Video: How to Leverage Social Media for your Real Estate Photography Business | Video courtesy of iGUIDE YouTube Channel | 21 March 2022

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Transcript (video above)

00:00:03]
Avi: -Welcome guys. My name is Avi. I'm the Marketing Coordinator at Planitar, makers of iGUIDE.

I do a lot of social media content, a lot of general digital marketing. I've been noticing some amazing questions from our community on our posts, on our forums regarding certain things in what they can do for marketing or how they can leverage certain techniques. I'm going to address a lot of those awesome questions in this masterclass as well, and go over some of stuff I've learned over the last few years, how businesses or local entrepreneurs or freelancers can leverage social media marketing for their advantage.

I call this social media hacking because there's so many things you can do. Let's say using Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, that the general public or the general competitor doesn't know about. There are certain things I'm going to go over and give some amazing tips as well that you guys can implement today and can definitely see some results.

I have 14 people in, so I think we should be good. First I want to start by what is social media marketing anyways? First, I want to say that social media marketing, you've got to have the right goals and expectations going in. You really need to understand what tools are available for you and what you can expect out of them. You can't really expect amazing results overnight, but if you keep plugging at it, you can see massive growth in your business.

I mean, I've seen businesses that only allow in social media and they get amazing results out of it. Some of them don't even have an actual physical location or a proper website. But they usually leverage social media for their followers or try to sell some products online or their services, and that works out really well.

Next, I'll be addressing the platform that's best suited for you. I'm assuming most of the people here are either photographers or realtors in that spectrum. I'm going to be addressing both, and not every platform is best suited for your type of business. There are certain businesses that do better on certain platforms than others, and I'll go over that as well. Next, I'll be talking about leveraging communities.

This is a very powerful tactic that a lot of people don't really use, and that's something you can do right now. The best part is it's actually super cost-effective. It's almost free. Next, it will be the type of content you can create. Yeah, we can all create content, but really just putting some time and strategy into your content makes a huge difference, and at the end I'll be addressing any questions you might have. Let's go. Goals. I made some notes just in case I forget.

[00:03:22]
Avi: What's social media good for? One, I would definitely say is that it's great for state irrelevant, because believe it or not, every business you find has a social media page. Basically, being on social media doesn't cost you anything, but not being on social media can cost you almost everything because this is where you find a huge portion of your audience.

I don't know about you, but whenever I'm interested in a business or interested in a product or a service, what do I do? I know a lot of people what they do is, they search up their social media and their website. If I see, let's say and I'm sure you've done this before, where let's say you're looking for getting a service and then you check out their social media platform and you see it's pretty empty. There's not much going on, no presence.

It seems like it's pretty dead. No content. It feels like these guys are not active or they're not in business anymore, or they're not getting as much traffic as a growing business should. This for me personally, that's a red flag, and I'm sure I can say that for a lot of people. I mean you can go on somebody's website and see what they're offering.

But if I want to know who they are and if they're actually legitimate, I would go to their social media, check out the reviews, see how they're performing online, and let's say if someone's getting horrible comments, two-star ratings, I probably wouldn't go with them. You can only get certain things on a website, but you really captured the legitimacy of your business and your services.

That's where you're leveraging social media. Some of the pros and cons, let's say would be one, it's great for, like I said, creating that legit atmosphere, that legit persona that you are an actual business or real person and that this is what you do versus it's hard to find that authenticity nowadays. So it's really great for connecting with your followers in showing that you know who you are and you're authentic and you're legit, and what personality you have.

It really helps creating that environment people can more connect with easily. Obviously, creating awareness as well.

This is my favorite thing to do when I'm running my social media is creating awareness of what's happening in the market, and that's the fastest way you can reach your audience because most of the time your audience is not going to be checking emails as frequently as they are going to be checking their social media.

If you have an announcement coming up, I can guarantee you if you post it on social media, you're going to be connecting with your audience first before you even send out that email. It's great.

It's a really good way of getting the message across or something that's happening or something that's new. Next would be, it's also great for connecting with communities because, believe it or not, social media is based on communities and they're connecting people.

Let's say on Facebook there are so many groups you can join, there are so many group activities you can take part on by actually joining the group, sharing your content. Anything that's happening, or that's engaging you put on there. It's a great way for staying relevant in that case.

Now, there are some cons obviously, and this is I'm sure you've heard of some of them, but I'll elaborate a bit more. It is time-consuming, There's no doubt about that. That's why you use the encourage people either get an assistant or talk to a virtual assistant somewhere in the Philippines or anywhere. You can get some peers to handle your social media.

It is time consuming for sure, especially making the content, monitoring it, or replying to any comments on there. Second would be it has long-term return on investment. If you're putting in anything right now, you're not going to see a lot of return, not for a couple of months or maybe even a year because you're building your brand and you're creating that audience.

You can also have lab control, you can't really control what people are saying about you, so you have to be careful how you show yourself. You want to make sure you're putting your best foot forward. Next would be obviously, that can translate to negative publicity.

Anytime you're posting anything on social media, you got to be careful. Don't stir the pot too much. It might cause negative reactions and you don't want to have that on your end. See, next time we'll be talking about the organic versus paid. I love this topic because I get this question all the time. What's better? Should I go with organic traffic or should I pay for ads?

This really depends on you, if you're starting on right now or if you've been in your business for a couple of years, organic is definitely the way to go. I only say this because organic traffic is higher intent, you're more likely to work. Second, it's free, so you're not really putting any money or you're not losing much other than that couple of hours you're putting in time.

Paid traffic is great unless and if you don't have a funnel or a proper system or strong foundation, don't use paid. But if you have everything in place; a proper funnel, proper conversion technique, a proper brand, paid traffic can be really powerful. I've seen businesses grow from getting a few clicks a day to 100 clicks a day and its expansion and growth if you do it right, and if you really properly set up your funnel.

[00:08:52]
Avi: What do you expect? What can you expect from social media where it says general other forms of marketing? Well, it is fast to reach people like I said. Second, it's an insane audience you have online. You can reach a lot of people really fast without even spending a dime depending on what you're posting. Definitely keep that in mind. Now, how do you find your platform?

What platform works for you might not work for somewhere else. I have a few graphs I want to show you. Here is a graphic of the demographic basically, for anyone age 13 onto 65. Now, depending on what you're doing, you're probably aiming at somewhere who's either, let's say you're a photographer and you want to do wedding pictures or 3D tours or whatever, you're probably be looking at a 25-34 age range, and you can see a lot of these age groups are on Facebook.

As soon as you get to more, let's say the 55, 64, it drops. That's a big, an example that these are the kind of people online in these platforms. Another one would be Instagram. Instagram again, you can see the same age group, but it differs as well, I see a lot more people on Instagram in the higher age group versus lower.

But I also see that the 18-24 is also very popular on Instagram. Depending on what you're doing, if you're doing, let's say like real estate photography, who are more likely to own a house, and how many realtors do you expect to be on Instagram?

An average realtor's age, this is something I'm guessing would be either between 25-34. They're more likely to be on Instagram. There you go. Same thing with Facebook. These two would be my top priority if I'm anywhere in that business. Leverage Facebook and Instagram. I would not worry about TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, these are all great platforms in their own. But for these businesses, Facebook and Instagram, just from the demographics alone, show us that this is where majority of your traffic will be coming from. -That gives you an idea of what platforms you should leverage.

I would highly recommend my personal favorite is Instagram because you have a lot more creative power in Instagram versus Facebook. Facebook's great for building communities and talking to more people and engaging a larger audience. But Instagram's more for brand-building and I 100 percent always encourage people, jump on Instagram first and have your content there ready.

Also, if you could do Facebook here in there as well. Now, one thing I really want to address would be the content people should be making. People asked me a lot of questions on, should I be making images, should I be making blogs or whatever?

It depends on the strategy you're using. I'm going to list a couple of things here that you can implement today. Let's say if you're a realtor or a photographer, number 1 would be definitely I would recommend start writing content and articles about something that one talked about and doesn't need an answer.

For example, if you're in the real estate world and people are asking questions if the market is going to crash, write blogs about it, write articles about it, post it on your website and talk abut why or what's your opinion and some analysis on what's going to happen. That creates trust, but that also puts you at the authority in what you do.

Because if I'm reading a blog and I see, oh, this is Mr. XYZ ruling, I'm probably going to be working with him because he knows what he's talking about. Same thing with photographers. For example, you can write a blog about, did you know you can sell your home way faster using so and so and so technology or tours, here are the top flight reasons.

If I'm a realtor or pharma client, someone's looking for 3D Tours and I read that, I'll be impressed saying that this guy went all the way out here, did his research, he knows what he's talking about, she knows what she's talking about, I'm going to go with them. That creates trust, that creates a strong foundation, as well as it really helps with organic traffic because now you're hitting keywords and Google loves it when you're on keywords and creating content because now you're writing higher.

Another thing I love people do is they make eBooks, eBooks is something like this, for example.

This is an example I took out from a normal search, but it could be anything. Digital marketing secrets revealed, or real estate marketing secrets revealed, whatever it is. Create something that's, one, searchable, and two, that really speaks to your audience and give it for free. We call this a lead magnet and you can use this or regeneration. But having just that on, let's say your Facebook, where you post and say, click and download your eBook for free, please type in your name and email.

Boom, you get a lead. Now, you know that this person is interested in the content you posted because they went as far as putting in their email and their phone number, and now you can reach out to them and say, "Hey, I noticed that you downloaded my free eBook.

I hope that was helpful and if you have any more questions, let me know. We can definitely talk about something if you want to do in the future." Another amazing tool you can do is obviously I 100 percent encourage people, make more videos of yourself.

I see a lot of people posting images, which is great. But videos have shown time and time again they do a lot better. Videos and blogs, I will give you an example, is something like this. Go online, go on Facebook or Instagram, do a little live chat or have a little talk in front of the camera, talk about what's happening. You'll see people are reacting, they're going to be posting content then you can also redirect that traffic to either your website or your learning page or whatever you have.

But that shows you're active, you're engaged in the community and really care, and people really respect that because they see you more often than anyone else. I mentioned LIVEs before. LIVE is basically going on a live stream on Instagram and Facebook or either all and just like hanging out, asking questions, doing your day-to-day activities, showing what's happening in the front of the camera.

If I'm in the office, I'll take my phone and walk around saying, "Hey, guys, I'm in the office writing some content here, wrote some blog stuff over there, whatever it is." People can see what you're doing and they're really interested and know that you're actually active in your business and your day-to-day. Another piece of content I love is infographics, and I'll tell you why. Infographics, you can tell, I'm sure you've all seen them. They're amazing for getting the point across.

They're easy on the eyes, they're really engaging, and they're amazing for sharing, because if I find something that's relevant, let's say somebody made a post, I would share it.

But the best part is whoever made that Infographic is probably going to have their name or their Instagram handle or whatever somewhere written on the infographic. Lets say now I shared a piece of content and all the followers that are following me may see that. But the best part is they see who wrote bad, which is your name. Now, they're going to search who you are and what you're all about, and that's a great way of going viral.

Make infographics, put your name on there, and when people share it, your business and your name spreads as well. Testimonial interviews are another great way of showcasing what you do.

But I see a lot of people that they get testimonials, but they just put it on there Google my business. One strategy I love is when somebody writes a review and if you know a personal customer or a client that would be really happy to work with you, do something like this.

Take a picture of them writing a little captions what they're saying about you. Post it on Facebook, post it on Instagram, that captures attention right away. As well as it makes it seem a lot more genuine and a lot more real, because now if you put a face on it, if I see a face, that's a real person, and if they wrote something, it makes me feel this is a legit review and I can trust this person or this business.

[00:17:51]
Avi: Contests are another good way of spreading your brand. We used to do this a lot in some of the old businesses I worked with, where we would do giveaways, like a $100 gift card giveaway and pretty easy something like, "Hey, guys, I'm having a contest.

Tag three people in this post, write something about why you like working with us and share." It's a cheap way of spreading your brand, but it's really effective, because now anyone who wants that gift card is going to be sharing that piece of content, and whoever sees that piece of content is probably going to share it as well.

It's a wire loop, it goes all over. Definitely try that and see how that works for you. One thing I do want to address, and I've been seeing this a lot, is when you're making content on Instagram, this is something you guys should really take into consideration, anything, do this right away is, Instagram doesn't allow you to post links on your post. For example, over here, I just took this out of Google. Somebody made a posting, want to know how to make these chocolate brownies, click the link in the bio. That's the way to go about it on Instagram because you can't really post links on Instagram. Some people, what they do is they actually post the link on their images and you can't do anything with that.

I can go and click that. It just looks really messy and it looks very unprofessional. If you're doing this, you have to stop because it's really hurting your brand, I would say. The best way around this would be if you want to post a link on Instagram, what I recommend would be like this person said, click the link in my bio. If I see you're posting this and as you said, click the link in my bio, I go to your bio and I see this. It's a link tree.

You can get this, it's very easy, go to www.linktree.com, LINK, TREE, try a little linktree, and what that looks like is basically anyone who clicks on it gets a factorial options over here, and they can choose whatever link they want. Let's say click the link in the bio, I can put blogs in there, I can put videos in there, I can put reviews or testimonials or whatever I want, anyone who goes there sees this and now they can choose whatever option they will prefer. Do this, stop posting links on Instagram, they don't work unless you're making stories, because you can't put links on stories, just not on posts.

Keep that in mind. One more thing I also wanted to address would be a lot of questions I get is regarding iGUIDEs, is how do I post an iGUIDE walkthrough on my Instagram? That's a very good question because it's a powerful way of showcasing your audience what tours you can do.

Unfortunately, there's no quick and easy way of doing this. What I do usually is basically I use any editing software, I screen record myself doing a iGUIDE tour.

Basically, let's see if I go on www.realtor.ca and I click on an iGUIDE, I just created a chord that I do a couple of walkthroughs here and there, and then I clip it, edit it, make it nice and tidy, and then I go and post it on Instagram. Unfortunately, there is no direct way you can do that, at least yet.

But that's something I'll pass along in case there is something like that that comes up. But if you want to post iGUIDEs on your Instagram where people can see the walk-through, honestly, the best way to do it is record it on the screen and just cut it up in pieces and post it on there.

Unfortunately, you can't really share, like I said, links of iGUIDE on Instagram, not the way you do on Facebook because in Facebook, they are actually clickable and actually shows up in a thumbnail.

That's one little hack you can do, is record it and post it on there directly. That's pretty much the quick wrap-up I had about things you can do for social media, how you can leverage your brand, and pieces of content you can post.

Making more videos down the road regarding how do you actually hack your website so that anyone who's coming in is more likely to convert, because I didn't mention about organic versus paid traffic.

With that is that organic and paid traffic are a very hot topic because paid traffic is great. It is hard to work. But if you get your funnel right, and if you get all the elements in your website right, you can pretty much get up to 10 to 20 percent conversion rate, that is amazing. But it takes a lot of work, but that's something I would probably be addressing in the next couple of masterclasses down the road.

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