Have you just won a bunch of listings in a new neighborhood? Surely, you need to know the area’s ins and outs to succeed in real estate neighborhood marketing. The best way to explore is to have a good drive or walk around, but before you do that, do some online engineering to save time and carbon emissions.
Social media offers not just countless distractions, but a wealth of information about all kinds of places too. Use it to get to know your area better, especially as you can do so with a click of a button or, better yet, with a tap of a finger.
This should give you at least three huge benefits for your real estate neighborhood marketing efforts:
- you can explore a new area in an enjoyable and interactive manner: the most popular places and hallmarks, local lingo, infrastructure, facilities and the local lifestyle which is all incredibly important to…
- …position yourself as a local expert. People will only work with an agent if they believe they know the local area and market well enough to help them reach and maximize their real estate goals;
- identify prominent local businesses, influencers and bloggers you can work together to produce and promote excellent local content which will maximize your marketing reach.
Real estate neighborhood marketing: exploring new areas
1. Facebook city guides
Earlier in March this year, Facebook rolled out an interesting feature, City Guides. As its name suggests, the feature aims to provide a broad overview of a city focusing on places to go and eat as well as its landmarks and must-see spots.
This sounds more like a feature for tourism companies which the industry City Guides were created for in the first place. But agents often need the exact same kind of info to market their listings, write compelling property descriptions and shoot engaging videos.
Source: TechCrunch
How to use City Guides on Facebook: go to a Facebook mobile app, then navigate to the explore tab. Search for a city and you’ll find City Guides on the list:
Source: Mashable
2. Twitter Advanced Search
Twitter may not be the top social network for agents, but when it comes to exploring new areas and real estate neighborhood marketing, it’s invaluable. Its advanced search can provide agents with a stream of local news and insights which are so valuable you can keep the blogging work for lead generation.
How to use Twitter advanced search: follow this link, type in [Your city] city guide and check out the results which will be a mix of relevant links, photos, videos and news you can refer to. Another benefit of this tool is that it also uncovers tweets that are published by people living in that particular location rather than by anyone else who might mention the place.
3. Instagram Places
Another handy way to get interesting info for a real estate neighborhood marketing strategy is the Instagram Places tab. Pretty much similar to Facebook, it will provide you with a list of city-related searches. Instagram might be the best place to find local influencers for your content marketing and social media campaigns so it’s worth taking a look.
How to use Instagram Places: open up the search (available on desktop and mobile), type your neighborhood and see the list of the most recent posts from people tagging that location.
4. Foursquare City Guide app
The Facebook City Guides feature is essentially a rival to the Foursquare City Guide app which was available long before Facebook started targeting this kind of info.
How to use Foursquare City Guide app: install one on your phone (Android & iOS available), then start searching for places in your area. You can get to know the area better and find local businesses you can either partner up with or write about on your blog, then reach out and share each other’s content and deals.
What’s next?
The whole process will take you a few minutes, yet your real estate neighborhood marketing strategy will be powered by real-life data and interesting facts. From many perspectives, this is going to be a tangible help and might put you ahead of the local competition.
