Social media can be a very powerful tool when trying to network for your real estate career. When you’re using it for your professional career, though, the last thing you want to do is make people unfollow you!
The worst part is, you may not know what you’re doing to annoy your followers.
While I’m sure there are many more ways to annoy people on social media, there’s two very big faux pas that you absolutely need to stop doing now.
It’s Not a Journal
Social media is a great way to let your friends, family, clients, and customers know what’s going on. You can post your recent listings, brag about your clients sitting down at the closing table, or even ask opinions with a poll. It’s important to remember to sometimes post non-business related things, too, so that people can get an impression of who you are, and possibly make some connections. You want to seem authentic!
What you shouldn’t be doing is posting every single detail of your life for everyone to see. Your social media profile may be the only impression that some people have of you, including potential future clients, and it’s not going to be a good look when all they know is you airing out personal issues, ranting, complaining all of the time, or posting “vague-book” statuses calling people out.
Take a look through your past posts and try to look at it objectively, to see what kind of impression you might be giving off. Are you oversharing? Are you whiny? You want your clients to see you as outgoing, positive, and professional. If that’s not the vibe you’re getting, you may want to work on what you’re putting out there.
You’re Always Selling
This one might be a harder concept to grasp for some real estate agents. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your social media is only posting when you have something to promote. Yes, the point of having your professional social media accounts is to network and hopefully pick up more business, but you’re going to have to go beyond promotion to get what you want.
Social media is like an online conversation. If all you ever post is invitations to your open houses or advertisements begging people to call you, it’s not going to feel like a conversation, it’s going to feel spammy. You need to mix it up. Post a funny (real estate related) meme, or a photo wishing your followers “Happy Holidays,” or even a poll about everyone’s favorite restaurant in town.
The biggest takeaway here is that you really need to be selective over what you’re posting, but don’t forget to mix it up a bit and break away from business every once in a while. Think about what you would want to see coming from another person that you follow.
Just don’t use your Facebook as a personal journal! Keep the oversharing for a pen and diary.
