There’s more to life than Facebook

Key Takeaways

• Create a themed account in Instagram designed to attract a specific interest group.
• Snapchat and Periscope posts disappear after a short time, which compels people to view them quickly.
• Build a reputation as a community expert by posting YouTube videos about favorite new discoveries in your city.

Facebook is a great platform because so many people use it. However, if you want to grow a new following and expand your sphere, I recommend you pick one of these other platforms so that you stand out better and reach new audiences:

Instagram is now owned by Facebook and has the attention of so many consumers. It is a picture-based platform, and people love to swipe through pictures.

As a real estate agent, don’t just post listings. Instead, create an Instagram account around a theme that you know will attract an audience. For example, if you really like mid-century modern style, you could create an Instagram account all about mid-century modern homes in your community.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be about real estate — your goal is to build relationships first.

Periscope is owned by Twitter. This platform is based on live broadcasts. It alerts people who are following you and people nearby that you are doing a live broadcast.

If people miss the live version, they can only view the replay for the next 24 hours. After that, it’s gone for good. Because the broadcasts disappear, people feel compelled to watch them that day.
 
Don’t know what to broadcast? How about a daily or weekly broadcast on what came on the market in your neighborhood this week, or what sold and for how much. Or something completely unrelated to real estate, such as advice on where to get good local deals and where you found your favorite pair of heels or boots. As long as you’re truly passionate about the topic it can work.
  
Snapchat is a texting platform that is similar to Periscope in that the text will disappear in 24 hours, so your friends and followers have a limited time to see it, which again compels them to read what you posted. Snapchat does some cool things for your pictures and short videos, such as allowing you to do text overlays, which gives you a great opportunity to add humor or entertainment to your posts.

Again, come up with a theme or fun idea around which to base your posts. Even though your post will only be live for 24 hours, you can save the photo to your phone and upload it to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if you want to get more mileage out of your efforts.

YouTube is owned by Google. Many entrepreneurs have catapulted their careers with YouTube. So how do you leverage YouTube for your business? Let me start by saying what doesn’t work well: doing a video that is too long, that is a basic market update, or merely turns your listing slideshow into a movie. Consumers and your contacts don’t really want to watch those types of videos.

Have you tried searching the name of your city on YouTube? You might see a video produced by the visitors’ bureau or chamber of commerce. However, you may also see some random person who has made a video highlighting something cool in your town.

Often these videos have thousands of views. Why? Because people will search for information on a city, and often the YouTube video will appear as a source of information. It happens organically.

So let’s say you just moved to town and know very few people, but you have your real estate license. You could start to post weekly videos about your favorite discoveries in your new city — a great restaurant experience, or someone you met while getting your hair done.

Share knowledge about traffic bottlenecks that happen at key times each day, or the procedure for dropping your kids off at school. If it’s useful information to you, it’s likely useful to other people. You could end each video with a sign-off letting them know you’re a real estate agent and something you can do for them (not what they can do for you).