You can be considered a leader in your area, have extensive knowledge, and be the best when it comes to assisting your clients. It means nothing if you aren’t generating business by using the most efficient and effective tools.

I grew up in this real estate business as a very young man watching the “older agents,” who were reluctant to give up their precious house information to an electronic version of the Multiple Listing Service, then skeptical of email and then eventually, text messaging.

The real estate industry has been around since the 1800s and, while the fundamentals are the same, the ways in which we showcase properties, engage with clients and secure listings have evolved along with the information superhighway; leaving us industry veterans to navigate the most efficient and effective ways through which to bridge the gap with our clients and potential clients.

Marketing our clients’ properties has become much cheaper and efficient over the years. The days of agents with personal $50-$100K yearly budgets for marketing their listings is essentially in the past. Our listings are automatically fed to all the major real estate marketing sites directly through the MLS in most cases. However, this comes with a price of its own, as OUR listings become other peoples’ marketing tools. The leads we previously received through simple marketing tactics no longer come our way. They are repackaged and sold to others who are willing to pay the fees that these large marketing agencies charge. Essentially, we have, in many ways, sacrificed our traditional methods of personal lead generation. Begging the question, how do we take them back?

Granted, some of us are showing up to this social media game a bit late, but if our tardiness has taught us anything, it is the importance of visibility and creating compelling content that keeps our clients, ours. It has also made it so our job is to promote personal home inventories on behalf of our seller clients, and to also market our own image and build brand recognition. We are responsible for developing our own narratives and perceptions to our spheres of influence and beyond, in ways that align to channel capabilities and purposes. For instance, a high engagement post on LinkedIn may not generate many interactions on Instagram. One channel lends itself well to long-form article promotions, the other is highly visual and leans less heavily on copy. Trust me, it is not as complicated as it sounds but it is important to keep these things front and center of your strategy.

I have worn many hats throughout my 25+ year career in this industry. From owning a good sized, multi-office RE/MAX franchise to operating as a team leader and a developer/builder. Now, I’m back to my roots as an individual agent and I’m finding that as a sole practitioner, social media may be the most critical tool when it comes to attracting business. I have decided to take a collaborative approach to my social media strategy. I know that my knowledge and goals are critical to putting out the right messaging, but I also know that managing these outlets can be a hard lift. So I have partnered with a small, local shop that can assist with logistics and ideas but that won’t break the bank, and run in a direction that just doesn’t make sense for my brand. That’s not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t tackle this stuff on your own, but I am saying that there is support out there and you do not need to exhaust your resources in order to tap into it.