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If you work in real estate, you know how important it is to have marketing strategies that are both effective and efficient. You need to be able to rely on your social media to help you sell homes without it taking away from the time you’ll need to close on those deals. This is where a real estate content calendar comes in.
Whether you’re new to the real estate scene or you’re a seasoned agent looking to step up your game, taking on the massive world of social media marketing can seem daunting. With a content calendar, you can consistently draw in new prospects with fresh and compelling content. And while setting up a content calendar might seem complicated, we’re here to show just how simple it can be.
Here’s the ultimate guide to creating your real estate content calendar:
Why is a Content Calendar Important for Social Media?
Before we get into how to create your real estate content calendar, it’s first necessary to discuss exactly why a content calendar is needed.
To explain this, let’s look at the purpose of real estate social media:
A realtor has three goals when it comes to creating online content.
First, you want to build trust.
Real estate is an industry wrought with uncertainties and fluctuations. If you want to convince someone to let you sell their house or to buy one you’ve got, they have to trust you. Because of this, your content needs to be centered on establishing a connection with these potential leads.
Second, you want to solidify leads.
Your potential leads are going to see on average 10-15 posts from you before they decide they want to take the next step. Each of these posts needs to show them a new reason they should choose you as a real estate representative. Drive them to crave the solutions you offer, give them an easy way to contact you, and the leads will pour in.
Third, you want to keep a leg up on the competition.
Real estate is a market that is always overloaded with competition. If you want to be the best, you have to keep a leg up on them at all times. And in order to do this, you need to be continuously developing content that serves a purpose. Show them you can solve their problems, answer their questions, and empower them to reach their goals.
In this post, we’ll show you how to utilize the tools at your disposal to create real estate content that gives back the effort you put into it 10-fold.
Here is your ultimate guide to real estate social media calendars.
What is the Biggest Threat to My Content’s Success?
With these three main goals in mind, however, you need to be aware of the one critical error that will sabotage your content: Consistency.
Without solid consistency, your viewers will not trust you, your leads won’t solidify, and your competition is going to wipe the floor with you. In other words, you may as well not even be creating content at all!
To understand why this happens, let’s look at an example:
Let’s say that you are a fan of two local ice cream shops in your area. Both of these shops have “favors of the day” that they post on their social media. Over time, you come to look forward to these posts and you go into their stores to get their flavor of the day more than once. On more than a few occasions, you find yourself excited to get up in the morning and check your social media to see what the daily flavor is.
With one of the ice cream shops, you see it every day without fail. With the other, however, it’s hit or miss whether they will post it or not. Even if they do, it may not be at a consistent time and you could miss it anyway!
Over time, you find yourself disappointed by the second ice cream shop on several occasions. You stop checking their social media to avoid disappointment and eventually stop visiting them. You’re still a regular at the other shop, though.
Now, as a real estate professional, you don’t sell ice cream. But you do rely on consistency all the same.
Creating Your Social Media Content Calendar
Step 1: Categories
To get started with your content calendar, you should first look at what types of posts you want to include in your regiment. These can include:
- Engagement grabbers
- Conversation starters
- Blog post advertisers
- Market updates
- Tips
- Events
- Important announcements
- Listing promos
- Neighborhood promos (for listings you have)
- Questions that require a response
- Polls
- QOTD (quote of the day)
- Promoting old blog posts as they gain new relevance
- Promoting new blog posts
- Real estate news you’ve read and wish to share
- Event/Open House announcements
- Spotlight Listing of the Week
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but it does represent most of what you’ll see on a social media channel. For more options, you can check out this blog from Social Media Today.
Then, once you choose what categories you want and what percentage of your posting each will take up, you should take a look at when you want each one to roll out. For example, you might post-market updates once a week on Fridays while quotes are shared on Wednesdays.
Keep in mind that finding the best times for certain posts may take some trial and error. All audiences react to content differently, so keep an eye on yours and don’t be afraid to make scheduling changes if needed.
Step 2: Create Your Updates
Now that you know what you’ll be posting, it’s time to decide what content calendar tool you’ll be using and start creating your updates. As far as management tools go, some people prefer to use a simple spreadsheet while others will use dedicated software. For this article, we’ll be using the ContentCory social media content calendar as it has a wide array of features for all types of industries.
We recommend creating updates for as far out as you are able. With real estate, this can be difficult because your posts depend highly on the market, but you should still be able to schedule out for a few weeks at a time.
For most content calendars applications, the process of creating an update will look something like this:
You’ll start with what looks like an empty calendar as shown above. To get started, simply click on the day you’d like to schedule the post for. When you do, you’ll get a pop-up that looks like this:
First, select the icon of the social media you’re posting to. Then, check to make sure your date is correct and add any text and photos you have prepared, as well as your tags. When you’re finished, it should look like this:
Now, all you have to do is add as many posts as you have prepared, and voila! Your social media content calendar has been created!
Views in your Real Estate Content Calendar
With content calendars, you may find yourself in need of different views depending on what’s happening in the market. Sometimes, you’ll be able to schedule out a month or two at a time. Other times, you may only be able to do a few weeks or even a few days.
With ContentCory you are privy to daily, weekly, and monthly views to help fill this need. To select your view, simply click on the corresponding button in the upper right-hand corner.
What to Include in Your Real Estate Posts
Whenever you’re getting your posts prepared, you’ll want to have a certain amount of information programmed with it to make your job easier. By having this information at your fingertips, you reduce the amount of time you spend posting to nearly nothing.
Some information you might consider including with your post is:
- Date
- Time
- Post Text
- Images or Video
- Multimedia Links
- Character Counts (if on Twitter)
- Special Notes
- Necessary Tags
By including all or most of the above information, you can turn your social media posting into a much simpler task.
Final Thoughts
As you create your posts, keep in mind that you want to develop a theme amongst your imagery. Whether this is brand colors, specific pictorials, or similar formatting is irrelevant. The major goal is for customers to be able to recognize you just by seeing one of your posts. This will create familiarity over time and facilitate trust.
Additionally, as you fill in your calendar with content, double-check to make sure everything is correct. This will allow you to simply copy and paste your content when the time comes and saves you from embarrassing typo errors later.
You may also consider color-coding your system as well. A common way of doing this is to use red for anything you haven’t written content for or gathered, yellow for things that are ready to post, and green for items that have already been posted.
By utilizing even a simple content calendar, though, you can both decrease the time you spend on social media marketing and solidify your social media presence in the eyes of your prospects.
To learn more about content calendars, check out this blog post for real estate agents. Or, if you have everything you need and are ready to start building your social media presence now, sign up with Content Cory to get started!
Now, here are our questions for you: Do you use a real estate social media calendar currently? If not, are you going to start?