Master Your Social Media Game: 5 Tips to Stay Organized
Social media is not another task piled atop the other daily work of a real estate professional. Understanding and leveraging social media is vital to building brand success. The right strategies prevent managing social media from overwhelming busy brokers and agents. Stay organized and control your social media program with these five suggestions.
#1. Content scheduling programs
While Facebook does allow advance scheduling, others like Instagram and Twitter don’t. Numerous content scheduling platforms exist to help push content across multiple social outlets simultaneously. Their ability to schedule social content in bulk saves time, and that’s where the value in a content scheduler lies. Some services automate content generation, and while this does save time, we still recommend a human oversee curation.
Examples of social media content management platforms include SproutSocial, HubSpot, and Hootsuite. The platforms offer different integrations, like CoSchedule which integrates with WordPress, and others like Airtable include content planning. Explore the different social management software services to decide what features and pricing options work best for your real estate needs.
#2. RSS Feeds
For discovering fresh new content ripe for sharing, turn to RSS feeds. Receive daily updates on what’s current in the industry to stay informed and spot opportunities to “newsjack,” where you jump on relevant social trends before they lose momentum. TrendSpottr’s service uses predictive analytics to tap into what’s going viral. Mention offers media monitoring including brand mentions.
Another RSS, Feedly, curates news you find most important and includes in-platform buttons to push articles into social content within a few clicks. Similar RSS feeders include Feeder, NewsBlur, Digg, and The Old Reader. These feeders can be programmed to source news from sites and blogs you trust; however, real estate professionals can save time with The News Funnel, as its feed specifically targets the real estate industry.
#3. Creating Content Folders
Devise a system for capturing sharable content in your email and readers. For instance, you can create folders in your email inbox to sort important stories worth promoting to your audiences. Many RSS feeders allow the same function, whether as a folder or a board. As you receive potential content, drag into the folder for later review. Look in the folders when it’s time to schedule new social content. Remember to delete all used email or articles.
#4. Outsourcing social media management
Automation and bulk scheduling are excellent tools, but if you don’t understand how to optimize each platform, your brand building efforts risk falling short of your ideal. Automation programs are not always in sync with the brand voice. Sometimes we simply don’t have the time or brainpower to handle the social influx…and that’s ok!
That’s when outsourcing your social media efforts makes sense. The Content Funnel has a team of expert social media professionals who specialize in real estate; they can create regularly updated content calendars to handle personalized posts reflecting your real estate brand. Outsourcing to professionals helps you respond to social queries in real time, build influencer relationships, spot important trends, and present a forward-thinking face.
#5. Set Time Limits
Social media’s constant delivery of new information means we easily waste precious time following the rabbit trail. It’s impossible to read every piece of content available on the world wide web. Set time limits for your social media work. For instance, spend 20 minutes a day responding to followers, or one-hour scheduling posts, or half-an-hour curating new content. Once the time expires, move along.