Before you jump on to social media and get stuck in, you need to create a basic social media plan. One of the most common things to happen, is someone gets the wind in their sails to sort it out, but after a while when things get busy and enthusiasm wanes, it fizzles out. This can be easily avoided by doing half an hour of planning to cover the mechanics.
What platforms do you need to be on?
There’s no denying, the most tempting response here is to say ‘ALL OF THEM, WE WANT ALL EYES ON US ALL THE TIME’. While in theory this would be great, in practice when you’re running your own social accounts if you have too many you’ll end up adding the same posts to all of them and that’s counter-productive.
Each social platform has its own strengths and its own audiences, and it’s much better to pick one and absolutely master it than it is to create accounts on five different platforms which end up being mediocre at best.
If you already feel overwhelmed, you need to be ruthless here and choose one or two to really concentrate your efforts into. Maybe you want to reach people with Facebook ads? Perhaps you want to network with investors on LinkedIn or join the conversation on Twitter.
We’ve actually written a post titled The best social media platforms for businesses which goes into great detail about the function of the main social platforms, so if you’re feeling a bit lost go and have a read of that to find out which platforms might be the right fit with what you’re looking to achieve.
Who is going to be responsible for scheduling and/or posting your content?
This sounds like a pretty obvious question, but all too often we find this job gets shoved onto the desk of a designated office young person because all young people are great at social media, aren’t they?
That’s not necessarily the case, and if it’s something they’re not necessarily enthusiastic about doing, they might be posting for the sake of getting posting out the way rather than figuring out how to build a genuinely engaged audience.
You could outsource to someone like us, or find someone in the office who is keen to take on the responsibility, and maybe even to learn if they don’t already know how.
How are you going to get content?
Again, this sounds like it could be obvious but most people underestimate how much effort it takes to get content to post. We’re talking about images of for sale boards, new homeowners holding their keys aloft, pics of thank you cards from landlords, videos of the office dog, lovely photos of the local area. You need to have enough to create at least one post a day on each platform, and you’ll need to consider this whether someone in-house is doing the posting or you’ve decided to outsource it.
Posting for the sake of posting using nothing but stock images and article links from the BBC News website, will do your brand more harm than it will good – people want relatable content to enjoy and engage with, and by thinking about getting the team involved, or hiring a photographer to take photos of the local area, you’re setting yourself up for success right from the start.
Need help with your social media plan?
We’re here to help! Pop over to Facebook and join our group solely for Estate and Letting Agents to learn about social media and digital marketing. Write a post to let us know what you’re thinking, and one of us will hop on to help you.
Come and join us!
Katie Gillingham
Katie is a Freelance Copywriter living in rural Dorset with her daft old Labrador. She first started writing content for the property industry back in 2015, and loves nothing more than bringing brand voices to life!
