Long gone are the days of treating social platforms as simply another sales channel. Here are ten different ways you can improve your social media posts.

Estate agent’s looking to grow a strong social community and nurture their leads – in order to win instructions - should look no further than generating valuable engagement. Engagement however is only triggered when your audience truly resonates with your content strategy.

So here at Starberry we have compiled a list, “10 Ways to Create Shareable Posts for Social Media”

1. From Estate Agent to Video Director

 Videos are on track to becoming the most popular form of consumed content, globally. Estate agents can use this to their advantage, briefly stepping away from selling and begin pushing brand messaging. Moreover, with short form or ‘snackable videos’ becoming the norm, estate agents can package valuable information – that nurture leads -  at a very low cost.

The benefits of video-marketing for estate agent’s extend beyond a low cost. Social video-content tends to come with the real-time statistics, the amount of clicks, views or how many leads actually took action. At Starberry, not only can we help with video-marketing but can accurately report and help you understand the analytics. Moreover, pushing your agency forward in closing the gap between what works and what doesn’t.

2. Have Some Fun!

Most surf social media for entertainment purposes and not to be sold too, bare this in mind when interacting with your audience! The internet is a little less formal environment, with most user’s not expecting the same type of communication they experience in real-life.  Take a second to analyse the potential overuse of sales language and give thought to adding some flair to your content-strategy.

 Having produced countless successful social media strategies, we at Starberry have a clear understanding of the best ways to communicate to your leads. Transforming your digital communication with original and engaging visual’s – E.G: Infographics. Moreover, in a “people-focused” industry we can help you connect with your audience, by analysing current communication and bringing out the more “human side” to the business, in turn increasing engagement.

3. Engagement: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Estate agent’s looking to increase engagement shouldn't simply wait and expect it to happen. Another method in producing shareable posts is for your estate agency to initiate the engagement yourself.  We recommend post’s that encourage conversation, ask your audience questions, and respond to the answers. Moreover, you could search for where your business has already been mentioned and take the initiative to start a conversation.

A digitally-active estate agent, that makes sure to consistently engage with its audience, is bound to see an increase in lead-conversion.  The Starberry team can help you increase engagement the right way, ensuring your agency’s brand voice resonates throughout your posts. These conversations between you and your audience can then be further shared by you, to encourage engagement once again -  we call this ‘Repurposing Content’.

4. Repurposing Content

Every social-media platform has a different type of audience; the individuals may be the same but the way in which they most likely consume information has changed. Twitter-marketing being short-form, Facebook marketing requiring a little more detail and Instagram being photo & video focused.  A repurposing strategy must be created to take these nuances into consideration, information within post’s must be altered to fit the tone and delivery of that specific platform.  

The best estate agencies always consider how their audience changes across platforms. In turn being able to adapt and therefore increase the ‘life-span’ of all digital-content. At Starberry we can help you make the most out of your posts, reworking your ideas into creative multimedia, optimised accordingly for every platform.

5. Timing Is Everything

Deciding when to share a post to your audience is a much bigger task than it may initially seem. Firstly, your leads are not online 24/7 and this changes depending on platform – Facebook-marketing for your estate agency may have different active-audience times compared to your Instagram. Timing of your posts is therefore key, moreover your content may be affected by relevance, seasonal or festive constraints. Consider whether the  information is no longer the most useful or take a look at if you're marketing new homes after a time-period where households have already spent a lot of money.

After answering the question of “what”? the best results come from considering “when”? Through better understanding of your audience and when they are most active on each platform, you greatly increase the chance of post shares. At Starberry we make it a focus to understand your audience, so that we can confidently help you segment your leads - maximising the chances of your digital effort’s being seen and shared.

6. The Estate Agent Show: Episodic and Series-Based Content

Releasing information in an ‘episodic’ format is a key strategy for estate agent’s looking to increase engagement. By offering content over a period of time as opposed to all at once, you essentially create anticipation and dependability. Furthermore, episodes can follow a similar story to form a ‘series’ - leads can then engage over time - which in turn builds up increased engagement for every next episode.  Additionally, since episodes tend to follow similar content, this does well for SEO - as search engines calculate inter-related content and push it even further.

One of our focuses here at Starberry is ‘content creation’ – supporting estate agent’s in producing creatively engaging posts that can be brought together and scheduled to form a highly-effective content strategy.

7. Feature Your Audience

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by your audience, whether it be photos, video or even a testimonial. UGC is a valuable type of content that encourages shares from leads, with leads posting and tagging your business, trust is increased as the audience acts as a trust signal that your brand knows what they’re talking about. Moreover, leads can be influenced with their buyer-decision as UGC also acts as social proof on what you can deliver.

Implementing UGC will only ever increase engagement as your audience will always trust their peers before your brand.  Working with Starberry , we can support you in devising content that is more likely to become UGC, creating more unique opportunities for your leads to participate in the growth of the brand as opposed to simply spectating.  

8. Beyond The Service: Offering Value

You can always create shareable posts by stepping away from selling and simply offering value. This value can come in many different forms, - hosting a giveaway, instant-discount codes, downloadable takeaways – and can drive engagement as your audience understands they are simply receiving and while not having to give anything up.

This is the simplest way to convince your audience to engage with your brand, it may seem as though not much is gained but depending on how you structure this post, you could create valuable opportunities for your estate agency. Maybe your giveaway is dependent on using a unique hashtag and interacting with the brand which gives you access to more user-generated content.

9. Social Media Study

As previously mentioned, every social platform is different. Not only is information consumed differently but the tools and features available to estate agent’s change greatly. Understanding the ins & outs of what every platform has to offer is key in maximising engagement.  Whether it be Twitter’s detailed hashtag system, Instagram’s popular live video or Facebook Marketing’s ‘Upload Listing’ feature - highly beneficial for estate agent’s -  they all offer a fresh and creative way to convert leads.

By better understanding the social media platform in use, estate agents can better package content in the most effective format.  We believe the estate agency’s that come to Starberry, leave having a better grasp of what these platforms have to offer.  As our social media expertise, help you create those highly-converting advertisements.

10. Behind The Scenes of an Estate Agency

People have become more invested in brands over the years and expect to see more than what is simply “front of the house”. The best brands offer invaluable insight into behind the scenes, of what people see on a day to day basis. Through showing the process and not simply telling, estate agents can build that credibility that persuades users to share future posts.

Over the years with expectations increasing, an estate agency’s personal stories have become increasingly popular. It could be an origin story of your first few properties, the launch process or simply the story behind the website colours – by communicating these stories to your audience you create more shareable post’s as these stories are what make your company unique.  A strategy from Starberry would help bring these engaging stories to the forefront, helping your estate agency stand out from the competition.

We realise that all these considerations could be daunting, however they are necessary for increasing engagement. An engaged audience is reflected in the amount of likes, comments and shares, and at Starberry we take pride in knowing we can help with estate agent’s optimise that social-media strategy.  Interested in tackling the obstacle, that is low engagement and increase that lead-conversion today? Book a meeting with us and let’s chat!