page.  If you would like to discuss how incorporating a Social Media Marketing campaign might help sell your South of the River Home, just let me know.  I always love hearing from you!

Read what Sheryl’s clients say about working with Sheryl and the Selling South of the River Team!

Click here to Search for all homes listed in Eagan!

Click here to contact Sheryl if you would like her to “Sell my Eagan Home!”