social media marketing for real estate: paid vs. earned media

Marketing: Paid Media vs. Earned Media (both online and traditional)

Real estate marketing used to be easy….erWhether marketing listings, services, personal brand,

your options for marketing we limited to: Classified or display advertising in local paper Just listed/Just sold postcards Multiple listing service Yard signs Print marketing, including flyers or brochures Business cards

Paid Media Marketing(traditional)

That was pretty much it. Although agents may only have had limited choices, they did have control over the quality and quantity over their printed materials. This is still true today. But whether this traditional form of marketing was done on the cheap or it usurped most of agents budget because of the quality and quantity used, IT ALL COST SOMETHING.

This is PAID MEDIA. It is still a viable option, but agents must always be wary of the cost as well as measuring the return on investment, which is a difficult thing to measure with print media.

Earned Media Marketing(traditional)

There is another for of media marketing called EARNED MEDIA. Press seeks out expert commentary on a given

topic and publishes story quoting the expertsPrestige in this earned media, but very hard to

achieveInconsistent – expert is not in control of when a

story gets published or what it says.

Paid Media Marketing(online)

Much more variety and variations than tradtionalBanner or display ads on local news sitesGoolge or Facebook adsTrulia or ZillowLead generation

Homegain Replyrealestate.com Salesgenie.com

CraigslistCoupons, etc…


Pros & consBanner ads – Pros

Provides for a branding opportunity (depending on placement) which may help with sellers.

Some control of your message Some analytics (CPI/CPC)

Banners ads – Cons Costly Low click-thru rate Not effective at generating quality leads Low ROI


Adwords (Google, FB, Trulia) – ProsMay provide higher click-thru rates for certain key

wordsHelp in efforts to carve out a niche marketFor branding purposes, not listingsMight help you reach buyersRelatively low cost to entryHigher CPC than Banner ads

Adwords – ConsTakes time to master keyword selectionCompetiting against some heavy hitter potentially


. Lead Generation – prosMaking a direct pitch to leadsPay per leadMay be a good tool for newer, less established

agents

Lead generation consSame lead may be farmed out to other RealtorsQuality of lead may be less than desiredMonthly payments required

Earned Media Marketing(aka Social Media)

Earned recognition and reward is the holy grail of social media marketing.

It’s about getting leads, building reputation & relationships and achieving higher earnings as a result of demonstrating your real estate expertise to consumers

It’s about the creation of quality, knowledge-based content, the curation of relevant, consumer focused real estate news and information (aka items of value), distribution of content through a variety of media channels. It’s about building an online network of loyal clients.

In essence, you run your own printing press and are the publisher of your own real estate magazine.

Best Practices: Hub & Spoke plus Engagement

Content Hub – An online or offline repository of all the content you create and curate.

Sources of information – Identify the best sources of real estate news and information (Boston.com, B&T, Real Estate Magazine, Active Rain, Transcript, Patch) and start bookmarking relevant content

Distribution – Whether it is content you create or content you curate, after adding it to your HUB then make sure it get’s distributed to Facebook, Twitter, Etc.). Also, use email to distribute content to your contact base—maybe once a week (week in review)

Engage – Don’t just publish and walk away. Monitor activity and respond to any comments people make. Also, ,make sure you make comments on other peoples posts. People remember you if you take the time to participate in their conversation stream

Future or RE MarketingYou can buy it or you can earn it, but earning it is so

much better. Why?Build a reputation as a local (trusted) expert on all

things real estatePeople will begin to see you as a knowledgeable real

estate professional, and over time send business you way

As the Internet is the place where people go to do research, more and more they will see your name if you offer quality (authentic) content and are consistent in your efforts

Earned media is HARD WORK! But if developed for the long term you will reap huge benefits.

Questions?

In 2 weeks, the nuts and bolts of content creation and distributionExamples of content creation and curationFacebook pagesTwitter accountsBuilding your contact databaseDeveloping a plan