5 Unique Tips to Boost Your Social Reach

When reading about increasing social reach, you will undoubtedly hear about the 80/20 rule, posting useful stories, and responding to your followers. These tips are important (content is always king), but what are some new things you can do to boost the number of eyeballs seeing your social posts? Here are five unique tips to help you engage with more social users and increase your reach.

1. Use hashtags

Hashtags--for example, #realestate--are one of the best ways to optimize your social posts. Including a hashtag makes your post searchable so others can find it, even if they aren't following you. By tagging your post with a keyword like #southflorida, #newhome, #househunting, #openhouse, etc., your posts will be grouped with others that contain the same hashtag. This is a great way to engage with people who have similar interests and encourage them to follow you! We recommend using 2-3 hashtags on Twitter and Facebook, and 5-10 on Instagram to help draw in followers. Just keep in mind that too many hashtags can overburden your messages, so make tags relevant and use them when you think it's helpful.

2. Offer to share or re-tweet your followers' content

How often do you ask your followers to share your content? Why not return the favor? Ask followers if they have something going on that they'd like you to promote on your pages. Maybe a local business is hosting a grand opening or a moving company is having a special discount for Memorial Day weekend. Cross-promotion opportunities allow you to provide valuable content to your followers while connecting with new people through the other company.

3. Credit your sources

Did you find a great article that you just had to share with your followers? Be sure to give credit to or mention the original poster using an @mention. This is not just best practice, it also helps you get into the source's line of sight. You could spark a relationship with this user, encouraging them to look back through your own content, or it could also inspire them to thank you publicly for your share, putting you in front of all their followers.

4. Make your content sharable

Increasing your social reach involves more than just your social pages. If you have a real estate blog, you've already created the perfect opportunity for more people to connect with you. Make sure you're creating strong content on your blog, so readers will be more likely to share it with their followers. Articles that are reactive, informative, and interesting are more likely to be shared. When looking for content ideas, browse real estate industry news to see which hot topics are trending. Try writing a piece about how a trending topic has affected you or your business. For example, live video marketing has recently become more popular. Why not use this technology by hosting a live tour of your newest listing, all while becoming familiar enough about it to write a review?

In addition to this, according to Entrepreneur, "people are more likely to share content that will help define themselves to others, while 68 percent of people share to show who they are and what they care about." Do you regularly work with millennials or empty-nesters? Create content that you think they could connect with, such as popular problems these groups come across when buying or selling their homes. For even easier social sharing, embed a widget in your blog that will allow users to post snippets from your article and link directly to it.

5. Stay active

As a busy professional, this can be the most challenging tip to follow. To help you stay on track, at the beginning of each month, create a content calendar. Look ahead to see which holidays are coming up or if your community is hosting any events that you should mention.

To view the original article, visit the Homes.com blog.