Establish Your Goals

What are you looking to accomplish through your social media efforts? Whether it’s hiring a team, targeting consumers or establishing referral relationships, social media can be effective. There is significant planning that goes into creating a social strategy that will set you up for success. Establishing your goals with social media should be the first step in this planning process.

Keep in mind, you can have more than one goal on social media, it will simply require more planning and more effort. It’s likely that you are trying to expand your business both internally, by hiring employees, and externally, by growing your client-base. Social media can help you accomplish both, however, each demographic will need to see relevant content in order to be targeted.

Identify Your Audience

Once your goals are in place, identifying the audience that you’re looking to connect with is the next important step. This is arguably the most crucial part, because the content you post is dependent on who will be seeing it. Don’t be afraid to get too specific during this step; the more details you have, the better.

Think about the best transactions you’ve had with clients or consumers. How old were they? What values were important to them? What did they struggle with? These are all important pieces of information that will help you map out a successful strategy. 

If they are first time homebuyers, there are certain items that they most likely don’t know about the home buying process; that’s where you come in. If they are buying their second home, it could be due to an expanding family; capitalize on that. The more you know about them and what their goals are, the better.

Choose a Social Media Platform

If you know your target audience but are posting content on the wrong platforms, you are better off not posting at all. Different types of consumers spend their time on social media for different reasons. If you’re targeting:

• Middle aged/older generations: Facebook is the most relevant platform. Facebook favors short videos that get to the point and copy that can be lengthier compared to other platforms.

• Teenagers/young adults: Instagram is the most popular among this demographic. Aesthetically pleasing photos and videos have the highest performance rate. Instagram audiences enjoy getting a sneak peek into everyday life and the meaning behind what you do.

• Professionals of any age: LinkedIn is the polished, professional platform where campaigns to target individuals seeking jobs will see success. If you’re looking to hire, this is where you want to be. Graphics that translate data, videos and longer-form text perform well on LinkedIn. One mistake that is commonly made on this platform is being too still when engaging; you should still come across as a human being, simply avoid controversial topics as with any professional.

It’s possible that each platform you choose will serve a different purpose for your company. LinkedIn can show the success that you’re experiencing and give you the ability to spotlight employees in order to show prospects where they could be if they join your organization.

Instagram can give clients and customers the behind-the-scenes experience so they feel more of a connection to your vision. Facebook can be a great way to showcase and tag satisfied clients as well as join groups to be active in the community.

Learn how to set up a business page on Facebook by reading our blog How to Set Up Your Facebook Business Page.

Create Value

One question that is commonly asked is, “How much should I be posting in order to stay relevant?” There is no black and white answer; if you are creating value for your followers and solving their problems, once a day is ideal. Think about yourself and the content that you see on social media. If you follow an account that posts something useful every day, would you get tired of it? It’s not likely. Instead, you will keep that account top of mind and refer back to it if need be. 

Refer back to your target demographic and the pain points that they experience. What can you provide in order to help solve their problems, before they are a client or customer? If you provide value to them prior to them giving you even a dollar, they will trust you and be much more inclined to do business with you.

Ask – If you Don’t, the Answer is Always “No”

The balance between asking followers to take action and being “salesy” can be a fine line. It’s important that your followers trust you before asking them to help you; again, if you’re creating value for them, they will be more willing to jump in when you ask them to subscribe, share a post or join a webinar. 

Be intentional when asking your followers to take action. Include a call to action (or CTA) that tells them exactly what you want them to do. It may be clear to you, however, your followers can’t read your mind, so be direct.

Come up with a journey that your prospects go through before pulling the trigger on your product or service and guide them through it. If you want someone to attend a webinar, that’s great, but why?

To learn more about the vision of your company in order to have them emotionally invested, or are you showing them the benefits of your product or service so they buy on the spot? Of all people, you should know this before asking others to jump in.

Asking also goes for getting consumer-driven content. If you know a certain borrower had a great experience working with you, ask them to leave a review. Have them post a picture in their new home and tag you. This is a great way to build a reputation and generate word of mouth referrals from past clients.

This is one example of a customer journey:

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Engage Your Audience

After you have a good strategy in place and begin posting consistently, maintain your traction by engaging with anyone who comments or asks questions on your posts. If they have follow-up questions to the content you’re putting out, this means that you caught their attention. This also provides you with more content ideas that will continue solving pain points for your audience; if one person doesn’t know the answer, they are likely not the only one. 

Taking it one step further, you can be the one to take action and post to generate more engagement from your audience. Create a poll and ask what they are most concerned about when beginning the home buying process, the biggest question they have about mortgages, etc. The more you can learn from them, the more effective your strategy will be.

Social media can be an intimidating task to take on, take it one step at a time. It’s important that you strategize long-term and have goals in place so you can be intentional when communicating with your audience. If you read this and want to take a deeper dive into strategizing, email communications@aimegroup.com and we can schedule time to chat.