Have a Small or Nonexistent Social Media Following? 5 Reasons Why That's Actually Good and How To Make It Work To Your Advantage!

The majority of real estate agents have a smaller or nil following on social media and I'm here to tell you why that could greatly be to your advantage! 

Let's face it, posting on social media consistently can be a struggle at times. Especially if you have a lot going on in your real estate business. It's probably going to fall fairly low on the list of top priorities.

However, marketing, yes, that includes social media too, still needs regular attention in order to grow and help to generate leads. Even if you're not using it necessarily for a lead generation tool, you still should have a presence on social media because, whether you like it or not, prospective clients WILL research you there.

You might think that if you don't have an account on a specific platform that you want to be on or if you have a small following that may be a bad thing. Well, let me shed some light on why it may actually be the best thing for your business.

#1. We are no longer blind to the social media game

Yep, you know how to use social media, big deal right? Yes, it is a BIG DEAL, especially for real estate agents with a real estate business. Why? Because even if you are starting small, now you can go into social media with a strategy in hand. 

This means that you can plan exactly what you want to post, how you want it posted, and create it exactly as you want in order to speak to the dream clientele that you want to work with. 

#2. If you screw up, fewer people are aware

Dreaded typos, sound being removed from a video clip randomly, captions missing, and a million other things can go wrong on social media. It happens, it's life. Those of us that are using social media for business and have been doing this a while, get numb to it. 

However, when you're starting out, it's intimidating. Someone can point out a typo and bam, there went your self-esteem for how cool your post was that you spent an hour creating. A smaller following gives you more flexibility and cushion to fail-forward and be ok with it. It's part of growth. 

Think about it, if you had 1 million followers and accidentally posted a typo or an incorrect statistic, you'd get bombarded with "know-it-all" comments. If you have a following of 100, you might get 1 and usually, it's kind, so you can fix it. It's a lot better place to start until you can handle the bigger follower numbers and all the judgment that may come with those numbers.

#3. You can content load and no one is the wiser 

What is content loading you ask? Content loading is when you load numerous posts all at once.

This works great if you want to start a new account on a platform. If you have zero followers and load 200 posts at once, no one sees them nor is anyone bombarded by your posts in their feed. You can create new posts for that account or you can repurpose old posts. 

If you content load before getting connections, you have something for them to look at and for them to want to follow or engage with when they check out your page. Win-win! 

#4. You can figure out what type of content your audience wants to see

This is always a trial-and-error scenario for any business owner, real estate agent or otherwise. Sometimes you hit the nail on the head, sometimes your post falls flat. Either way, just keep posting. It takes time to learn your audience.

This can also be determined by the platform. For example, your audience may want to see more images of homes on Facebook, while your audience on LinkedIn may be more interested in statistics or short articles relating to your local real estate market. 

Until you have a decent number of posts and are trying a variety of content, you won't really know what your audience likes or dislikes.

#5. You can experiment with a variety of platforms

Most of us started social media with a Facebook personal profile. While that may get you so far, it's limited to only 5,000 connections and also has regulations on the amount of business-type posts that you're allowed. If you violate their restrictions, you can get your account completely shut down. (Update - In 2023 some people have been granted a "Professional Mode" for their personal profiles now where others can follow you.)

Thus, enter the Business Pages. Having a business presence on social media is a totally different ballgame than our personal accounts. They are meant to be for building business with those interested in our type of business. 

This is different for each social media platform and there's a learning curve. Your audience may not be on Instagram at all, but maybe you'll acquire a huge following on LinkedIn or TikTok. 

The only way to know this is to experiment. I know a guy that posted over 1300 posts on one social media platform with barely any response. He switched platforms and now has a huge following. If one platform doesn't seem to be working, repurpose your content and experiment with others. It could drastically impact your business. 

So that wraps up our quick 5 Ways on how to use a smaller social media presence to your advantage. Try 1 or all of them out and let me know how it works out for you! You can also always tag me on social to show me what you're implementing. I love to see agents being proactive in their businesses!

As always Shine On My Friend. I hope you have a glorious week filled with miracles!

Your Real Estate Coach,
Amanda