Here are 11 social media trends your estate agency will want to look out for when designing the best digital marketing strategy in 2021.

Your entire market is now social

Social media is no longer a millennial playground, everyone is involved now. Therefore the audience for estate agencies has become much larger, and this is where segmentation is key.

Estate agents must therefore plan their digital marketing strategy to accommodate for the whole host of individuals online that will only continue to grow. Segmenting brings about specific strategies that will target and connect with the range of audiences.

Step 1= Engagement

Before even attempting to make sales on social media, an agency must attempt to connect with its audience. Simple advertisements without an efficient engagement strategy will simply fall on deaf ears as audiences have matured and expect more from businesses.

With increased expectations going into 2021, estate agents will have to develop genuine engaging content, driving sales down the line, content such as local property news or area information, “hottest properties” or even more light-hearted ‘fun’ content such as competitions.

COVID-19 Content

With 2020’s events, such content has become a vital part of a businesses marketing communication. COVID-19 has affected every industry and the businesses that can market around the situation and show a sense of understanding will thrive going into 2021.

Estate agents should ensure their social marketing content covers this topic, it’ll reinforcing their understanding of the ongoing situation, showing consumers that they care the way in which it may affect them, providing substantial information on how to move forward and in turn brand image is positively affected.

Conversational Marketing

It goes a step-further, the pandemic affected consumer perception on brands with social issue awareness. Consumers expect “conversations” instead of simple exclamations.

Estate agents must realise the public expects reassurances through conversation. Moving forward establishing meaningful customer relationships through social content and communication tools will be more important than ever before.

Authenticity and Quality Over Quantity

2020 has seen a rise in disinformation. Most businesses have acted accordingly and are looking to provide quality, and authentic information, guiding their consumers.

Estate agents can take advantage of this by keeping their audiences updated on industry ongoings, and potential effects on the housing industry and the best possible decisions to make. Acting in such a way will only build consumer trust for your agency in the long run.

Fundraising on Social Media

As mentioned earlier businesses with social awareness will stand out from their competitors. Fundraising for communities affected by this pandemic will highlight a businesses care for community.

Estate agents can utilise their vast social audience and the tools social networks now put at their disposal to launch effective fundraising campaigns. Possibly even helping those struggling to find homes in these trying times, once again building connections and improving brand image.

One brilliant example of the kind of impact property professionals can make with fundraising is Stephen Brown’s Computers for Schools campaign. And many others are happening in local communities throughout the UK.  

Snackable Videos

Short form or ‘snackable videos’ have become popular across all social platforms, due to the likes of ‘stories’, ‘reels’ or apps like TikTok.

Estate agents can use the popularity of video for increased brand awareness, whether through promotion or data visualisation; creative videos can be used to repurpose top performing past content.

Current events preventing physical tours, video can be further used for property and local area presentation.

“Remix” Content for a greater Impact!

TikTok, Reels and similar formats and features grow more popular, and remixed content production through creative repurposing can only help make more with the content you have.

Estate agents must not shy away from the creative “fun” promotional styles that can make their agency stand out from the competition. As mentioned before, the social audience is a ranged one, and some connect with such content, making it an avenue to consider.  

More so, reusing content generated by creators, brand fans or customers will lead to more out-of-the-box communication that will help generate even more engagement on social media.  

Social Media Blogging

With the release of Instagram’s “Guides” and the existence of Twitter threads, blogging and longer form content on social media just got easier.

With such an easy-to-digest format available on most social media, it’s only right that estate agencies tap into the ability to develop well thought-out pieces of content that establish them as thought leaders in their local market; which via Instagram can also be visual.

With social media supporting the organisation of such content in one place, agencies can take advantage, consider developing long-form content directly on social media, such as a local area guides, market updates or property round-ups, supported through visuals and video.

Back To Fun: Memes!

Get your creative caps on because they are here to stay, memes! Ruling most social media apps, brands will have to start looking at this type of content seriously as more and more mature audiences are consuming such content.

This kind of content is also a great way to connect to specific audiences. For example, if you are doing content which has to sell homes to an older audience, you can pick movie references from their era in your memes.

Social Keyword Search

Keyword data doesn’t solely exist for the Google playing field anymore. With Instagram announcing the launch of keyword search in the near future, such data will be more and more valuable to ensuring successful social promotion and outreach, especially if your agency segmented their audience as previously mentioned.

The opportunity for estate agents is to research and use specific keywords for every niche and audience, with such information your posts will sky-rocket as you play the ‘algorithm game’ by taking control of those captions and hashtags.