Grab a blank sheet of paper, a fresh cup of Nespresso & your favorite marker pens – Today we’re sharing our favorite (& easy) steps to creating consistent social media content for your real estate biz.
STEP 1: Pick your platform and decide how many days you’re committing to showing up each week! Don’t get overwhelmed with needing to create content for TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Just start with one (you can repurpose that content for other platforms but that’s a topic for another day).
STEP 2: Do your research – Set a “Get Inspired” timer where you look for inspiration on Pinterest, real estate publications or articles, social media accounts of industries outside of real estate (never look within or you’ll run into that giant comparison trap)! Once the timer goes off, make sure you stop consuming. I like to do my research separate from the actual content creation process or I tend to feel paralyzed.
STEP 3: Do a brain dump! What questions have you been asked lately? What time of year is it? What holidays are coming up? What do you want people to know about the current market? How can people work with you right now? How soon should they get started? What resources do you have available for future buyers and sellers?
*My best tip for creating an arsenal of content that you can pull from is to keep a list in the notes app on your phone (or in a Google doc). Actually, create a couple!
List 1: Creative Ideas – Anytime a creative idea pops in your head, add it to the list. This might happen mid shower, when you’re walking the dog, watching Selling Sunset, reading a thriller (you never know!) or after an experience (the kind that makes you think “This would make good content”).
List 2: Real Estate FAQ’s – Anytime a client or friend asks you something about real estate, add it to the list! This will give you ENDLESS ideas!
STEP 4: Create content categories that you can rotate through and assign content topics to. (Staging tips, first time buyer Q&A, behind the scenes, things to do before selling, must know tips for sellers, homeowner tips, etc.)
STEP 5: Map it out – Grab some sticky notes or print out a blank calendar so you can theme each day of the week (that you’re committing to showing up) based on the categories you have. I like to first write it out on sticky notes or a dry erase board but Trello is also a great tool for planning out content if you prefer something digital.
STEP 6: Create an album in your camera roll for “brand photos” – Go through your camera roll and look for photos that represent real estate life or topics you want to incorporate into your strategy and create an album you can easily pull from.. Check your calendar topics and see which images pair well with your content.
*BONUS TIP: I love incorporating my favorite things in my social media posts and photos.It is a super simple way to make your content more you and “UN-COPY-ABLE”! If you are constantly drinking a Grande iced coffee from Starbucks, stopping at Chick-Fil-A between showings or reading the latest thriller – start taking photos while you’re doing these things that can double as social media content.
Here’s a quick example: Let’s say one of your content categories is going to be first time buyer tips. Instead of using a generic stock photo of a house to pair with a post about costs buyers should prepare for prior to house hunting, make it personal. Snap a photo of your Chick-Fil-A next to your buyer packet or next to your laptop with MLS pulled up and then incorporate Chick-Fil-A drive through runs between showings as a “cost to prepare for while house hunting” (this packs so much personality into your content)!
STEP 7: Decide which posts you can repurpose into stories (leverage the content you’re already creating).. Are there tips you can elaborate on or tutorials you could do that tie to that post topic? Write these into your calendar as well!
Here’s an example (I like tangible tips) – You want to create a post about staging tips. You know you’re going to Target tomorrow so while you’re there, pop open your Instagram stories camera and snap a few photos of ideas for staging on a budget! Save them to your camera roll to upload as additional content the day you post about staging tips).
Please remember, you don’t have to go to that extreme for every single post or story. The power of stories is truly in the raw and the real – the behind the scenes of your life and business. But sometimes an opportunity comes up to dive deeper into a topic or get more creative and interactive so why not take advantage?
STEP 8: Fill out 2 weeks to a month worth of post ideas on the calendar. If you’re just getting started, it’s easier to digest 1 week of content at a time (in my opinion) but if you like to check the box off for the full month of content to be ready to hit publish,, go for it
See which topics can be spread out over several posts (ie: 5 things to look for at a showing could be a series of posts) that you dedicate to sharing every Tuesday. Now you took one longer piece of content and broke it up into smaller consumable pieces.
STEP 9: Assign your content types – Which topics do you want to create as reels, carousel posts, single image posts, quote posts, and longer form video? Mix it up!
Identify which content topics could work well as reels. To do this, you might head to Instagram and scroll through reels until you find an audio you want to use. Then look at your list of topics and see which one it pairs with best!
STEP 10: Lastly, head to canva.com to create a free account (or upgrade to pro, it’s worth it). You can CLICK HERE to try it FREE for 30 days!
MIND BLOWING NUGGET: Instead of creating every graphic or post from scratch, utilize the templates available in Canva and then tweak them to fit your style and brand colors. Some of my favorite templates to search in Canva are: lists, reminders, and frames.
Upload the photos I told you to save to an album in your camera roll in Step 6 so you have them ready to drag and drop into your graphics. Then create your Canva brand kit with your own brand colors and fonts to make content creation quick!
Remember this: You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel either, you can use photos and on brand graphics on repeat!
Now go light a candle, put on your blue light blocking glasses and create some binge worthy content!
Oh and if you need some binge worthy content ideas, CLICK HERE for a list of 55 Binge Worthy Content Ideas for Real Estate Agents (that most agents aren’t posting)!
