Posted over 4 years ago

6-Steps to Attract 100,000 New Social Media Followers

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How impactful would an extra 100,000 social media followers have on your real estate business? That’s 100,000 more potential customers, clients, investors, and leads! Take the increase in referrals into account and you’ve expanded your network even more.

So how do you increase your social media presence?

In my conversation with Ryan Wallace, who is a social media enthusiast, he provided a 6-step process that allowed him to obtain 56,000 Facebook likes and 34,000 Instagram followers in just 12-months. While Ryan’s profile serves the purpose of expanding a photography business, with creative thinking on your part, the same process can easily be applied to real estate as well.

After starting a successful solar company, Ryan decided that he wanted to create a local presence on social media. He has a passion for photography, but taking photos by himself was too time-consuming and took away from his other business endeavors. He decided that instead, he would feature other local photographers on his page. Luckily, he made the correct choice because his page started exploding. And lucky for us, Ryan shared the process that allowed him to grow quickly for others to replicate and see similar success.

Step #1 – Start a social media page emphasizing your niche

The first step is to create a social media page and determine the niche you will pursue. For Ryan, his passion was photography and the social media platform was the image-based Instagram platform. Adding in his local market, New Mexico, and niche was “New Mexico photography.

In regards to real estate, your niche could be the real estate strategy and the local or target market you are pursuing (i.e. Dallas Realtors, New York landlords, San Francisco Flippers, etc.)

Step #2 – Start searching hashtags based on your niche

Once you’ve selected your niche, the next step is to search hashtags for relevant and popular content. However, instead of simply searching #Dallas or #realtors, search for things that bring pride to the target city or region. The goal is to find gorgeous images of things that both you and your followers are passionate about.

For example, in regards to photography, if Ryan was creating a new account in Los Angeles, he would search for terms like #disneyland or #lalife.

As a real estate professional, this is where you want to be creative and search based on your passions. If you are having trouble coming up with ideas, a quick tip is to search your niche (let’s use #NYrealestate), look at the most popular posts, and see what hashtags they are using. Another idea would to search for the style of home you find the most appealing followed by “house” (i.e. #victorianhouse, #modernhouse, etc.)

Step #3 – Reach out to top profiles

Based on your search criteria, whichever profile has the most likes (on Instagram, they will be featured in the “Top Posts” section), comment on their picture. When Ryan comments, he writes, “hey, awesome picture! If you would like to be featured on my page, please email <email address> with the picture, picture information, and your Instagram name and we will feature it!”

The exact same message can apply for real estate as well. Comment on the top profiles in your niche and offer to feature their content on your page.

Ryan finds that the majority of the people will email you. Maybe 1 out of 10 won’t, but most are flattered and will welcome the free exposure, so they are more than willing to allow you to share their content.

Step #4 – Create amazing social media posts

Once you have their image in your inbox, it is time to create a post. Be sure to include all relevant hashtags, but more importantly, don’t forget to give credit to the photos original author. You do this by either mentioning their social media handle in the post, tagging them on the actual image or both.

The majority of the time, photos original author will comment expressing their gratitude, and/or share the post on their page, pushing it out to their followers. ALWAYS reply back to comments and follow up on shares.

Step #5 – Interact on the comment section

As your following grows, you will begin to receive a ton of follower comments. In order to maintain a nice engaging experience for everyone, Ryan makes the comment section as interactive as possible. Replying to comments and being very gracious is key towards an increasing follower base and ultimately, an increase in conversions.

Step #6 – Leverage your large following

Once Ryan was able to get his large following, he was able to successfully launch an app that had over 5000 downloads in 4 days. Also, he has some of the biggest brands in-state advertising with him. He is contacted by real estate agents who want to place their listings on his app. All the major media outlets in New Mexico have interviewed him. Finally, he was able to be in two main newspapers in Albuquerque.

For your page, you can start posting your content (blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc.), services, deals, or anything related to your business.

After you’ve created your large real estate following, the benefits are virtually limitless, from lead generation to selling your products and services!