The housing market has significantly changed, with previously effective marketing strategies giving way to new approaches. One strategy that has proven effective over time in this realm is influencer marketing. Leveraging the popularity of social media personalities is a powerful way of promoting products and services, including properties.
Unlike most sectors, visibility is everything in real estate. Whether selling luxury homes or marketing vacation rentals, capturing the attention of potential customers should be a priority. Hiring influencers offers an authentic way to achieve this. They help connect your properties and prospective buyers using carefully curated content like property reviews and lifestyle imagery. They also help showcase the property features in a relatable manner. This article outlines the role of influencers in this ever-competitive field.
Why Hiring Influencers Works for Real Estate
Realtors and developers often face the challenge of promoting properties in this competitive market. The marketing approach offers an engaging approach that connects with prospective buyers on a personal level. Below are a few reasons you should consider influencer marketing for your properties.
Trust and authenticity
One significant advantage influencers offer is the trust they have built with their audience. Their content is organic and genuine, unlike other marketing options that feel impersonal and overly promotional. Most followers find influencers very relatable, value their opinions, and will most likely engage with what they promote.
Trust is vital in real estate. Buying or renting is a significant investment, and potential customers want to feel confident about their decisions. When influencers showcase your properties, their endorsement feels authentic, building customer trust. For instance, a lifestyle influencer posting a video of your luxury condo allows followers to envision themselves in the space.
Visual Appeal and Storytelling
Real estate is a visual industry, which justifies the importance of aesthetics and property presentation. Influencers, especially those specializing in interior design or home improvement, have mastered creating visually compelling content. They can easily highlight your property’s unique features.
Influencers use high-quality pictures, videos, and creative stories to bring your properties to life. A well-edited video of the influencer walking through a spacious home or showing the best features of your property immediately attracts customer attention. It achieves a deeper connection with customers than what’s typically achieved by other marketing methods.
Target Audience Approach
Finding the right audience for your properties is probably the biggest challenge in real estate marketing. Influencer marketing allows property owners and developers access to customers of specific demographics. However, this depends on the influencer’s follower base. Be it marketing luxury apartments or modern homes to millennials, there are influencers with an audience that fits your target market.
Influencers are experts in understanding and engaging their followers. As a result, they can easily create content that resonates with them. For instance, an influencer focusing on sustainable living may naturally attract environmentally-conscious buyers. Working with the right influencer allows you to reach qualified leads.
Local and Global Exposure
Marketing using influencers offers both local and global reach. For local realtors, working with micro or community influencers helps tap into the local audience, especially when selling homes in specific neighborhoods. These influencers understand the area well and can effortlessly highlight the benefits of living there.
Conversely, macro-influencers with a global audience are perfect for realtors targeting international buyers or investors. They can extend the brand reach and visibility to a new audience. Real estate developments in tourist destinations and luxury homes can significantly benefit from global experience. Macro influencers help capture the interest of potential buyers worldwide.
How to Use Influencers to Boost Property Visibility
The real estate field is very competitive, so standing out from the crowd is the key to success. With potential buyers and renters turning to digital platforms for their real estate needs, most previous advertising methods aren’t effective in capturing their attention. Here’s a guide on using influencers to boost your property visibility effectively.
1. Find the Right Influencers
Identifying the right celebrities to work with is very important. Finding individuals whose followers align with your target audience is key. You should collaborate with influencers with an audience likely to be interested in real estate. You can choose from the following influencer types:
- Real estate influencers: They specialize in real estate content and understand the industry, making them credible sources for property recommendations.
- Local influencers: These are best for marketing properties in specific locations. They know the area, and their followers will likely be interested in properties within that region.
- Micro-influencers: These are influencers with small but highly engaged followings. They are affordable and have a personal connection with their audience.
- Lifestyle influencers: These influencers focus on several topics, including home design and luxury living.
That aside, you should focus more than the followers. Other metrics like relevance and engagement rates are important.
2. Collaborate on Creative Content
Creating high-quality marketing content is important for success. Influencers are known for their creativity and unique content style. They provide a dynamic platform for showcasing properties in ways that traditional options can’t. However, you should collaborate with them to craft creative content that highlights the best features of your properties.
Real estate professionals can collaborate with influencers in many ways. The first is through property tours. Tours are probably the most effective content type in real estate marketing. They are an engaging way of giving potential buyers or renters a feel of the property. Influencers can take their audience on guided property tours, highlighting the key features. Unlike other marketing options, influencer-led tours feel more relatable. It gives viewers a sense that they are getting a personalized experience.
The second engaging strategy is using behind-the-scenes content. This content type offers a glimpse into various real estate processes. For instance, you can use it to share the process of preparing a home for sale. The marketing content for such may include staging, renovations, or sneak peeks of new installations. This form of content builds anticipation and provides authenticity.
Developers and realtors can also collaborate with influencers through lifestyle content. Real estate goes beyond buildings. It also includes lifestyle. Influencers can create marketing content showing how properties fit into specific lifestyles. Be it luxurious, minimalist, or family-friendly, they can create content that shows matching lifestyles. This helps potential buyers imagine themselves in the space.
Lastly, you can also work on live Q&A and virtual tours. Besides pre-recorded content, live sessions provide an interactive way of engaging potential buyers and renters. Influencers can host live Q&A sessions and virtual property tours. Viewers can use this opportunity to ask questions about the property or buying process and get answers in real-time.
3. Leverage Multiple Platforms
Using one platform for influencer marketing can limit your reach. Potential buyers are scattered across different platforms, each with their preferred way of consuming content. While some enjoy long-form videos, others prefer snappy visuals or live interactions.
Diversifying your marketing allows you to engage with different demographics and interests. This increases the chances of getting qualified leads. However, each platform has strengths, and using them ideally requires a strategic approach. Below are some social media platforms to prioritize:
Instagram is a great platform for marketing using influencers, especially because real estate heavily relies on visuals. With emphasis on short videos and photos, this platform is a perfect place for influencers to parade their properties in visually stunning ways. Key features of using Instagram for marketing properties are:
- Stories: They allow influencers to post videos that disappear after 24 hours. This is perfect for virtual property tours and teasers. Stories are engaging and interactive, as influencers can post polls, questions, or direct links to your listings.
- Reels: These short, snappy videos can also be used creatively to showcase properties. Influencers can highlight key features like modern kitchens or spacious living rooms.
- Instagram feed: A well-curated feed is a perfect portfolio of your properties. Influencers can include property descriptions and hashtags to maximize reach.
YouTube
While short-form content best suits Instagram, YouTube is an excellent platform for longer and more detailed content. You should specifically use it to provide comprehensive property tours or share videos discussing the property’s details. This may include the neighborhood, architectural elements, and other aspects potential buyers are interested in.
Influencers can create long videos explaining every part of the home to potential buyers. This offers insights that short content forms often miss. Besides the marketing potential, YouTube adds to your search engine power. Well-optimized videos with relevant keywords and tags are likely to appear in Google search results. This drives organic traffic to your videos.
TikTok
TikTok has changed how content is consumed online. This has made it a valuable platform for all marketers, including real estate marketers. The platform primarily features short, high-energy videos based on trends. Realtors can capitalize on this approach to showcase properties, especially to a young audience.
However, most TikTok videos are less than 60 seconds. This means your content should be fast-paced and engaging. Influencers can create attention-grabbing mini-tours of your properties using music or transitions that capture the attention of their followers. There’s also a big chance of going viral. The platform favors creative and engaging content. This makes it easier for your videos to reach thousands or millions of viewers.
Facebook remains an effective platform for real estate marketing. The platform has a broad user base and features advanced ad-targeting abilities. However, while this platform isn’t overly influencer-driven, influencers can help boost your marketing campaigns. The platform allows for highly specific targeting. Influencers can run ads that target an audience in specific locations or with certain interests. This makes it easier to reach customers who are actively looking for properties.
Influencers with a large local following can also use this platform to engage with community groups. Posting new listings or sharing behind-the-scenes content in these groups reaches a highly relevant audience. Similarly, Facebook’s live feature allows influencers to host real-time Q&A sessions and virtual open houses. This is a great way to engage with their audience and provide value through interactive content.
Most people overlook the impact of Pinterest in their real estate marketing campaigns. It is a highly visual platform that can be used to showcase design options and lifestyles. Most people visit this platform for inspiration in interior design or renovation. This makes it valuable for influencers who can share content related to home staging or property listings.
Influencers can post visually appealing boards of your listings or interior design concepts. Besides, like YouTube, Pinterest is also a search engine. Optimizing pins with the right keywords and descriptions can drive organic traffic.
4. Measure Campaign Success
The outcome of any social media marketing is visible from its results. Measuring the success of your influencer campaign is key to understanding its impact. It also helps you optimize future campaigns. You should focus on the following metrics.
- Engagement: This includes likes and comments on the social media post. This gives you a sense of how the audience engaged with the content.
- Website traffic: You should monitor how much traffic the influencer drives to your property website and listings.
- Leads: Monitor the number of sign-ups or inquiries generated from the campaigns.
- Conversions: The goal of any marketing campaign is to convert leads into buyers and renters. Track how many leads generated by the campaign resulted in sales.
Reviewing these metrics regularly allows you to refine and improve your strategy. Real estate professionals can benefit from the expertise of agencies like 7ten Marketing. They specialize in helping home builders create and implement their campaigns and home builder SEO for those with websites.
Endnote
Collaborating with influencers is a highly effective tool for boosting property visibility. As the real estate realm keeps evolving, influencer marketing offers an innovative approach to staying competitive. However, this requires that you partner with the right influencers. You should also craft engaging content and use multiple social media platforms strategically.
