9 Social Media Musts Before You Become a Real Estate Agent

You probably have a mile-long to-do list if you are just getting started in real estate. However, it's important that you block out some time each week to work on your social media presence. In today’s real estate market, developing your brand on social media is crucial to marketing your business - especially when marketing to Millennials.

Key Takeaways

• Audit and Professionalize Social Media Profiles: Ensure your social media accounts have a professional profile picture, updated contact information, and are converted to business accounts to access advanced metrics and ad creation tools.
• Update LinkedIn and Network: Add relevant real estate or sales experience to your LinkedIn profile and start connecting with real estate leaders, local brokers, and community members to build a supportive network.
• Clean Up and Manage Privacy Settings: Conduct a social media audit to remove any posts that don't fit your professional brand. Adjust privacy settings to keep personal content separate and ensure only relevant professional content is public.
• Share Relevant Real Estate Content: Begin sharing industry news and helpful real estate information to establish yourself as an expert and increase engagement with your audience.
• Analyze and Monitor Online Presence: Use tools like BrandYourself.com or perform a self-Google search to audit and manage your online presence, ensuring no inappropriate content remains that could affect your professional image.

Here’s how to audit your social media presence before you become a real estate agent to prepare your accounts for your new career.

Review Your Social Media Accounts Before Becoming a Real Estate Agent

Social media is a crucial part of branding your real estate business. Here’s how to get your accounts ready for your new career.

1. Choose a professional profile picture.

Before you officially become a real estate agent and start earning listings, you’ll want to ensure your profile picture is professional, clean, and consistent across all platforms. You don’t have to spend a lot of money taking new pictures. Taking a well-lit photo with your smartphone can be sufficient.

2. Change your accounts from personal to business.

Designating your Instagram and Facebook profile as a “business” gives you access to advanced metrics you wouldn’t otherwise be able to view. It also allows you to start creating paid ads.

3. Update your contact information.

You want to ensure it's easy for potential clients to contact you. While they might message you directly on the social media platform, they might also prefer to call, text, email, or send a message through your website. Make sure that information is updated and that you receive instant notifications of those numbers and accounts.

4. Add your real estate experience to LinkedIn.

Even though you might not feel like an official real estate agent yet, it’s a good idea to update your LinkedIn profile to indicate you are preparing to get your real estate license. If you have an experience that relates to real estate or sales, make sure you adequately represent this as well.

Free Guide: Make the transition to real estate as seamless as possible with the Real Estate Career Switch Guide.

5. Connect with real estate leaders and community members.

Following local leaders and business owners is a great way to prepare your account for your official debut as a real estate agent. Use your social media to establish yourself and your business as a supportive community member. Also, follow local brokers and other agents you might be working with when you start your career. Social media can be a great way to begin networking.

6. Remove old posts that don’t fit your brand.

If you had only used social media for personal purposes before, you might not have been as conscious of what you were posting and what those posts might convey to your potential client base. Do a social media audit of your current posts and consider removing anything negative or divisive. It’s great to inject your personality into your social media posts. Just make sure whatever is currently on your profile isn’t something that could turn off prospective clients.

7. Decide what should stay private and change your settings.

If you’re opting to keep separate personal and business social media profiles, then now’s the time to review your profile and change your privacy settings. After changing your settings, log out of each account and search for your name on each platform to double-check that you made your settings private.

8. Begin sharing relevant real estate content.

To establish yourself as an industry expert and leader, share relevant real estate news with your audience. The more helpful you can be, the more value people will find in following your real estate social media pages or blog, potentially increasing your engagement.

For examples and inspiration, sign up to receive this helpful real estate starter kit, which includes social media templates.

9. Analyze your online presence.

Once you’ve cleaned up your social media profiles and tweaked them to be appropriate for your new career as a real estate agent, it’s time to double-check that your efforts have been thorough. Websites like BrandYourself.com allow you to audit all the information available about you online so that you can see if there is any content you might have missed.

Another option is to Google yourself and evaluate the results. Make sure you Google yourself from an incognito window (if you use Google Chrome) or erase your cookies before Googling from other websites. Why? You don’t want your search results to be influenced by your previous browsing history.

Learn How to Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Not only is social media a great way to grow your brand, but it can also be used to generate leads. Make sure you get off on the right foot regarding social media by preparing your profiles before you officially become a real estate agent.

Having all your social media ready to go as soon as you get your real estate license can help you launch your career smoothly and generate positive momentum for your future as a real estate agent.

Get additional tips for your social media accounts by signing up for the Arizona School of Real Estate & Business (ASREB) Career Starter Kit. Full of actionable strategies (and social media templates), our starter kit is just the tip of the iceberg of the career resources offered by ASREB.