Aaron Hoos

Blogging is a great way for real estate agents to build search engine optimized traffic and connect with their target market. If you are a real estate agent, here are 10 blog posts that you should write:

1. Write in-depth about a specific community you specialize in. Give people a sense of who lives there and what’s great about it. See my related blog post about using Storify to help you sell more homes.
2. Identify a news item (the economy is a hot topic right now) and talk about how it impacts your clientele.
3. Write an hour-by-hour blog post of your typical day. Give people a sense of what you do and how you do it.
4. Outline what exactly you do for a client. You don’t have to give away your “secret sauce” but you should describe what you do in enough detail that your clients understand what you do to earn your commission.
5. Create a lengthy step-by-step how-to of buying a home in your jurisdiction. Include all the pieces even if they don’t involve you, such as “find a mortgage broker” and “buy house insurance”.
6. Create a lengthy step-by-step how-to of selling a home in your jurisdiction. Include all the pieces even if they don’t involve you.
7. Write (positive!) reviews of businesses in the communities you serve. Include interviews, photos, and video. Tell them about your blog posts and they’ll be more likely to refer people to your site!
8. Every neighborhood has unique aspects that buyers and sellers should be aware of. These can be both good (older, tree-lined streets!) and bad (tree roots in the sewer systems). Write a blog post that addresses these issues in a positive way and what homebuyers should watch for and negotiate, and how potential homesellers can proactively address these. (Yes, this seems like a “negative” topic to blog about but it allows you to address the issue in a controlled way before a buyer blindsides you with a question you weren’t prepared for).
9. Write about the key destinations that people travel to from the neighborhoods you serve. Talk about driving time and distances.
10. Write about what the ideal client knows or brings with them when you meet them for the first time.

Storify.com is a social media tool that enables users to pull together snippets of social media from several sources (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and more). Users bring different social media together into one “Story” that can be published and shared.

This provides yet another point of differentiation for real estate professionals who want to establish their expertise in a particular town, city, neighborhood, or community. Storify.com can help real estate professionals to sell more homes by giving potential buyers an overview of what makes that particular community so special.

Once you’ve created a Story, you can publish it, share it across other social media, and embed it on your websites.

Check out the example Storify.com Story I created to demonstrate the potential: How real estate professionals can use Storify.com to sell more homes (opens in a new tab/window).

Storify.com is free to sign up for and use (and if you have a Twitter account, you don’t even need to create another account). You can create as many stories as you want. Why not create the following stories:

• Create a Story about the city or town you live in so you can link to it for your out-of-town buyers.
• Create several Stories about the community (or communities) you specialize in. Introduce potential buyers to the area — where all the schools and shopping malls are. Embed videos of a drive down a typical street so visitors to your Story can get a sense of what the area is like. Interview local business owners and residents about the area and post videos in your story.
• Create a Story about yourself, pulling snippets of social media where other people talk about you.
• Create Stories that are linked to target markets like first time home buyers, young families, growing families, empty nesters, retirees, etc. For example, show the top three neighborhoods in the city that are perfect for families with young children.
• … and more!

There are so many possibilities and you’ll discover new opportunities as you mix and match social media in new and interesting ways!

For years, real estate professionals have struggled with finding ways to connect with potential and previous clients to remain at the top of their minds for when those people want to buy or sell again. Calendars, fridge magnets, and the occasional mass mailing were the only way…

… Until social media came along.

Social media in general — and Twitter specifically — offer real-time connection to your potential and previous clients. You’ll know exactly what they’re thinking when they’re thinking it and that will help you to engage them before they make a real estate decision. Along the way, Twitter also gives you the ability to position yourself as an expert in a particular marketplace (i.e. to a specific niche or for a specific neighborhood).

Signing up for Twitter is free and very simple. And finding people (especially locals!) is also very easy.

Okay, so you have a Twitter account and you’re already to tweet. What should real estate professionals tweet about?

Here are 12 ideas that you can build off of to tweet an unlimited number of tweets!

1. Tweet buying tips: Tweet to give people tips on buying a home in the area you cover. Is there something specific to watch for? Are there great opportunities? Is an older neighborhood regaining traction as a trendy locale?




2. Tweet listing tips: Tweet to give people tips on how to sell a home in your area. Are there challenges to overcome? Is a certain type of buyer moving into the area? What are the key features for many of the homes in the area? When is the right time to list?




3. Tweet about reasons and statistics to encourage buying and listing: Let people know when it’s a seller’s market or buyer’s market. Keep your readers up-to-date on how interest rates, the economy, and the local marketplace are combining to make it the perfect time to buy or sell.




4. Tweet neighborhood stats: Buyers wants to move to an area because it has the right combination of things they’re looking for. Let them know that YOU know how many parks there are; what the student-teacher ratio is at the local grade school; how many Starbucks are nearby; how many buses serve the area; and what the home-sale trends have been like recently.




5. Tweet about ideas to enjoy the home you’re living in: On average, people move once every seven years. So, for seven years, they’re not necessarily thinking about you and your services. Unless you help them to enjoy what you helped them buy. Give them ideas to increase the value of their home, increase the safety of their home, and make their home feel like their castle and refuge. That will make you an integral part of their home investment for the seven years between the time that they need your services.




6. Tweet links to homes you’ve listed: This is an obvious one! Don’t overwhelm your followers with tweets about the homes you list, but definitely send out a few tweets a day that say: “Growing family? Check out this home: [link]” or “Newly retired? Check out this home: [link]“.




7. Tweet your achievements: Be proud of your achievements! Tweet about the awards you won (when you win them; you probably shouldn’t tweet regularly about them after that), and especially tweet about when you list a home and when a home sells. A real estate pro who regularly tweets “I just sold another home! #awesome” shows potential clients that they can get it done.




8. Tweet what you are doing right now: Real estate professionals are busy people. (You don’t need me to tell you that). So keep people up-to-date with what you’re doing by telling them. “I’m showing a home in the East Culbert neighborhood” or “I’m just about to meet with a potential seller.” Keep it generic and positive and accurate.




9. Tweet about local neighborhood news: If you are positioning yourself as an expert in a particular neighborhood, become involved in that neighborhood by tweeting their news. Talk about the upcoming street-wide yardsale or the gradeschool magazine drive to raise money for new playground equipment or the quilting bee at a local church to send money to a South American orphanage. Soon, people will recognize you as a place to help them disseminate their local information and they’ll not only pay attention to you for local news (which will include “I’m listing a house in your area!“) but they’ll also think of you when they’re looking for a local expert to help them list or buy.




10. Tweet to cheer local teams: This tip is related to the above tip but it’s not as “newsy”. Get involved in local teams by cheering them on and reporting their successes. Ball leagues, soccer leagues, bowling leagues, even the dart league at the local watering hole. They won’t mind the extra attention and it will benefit you and them in the long run.




11. Tweet about local businesses: Like you, local businesses are trying to get by with local clientele. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes it’s hard. Generously promote local businesses. If one of them is having a special, tweet about it. If one of them is holding a barbecue, tweet about it. If you’re bringing your shirts to the local laundromat, tweet about how much you like their service. Generous promotion is reciprocating, even if those businesses aren’t on Twitter as much as you.




12. Tweet to engage local people: This one is huge. Don’t just tweet things out as if they were announcements. Don’t just follow the above 11 tips and ignore this one. If you only have time to do ONE of these 12 tips, do this one! Engage your followers. Talk with them. Joke with them. Empathize with them. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Share what they are talking about.

Sit down with these 12 tips and come up with dozens — or even hundreds — of potential tweets. Once you have a big list, you’ll be armed with tweets for every occasion… and you’ll have a reason to send people to your Twitter page. Some of these tweets you can tweet as they happen. Others can be scheduled and put into a rotation (using a social media tool like Hootsuite).

Want some additional ideas about what you can tweet about? Check my blog post 101 retweetable tweets!