Five Social Media Tips For Real Estate Developers

Social media is an intimate and transparent way to craft a real estate development’s story while simultaneously highlighting key aspects of a project. By launching a strategic social media campaign, projects can engage local communities, attract potential investors and garner the support needed to get new developments approved. Here are five tips to help real estate development teams build an effective social media strategy:

1. Determine what success will look like. When launching a new social media profile think about what it needs to accomplish. What will be your call to action? Are you trying to raise general awareness about the project? Are you trying to gain local support throughout the approval process? Or are you trying to increase sales and leasing activity?

2. Find your neighbors and be their friend. There is no better way to gather support during the approval process for a new development project than through social media. Hop onto Google Maps, find local businesses and their respective social profiles. By liking, sharing and engaging with neighbors and local businesses, you begin to lay the foundation for support. Also, identify location geotags and hashtags that will increase your brand’s reach.

3. Don’t be a robot. Just because you’re promoting a real estate development site doesn’t mean you can’t have a personality. Determine your brand persona that will be expressed on social media and stick to it to ensure a unified brand presence. For developers, there are a plethora of themes that can be promoted through social media, from design and historical preservation, to energy efficiency and green building materials. A good way to determine these themes is through predetermined company core values, taglines or messaging. 

4. Be transparent. Promote community meetings, important deadlines and project updates and milestones. Do so in a way that allows community members to engage throughout. For example, if you’re attending a local community meeting, tweet at your followers asking for potential questions before the meeting. 

5. Photos, photos and more photos. Getting into your target audience’s stream is more challenging than ever given the volume of content that is being pushed out each day. Give your development a better chance by including compelling imagery. Instagram in particular is a great place to showcase visuals; since it’s a design-oriented platform ,it’s a great avenue to express your firm’s creativity. Here are a few tips for snapping the perfect shot.