MARKETING
CONTENT MARKETING
• Produce content at least twice a month: Unlike in some fields, real estate decisions are often a slow burn, so in my experience, you don’t have to produce content every day or even every week. Twice a month will give you a chance to build your archive and keep checking in with your fans and followers. ELEMENT #3 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (SMM) People love the idea of social media marketing for a variety of reasons, including it’s free; it’s fast, and it’s easy to get up and running. Unfortunately, they quickly get burned out on social when they find that 20 tweets a day doesn’t automatically trans- late into new business. Here’s the right way to use social as part of your overall content strategy: • Share your own content on social: Instead of using Face- book or Twitter to share the same old HGTV articles or a link to someone else’s content, you should be using it to promote your content. Create a list of “Thoughts of the Day,” link to your blog posts and website features, talk about what you’re doing, learning, or working on. If you do decide to share a link to an outside source, add value with your analysis and insight. • Don’t have time to post consistently? Pre-write and pre-schedule your content in order to ensure that you always have something to say: Create a spreadsheet with 31 posts for each of your social media platforms accompanied by images, links, and other elements. That way, you can out- source the actual posting to a virtual assistant, pre-schedule posts during your downtime, or, if you must post yourself in real time, you’ll have something queued up and ready to go. • Make your SMM talk to itself: Use a service like If This, Then That (IFTTT) to help your various platforms com- municate. You can create an email blast on Mailchimp that triggers a Facebook post which then triggers a Tweet with a link to the Facebook post. Have a blog post trigger a link on all of your social media accounts the moment you hit publish. Integration and automation create time-saving leverage and ensure you’re optimizing all of your platforms. Creating a beautiful home base for value-added content, then distributing it through well-run social media manage- ment, ensures you are not only creating content, but optimiz- ing it. You don’t have to do it all at once, but with some careful planning, you can create a multi-layered approach that builds your real estate brand and gets results. •
CreatingYour Content Marketing Plan A MULTI-PLATFORM PLAN CREATES INCREDIBLE LEVERAGE FOR YOUR REAL ESTATE BUSINESS.
or contact form to guide visitors to the appropriate action.
ELEMENT #2 BLOGS, VLOGS, AND PODCASTS One you have a website, it’s time to begin adding content on a consistent basis to keep visitors coming back. Integrate a blog, vlog (video blog), or link to a podcast. Camera shy or suffering from writer’s block? Outsource the content creation itself with a ghost- writer or through sponsorship opportunities. Whatever platform you choose in order to create content, keep in mind: • Have a clear purpose in mind for your blog posts, vid- eos, or podcast episodes: This is not a sales pitch, though each will have a clear call to action. It is an opportunity for you to attract people to your site through the quality of your insights and expertise. In addition, it is a chance for you to showcase additional content by linking internally to other posts or pages of your website. • Produce two types of content – evergreen and targeted: Evergreen posts should be based on the kinds of topics people are always asking about: processes, procedures, moving, down- sizing, financials. Targeted content can be related to a particular market or the concerns of a specific market segment. It may include local events, neighborhood amenities, “best of” lists, and other area-specific or demographic-specific information.
by Christy Murdock Edgar
least 300 words and that content should include your desired keywords used in an organic and logical way. It should not, however, be “stuffed content,” nonsense, or poorly written content with keywords repeated over and over. • Royalty Free, Hi-Resolution Images: Don’t just go onto Google Images and pull what you want. You need to ensure that the images are sized correctly, have excellent clarity, and are not owned by the photographer, another website, or an image aggregator. • Call-to-Action (CTA): Each page of your website should have a purpose, and each should include a clear CTA. Visitors should have no doubt as to what you want them to do when they read the content: contact you, sign up for something, begin a search, or some other behavior. This should be accompanied by a link
our real estate business can benefit from content marketing in several ways. You can generate leads for deals and for buy- ers for those deals. You can build your brand and reputation in your specific industry sector. Furthermore, effective content marketing helps you establish that all-important network of valuable contacts and colleagues in the real estate investing space. If you’re just getting started, here are three primary elements with which to begin your content marketing plan. ELEMENT #1 YOUR WEBSITE The foundation of your content marketing plan is a beautiful, well-functioning website. Your website should include: • Professional-level, robust content with SEO-optimized keywords in headers: Ideally, each page should have at
Christy Murdock Edgar is the Owner of Writing Real Estate. She is a freelance writer and content marketing developer for real estate professionals throughout North America. She may be reached at christy@writingrealestate.com or learn more at www.writingrealestate.com.
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