Social media is an important part of your home’s marketing plan. Out of all the most common sources, it produces some of the highest quality real estate leads i.e. potential buyers for your home. A survey in 2018 revealed that 50% of all buyers found their home online (this number is even higher in the youngest generation currently entering the real estate market for the first time). Chances are your REALTOR® will be posting your home to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media websites. As the homeowner and seller, it’s important you follow some social media etiquette, despite the public status of these posts.
DO NOT
Respond to inquiries on posts about your home. Let your agent or their staff respond. As soon as you comment, it’s in writing. While many questions are pretty basic (like, “how much are the HOA dues?”), some call for answers that may put you at a disadvantage or shouldn’t be discussed under Fair Housing rules. Plus, once you initiate contact, buyers will go straight to you for all their questions, and we’ve seen this cause quite a few complications in transactions.
Respond to ugly or negative comments on posts about your home. It’s the internet and people can be downright rude at times. Your first instinct may be to defend your home, but you must remember that for every comment, there are about 100 people silently watching. The person commenting may not have any intention of purchasing your home, but there’s a chance a potential buyer is following the thread and people will avoid anything they deem a messy situation.
Tag yourself in pictures of your home. That tag provides a direct path right back to your profile where people are likely to see pictures of you and your home. Without it, people are unlikely to know you’re the owner. You work hard to make your property shine for the listing photos. Photos provided out of context can send the wrong message. Not to mention that some people are just nosy. Best to stay under the radar.
DO
Like and share the posts about your home. It’s not a requirement. Sometimes, you don’t want certain family members or friends to know you’re moving. However, sharing the posts tells the site’s algorithm that it’s something people are interested in and should be shown to more users (not just your friends). If you don’t want to share your home, consider sharing other posts from your REALTOR’s account. This will indirectly help boost activity.
Try to keep all shared posts and links to your home “Friends Only” or private. Not all social media sites make it easy to change security levels on individual posts, but it may be worth the hassle to change your profile settings to a non-public level while your home is listed. That way you are still spreading the word but maintaining privacy.
Watch videos about your home all the way through. The longer a video is watched, the higher its quality rating goes. The higher the rating, the more it will be recommended to other users.
Give your REALTOR’s profile a like or follow. That way you’ll see all the marketing of the home as it rolls out. It’ll also help raise their profile in searches so it’s more likely to be seen.
While it’s your REALTOR’s job to spearhead the marketing of your home, a little bit of support can improve its overall reach to potential buyers. Just remember to let your REALTOR and their staff handle all inquiries or you’re likely to find yourself in a problematic situation. It’s important to maintain some distance from buyers in the digital-but-public setting.
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