2016 Real Estate Social Media Trends

Real estate social media marketing has always been outlier when it comes to the focus of brokerages. Since social media's early days, where platforms were immature startups trying to gain a foothold in the public conciousness, we're now to the point where these are mature, proven platforms, with useful advertising options, and plenty of free opportunities to publicize your real estate brand.

Though the world of social media marketing turns quickly, with new players arriving in the space and existing social networks scrambling to add new functionality to their platforms to stay ahead of the game. Today I'm going to look at a few of the upcoming trends we're going to see in the social media space moving forward in 2016.

Social Media Heads Private

While social networks are known for the noted publicness of things that get shared, there is definitely a move towards privatizing social conversation. Both Facebook and LinkedIn have seen a huge uptick in the number of private groups created on their platforms. These self organized communities can often be where the best conversations are being had online.

Snapchat was one of the frontrunners in this movement, taking social conversation private again, but there's been a shift to messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage and Kik, taking the torch from networks like BBM, MSN and AOL chat products. A generation of users are more comfortable using a chat app than they ever will be with phone/email. This is a big shift for the real estate industry that lives and breathes phone calls, email and face to face interactions. If you're only offering phone and email as the only ways to connect with your real estate leads, you could very well be missing out.

Social Media Networks Keeping Users On Their Sites

Social media platforms are trying to morph themselves into publishing platforms. With Facebook's Instant Articles, LinkedIn Pulse and Twitter's Moments show that social networks are keyed on the idea of keeping users on their site and not yours. These sites have a vested interest in retaining users because they can then sell advertising.

Now the question is, how can you leverage these new mediums to promote your brokerage? You will, more than ever, need to engage with your prospective leads on their turf (social network sites) and not on your own website. This is definitely the sunken costs of using "free" social platforms. They want to grab users and keep them there.

Live Streaming Goes Mainstream

Platforms like Meerkat and Twitter's Periscope made in-roads with many early adopters in 2015 and that momentum will continue into 2016. With Facebook Live soon to being slowly rolled out, the technology looks primed for a breakout year.

Live video has the ability to connect with your social audience in a much more personal way than blog posts, ebooks and audio content like webinars and podcasts. Being able to interact with your audience on the fly in a less formal atmosphere can can be a big time saver too. Being able to create video content without the need for editing and fancy graphics can really be liberating.

A service to watch in this space is Blab.im. Combining the functionality of group video like Google Hangouts with the social chat and audience interaction of Periscope, this app is pretty ideal for running webinars, podcasts and any number of other live video applications.

No Excuses For An Outdated Website

It doesn't matter the size of your brokerage, the time to update your online presence is now. According to research done by Google, the first impression of your website happens in the first 50 milliseconds, equal to a blink of an eye. Design, rather than content is what shapes initial perceptions and the brand associated with the website. A study of health industry websites found that of all factors that were mentioned for rejecting or mistrusting a website, 94% of them were design related and only 6% pertained to content.

Make sure that your website is up to par with competitors in your market. You could be making a bad first impression before you've had a chance to make contact with potential leads. Even if your site has been updated in the last few years, consider looking at what social media icons your site utilizes. Sites like Twitter and Google+ have changed their branding a few times over the years and I frequently see sites with old social branding. It's a small detail, but could be something that gives a potential lead bad vibes about your brokerages web presence.

To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.