When it comes to real estate marketing, social media is definitely a vehicle that the majority of real estate professionals utilize. As more and more of the business world turns digital, it is crucial to have an active social media presence to appeal to potential clients and establish yourself as an authority in your respective market.

However, even the most qualified real estate professionals can lose leads by committing common social media mistakes. Don’t jeopardize your well-developed plans — digital or otherwise — by falling into these traps. Addition by subtraction is a powerful tool, especially on social media.

12 Social Media Mistakes Luxury Real Estate Professionals Should Avoid

If you can avoid these common social media marketing mistakes, you’ll have a much better chance of growing your platform presence, securing leads, and potentially converting those leads into future sales:

1. Posting Inappropriate Content: There is nothing wrong with having personality or humor on your page. However, posting or sharing vulgar, insulting, or polarizing content is unlikely to do anything but turn people away from your social media profiles. Remember to always think of your professional audience more broadly (and varied) and execute your content strategy accordingly.
   
   
2. Only Posting About Sales or Open Houses: While you should post opportunities and success stories to your followers, it will be painfully obvious if you force the issue with this type of content. You should have a wide range of content types, including broad market information, FAQs, and other adjacent resources your followers can find value in and potentially put to use.
   
   
3. Posting Too Often: There are certainly conversations and data to support a wide range of posting frequency depending on your page engagement and products. However, you should always know your limitations and ensure that you are not flooding your followers’ feeds with too much content — especially if it’s overly salesy.
   
   
4. Using False Information: It is important to post authoritative content, especially regarding real estate markets and the opportunities within them. However, if you are not fact-checking your sources and data, the damage can be significant if your followers become aware that you’re posting inaccurate information.
   
   
5. Being Rude or Arrogant: The goal of creating social media marketing is to, in part, show off what you can do for people and what you have accomplished. However, there are ways to do it tactfully, appreciatively, and without coming off as out of touch.
   
   
6. Impersonal Posts: Your social media content needs to have some sort of personal touch unless it is solely data-based. For real estate professionals, a large component of your ability to sell is defined by how you approach clients and their houses — genuinely display that via your social media content, and your digital footprint will undoubtedly expand.
   
   
7. Too Much Personal Information: While you need to show off your personality, boundaries are necessary. Don’t solely post personal updates that have nothing to do with your real estate business, and don’t bring any drama into your news feed. Rather, incorporate a nice mix of personal posts, business-related posts, and interactive posts to create a well-rounded (and engaging) social media presence.
   
   
8. Text-Only Posts: Social media marketing more or less requires the use of multimedia. As platforms become more sophisticated and users become more demanding, text-only posts may not cut it anymore. Make sure to use high-quality photos, videos, and slideshows to make your content even more engaging for today’s savvy social media users.
   
   
9. Publishing Redundant Content: There is nothing wrong with repurposing posts across multiple platforms or revisiting high-quality content you’ve created. However, make sure that you provide a new spin on any content pieces that you’ve decided to repurpose, and always keep in mind that your followers are looking for value of some kind in every social media post you publish. And remember, value can take on a more professional spin (i.e. market data) or a more personal touch (i.e. celebrating the things that interest you outside of your luxury real estate efforts).
   
   
10. Buying Fake Likes and Followers: Ultimately, having a large number of followers only matters if they interact with your content and can help generate leads for you. In fact, an incredibly high follower count will likely fail to entice real people to follow you. If anything, having too many questionable, inactive followers will give you insufficient data to help tailor a better content strategy in the future. Ultimately, don’t feel compelled to purchase likes or followers. It will not only send the wrong message to your legitimate followers, but it could very well get you banned on a particular platform.
    
    
11. Arguing or Responding Negatively to Comments: Some of your feeds may have negative or challenging posts. If they are unfounded, you can always hide the comment. Most of the time, your followers are likely going to ignore posts like this anyway. For more legitimate comments though, it’s never a good idea to ignore them and it’s typically a better approach to appropriately respond whenever possible. Responding to comments like these will assure your social media audience that you value their opinions and are always willing to discuss any concerns they may have.
    
    
12. Not Tracking Your Data/ROI: Social media marketing for real estate professionals should specifically be geared to nurture potential leads by building trust, particularly in the specific markets you’re targeting. Even through long-term brand awareness, you should constantly be posting with a specific ROI goal in mind (e.g. increasing your overall follower count).

These are some key points to take into consideration when you’re crafting your social media content strategy. Remember, if you are consistent in creating high-quality content that your fans and followers enjoy interacting with, you are also more likely to attract those fans and followers as high-quality, future clients.

Enter Into the Upper Tier Real Estate Industry with the Institute

The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing is a network that allows real estate professionals to connect, collaborate, and grow their businesses. Meet the right people, learn from top producers, and hone your skills, such as social media marketing. If you are looking for a career breakthrough in your real estate business, contact us today – we’d love to help!