Top 6 Ways to Maximize Social Media for Real Estate Recruiting
There are many elements that comprise a real estate brokerage’s success and one of them is real estate recruiting. Indeed, you have to be proactive in hiring the right people to join your team. Not only do competent recruits increase your income-generating potential, but they can also improve your whole company’s morale.
In short, you need to apply the best practices and the latest recruitment techniques to make sure that you hire the right people. Social media is one such tool, considering the millions of users that are already present in different platforms. The problem is that social recruiting can get tricky. If you don’t do it well, you’ll end up wasting resources.
To help you harness the full potential of social media for real estate recruiting, here are some helpful tips:
Use Videos
One of the best things about social media is that you can get in touch with potential recruits, anytime, anywhere. You can also use it to broadcast your content to either a wider market or to a hyper-targeted audience. Through the help of videos, you can even create an interactive environment that’s more engaging than the usual photos or infographics.
Consider doing live Q&A sessions so you can immediately address the concerns of potential candidates. For more general content that’s still angled toward recruitment, you can also create “day in the life” type of videos that you can publish regularly. Consider featuring your most capable real estate agents and your company culture. You can even do a demo of some of the software you’re using in your brokerage. These can help convince potential recruits to join your company.
Find the Right Conversations
While social media is definitely a useful tool, it’s not without its flaws. These include the abundance of content, which can certainly be distracting even to the most discerning of users. Thus, it’s important for you to hone in on relevant conversations to ensure that your message is heard.
One way to do this is to search for keywords and hashtags that are relevant to real estate job hunters and professionals. Hashtags are especially helpful when you’re creating recruitment content for posting on Twitter and Instagram. You may also want to be more active in recruitment and real estate groups, particularly in platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
Maximize Niche Platforms
The social media platforms mentioned previously are the most popular, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Try exploring other sites, such as online forums like Reddit or Quora. Again, be smart about looking for relevant conversations or trending topics. Sometimes, the real estate superstars you’re looking for can be found in the unlikeliest of places—you just have to know how to look for them.
Optimize Your Pages
If you want your social media pages to be visible, make sure to optimize them. Provide complete information, especially your contact details. In addition, create an “About” section. Include the most important details in the first 150 to 200 characters so they’re the first thing that appears when applicants perform a search.
It’s also important to follow the correct dimensions for images, particularly in your profile pictures and cover photos. You won’t be making a good impression if your display image is cropped in the wrong place. There are also specific measurements for uploads. They vary per platform and they also change from time to time; make sure you stay updated so you can always post content with the correct dimensions.
Be Real
Authenticity is an important component of effective recruitment. You don’t want to come off as a high-and-mighty, too-good-to-be-true company, but you also have to exude professionalism and credibility. To find that perfect balance, enlist the help of your most valuable assets for authentic social media recruitment: your current employees.
Ask your team to share their company experiences on social media. Focus on company culture and why they think your brokerage is a great place to work. It’s also a good idea to sometimes share your employees’ posts (with their permission). By interspersing candid, “real people content” with your usual company-mandated posts, you can evoke that feeling of authenticity and approachability.
Learn How to Analyze Data
The amazing thing about social media is the sheer amount of data you can gather. From audience demographics to viewing habits, you can gain a lot of insights from your social media data. Learn how to analyze these bits of information and you’ll be making top-notch social media recruitment content in no time.
Other things you should pay attention to include trends. They may not be directly associated with real estate, but these trends can help you create engaging, creative content. Pay attention to trending keywords as well, which you can use for what is called “trendjacking” and gain more viewers. Of course, you need to have an agile social media team for this purpose.
For your real estate recruitment to truly succeed, you need to learn how to utilize all your recruitment platforms effectively. Luckily, with some patience and a bit of tech savvy, social media is rather easy to navigate. Take note of these tips so you can maximize your brokerage’s social media presence for recruitment.