Instagram Algorithm

How to make Instagram’s algorithm work for you

From a business perspective, Instagram is somewhat of a strange social media platform when it comes to how its algorithm works.

While some social media platforms, such as Twitter, simply list posts in chronological order, Instagram works a little different. Previously the platform worked backwards in a reverse chronological order, much to many users (and businesses!) dismay.

Fortunately, Instagram listened to the complaints, so have recently altered their algorithm which not only determines the order in which content appears but also what content is also suggested to the user.

The bad news is that it’s now more complicated for businesses to ensure their content and brand is being seen by the right people. The good news is that if you understand how it works, Instagram can become a more powerful tool for your business than ever before. Read on to find out how to make Instagram’s algorithm work for you.

Who’s interested?

Instagram’s algorithm is primarily based on three main principles, with the first being that of interest.

This part of the algorithm looks at how much it thinks each user will be interested in a specific post. There are many factors that play into this, but it is largely based on what kind of content the user has looked at in the past.

What does this mean for your business then? It means Instagram is now better at promoting your company to like-minded people than ever before, meaning the people who see your content are likely to be the people interested in what you have to offer anyway.

Chronological order is back. Sort of.

While Instagram doesn’t completely work in chronological order, its recent changes ensure posts do appear in a more time specific order than before.

This means that more recent content will appear higher up in the feed, meaning more people will be exposed to your content.

By ensuring you promote your businesses regularly and at high activity times on Instagram, you can increase your chances of people seeing and interacting with your post.

Let’s get interactive

That’s right, to be successful on Instagram, you need to ensure users don’t just see your content, but that they interact with it too.

This is because the final, and most important part of Instagram’s new algorithm, is interactivity.

Instagram rewards posts that promote conversation, i.e. posts that get lots of comments and shares. It’s therefore in your best interest to ensure that all your content encourages users to get involved and respond to your post, rather than simply be an ad that the user scrolls by.

Posing a question to users or encouraging them to let them know what they think are great ways to promote discussion. Remember, the more people get involved, the more likely Instagram will promote your posts to these people again.

Take control of Instagram

Instagram is an excellent tool to help promote any businesses, and with the knowledge of how to make its new algorithm work for you and your business, you’ll be sure to rake in those likes, comments, and more importantly, customers in no time.

Happy Agent

Increasing Customer Numbers with a ‘Can Do’ Attitude

In the real estate industry, things have become hugely competitive over recent years. For real estate companies that want to boost their customer numbers, things can become very challenging because of the sheer number of competitors. The key, of course, is to make yourself and your agency stand out from the rivals and there are various ways in which you can do this. Effective marketing, building a solid reputation, offering quality service, and excellent customer service levels are all part and parcel of staying a step ahead of other real estate companies. Another key factor that can help when it comes to increasing customer numbers is to adopt a ‘can do’ attitude.

Over the years, many real estate companies have made the mistake of basing their marketing on themselves. In short, the marketing materials that they have used have all been focused on their achievements, what they have done in the past, and what they are all about. However, there has been little by way of providing information on what they can do for potential customers. This has been branded a selfish method of marketing as it is all about you as the real estate agent rather than about the customer. While customers obviously want to know how good you are and learn more about your past achievements, their main interest will be in what you can do for them. As such, you should always ensure you adopt the ‘can do’ attitude and that this is reflected in your marketing methods and materials.

What you need to do to boost success 

It is important to let your potential customers know about your excellent reputation, your achievements, and your expertise when it comes to the real estate market. However, you need to ensure that your number one priority is showing customers exactly what you can do to help them and how to plan to do this. While your potential audience will want to know that they are dealing with someone that has a solid reputation and plenty of experience, their main interest will be in what you can do for them. This is something that you, therefore, need to focus on rather than making your marketing all about you. It should, in essence, be all about the customer.

The other thing that you need to avoid in the real estate industry is the use of hard sell tactics, which customers simply are not interested in these days. In today’s high-tech world, consumers have plenty of information at their fingertips as well as a huge choice of potential real estate agencies that they can work with. What they want to do is to make an informed choice themselves based on the real estate agent that is likely to prove most helpful. What they don’t want is a real estate agent trying to railroad them into signing up with them regardless of whether the customer feels that this is the right agency for their needs.

Get the most from social media

Making the Most of Social Media Posts

As a real estate company, the chances are that you are already using social media platforms in order to increase exposure, marketing your properties, and engage with your audience. When it comes to customer engagement, social media can prove invaluable and provides a cheap, effective, and speedy means of gaining the attention of your audience. However, in order to truly benefit from social media, you need to ensure you are posting in the correct way.

One of the things you have to be mindful of when using social media platforms for your real estate business is the length of your posts. If you do not take length into consideration, you could run into all sorts of issues from losing the interest of your customers to having part of your post cut off from sight. In addition, you have to remember that there are limits with some social media platforms, which means that you have to find ways to submit posts that are succinct but will still capture the attention of your readers.

Post length recommendations for popular social media platforms 

Most businesses use a variety of different social media platforms in order to engage with customers and market their goods and services. This is a great way of boosting exposure and driving more traffic to your site. However, you need to keep the importance of post length in mind when using these platforms. Below, you will find recommended post length for some of the most popular social media platforms that are used by real estate and other businesses:

Facebook:

With Facebook, you will generally get more likes and comments with shorter posts. For organic posts, the recommendation is up to 80 characters if you want to attract the attention of audiences and increase the chances of shares. For paid posts, the recommendation is 5-18 words, which includes a headline, main text, and description. You also need to think about video content that you post on this site, with the recommendation being 30-60 seconds.

Twitter: 

This is another very popular social media platform that is used by many businesses. Last year, the social media site doubled the amount of characters that could be used, as this make it easier for people and businesses to get their point across. There are still limitations in place, so you already have a cap on the number of characters that you can use. In terms of recommendations, for organic and promoted tweets between 70 and 100 characters is deemed ideal. For Twitter hashtags, the recommendation is six characters.

LinkedIn: 

One of the other major social media platforms for businesses is LinkedIn. When using this platform, quality and length of posts must be taken into consideration. For organic and paid updates, it is recommended that you use no more than 25 words. For articles on LinkedIn, the recommendation is 1900-2000 words – again, the content should be of very high quality.

By making sure you are mindful about the length of your posts, you can make a big difference when it comes to how much the posts are read, shared and liked.

iPad Social Media

Using Social Media to Increase Exposure for Your Real Estate Business

The real estate market is a hugely competitive one, which is why it is essential for businesses within the industry to think outside the box when it comes to marketing. There are many different marketing methods that are used by real estate agencies and businesses these days. Some of these can be quite costly, which can make it difficult to keep you budget under control. However, one very cost effective and simple method of marketing your real estate business and properties is through the use of social media.

Social media has become huge over recent years, with billions of people around the world using these platforms for all sorts of reasons. For businesses, this has resulted in a highly efficient yet simple and affordable solution to marketing services and products. For real estate companies, social media has made it easier than ever to not only market the business as a whole but also boost exposure for specific properties.

A speedy and convenient marketing solution 

In the past, marketing properties could be quite a chore for the average real estate company. Newspaper ads, brochures, and property listings are all effective means of advertising but can be costly and time-consuming. However, when you add social media to the mix you find yourself with a highly efficient solution that can work wonders when it comes to gaining exposure.

Take LinkedIn, for example. This is a very popular social media network that is used by many businesses in a wide range of industries. According to statistics, around 64 percent of visits to corporate websites through social media are due to this social media site, which shows just how effective it can be in terms of generating interest and boosting website traffic. This makes it easier for you to direct people to your property pages online so that you can market your properties more effectively.

The potential of social media platforms such as LinkedIn is huge, which is why they have proven so popular amongst businesses such as real estate companies. The property market is one that is always fluctuating and you may find that interest in properties wanes periodically, which makes it more difficult to sell. However, when you use social media effectively, you can generate more interest in your properties by being proactive rather than sitting and waiting for people to take an interest in the properties that you have available.

Using a combination of social media platforms 

As the saying goes, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. When it comes to social media, it is best to use a variety of different social media platforms rather than just sticking to one. If you find that one particular platform is not performing all that well, you can always adapt and switch to different ones. Using a range of difference platforms will further enhance your ability to generate interest in your properties as well as to drive more traffic to your website.

LinkedIn

Your One-Stop Guide to LinkedIn B2B Marketing

It might not be one of the biggest networks in Australia, but that doesn’t mean LinkedIn still can’t pack a punch.

In addition to the recent algorithm changes from Facebook and Twitter, organic reach has been limited for businesses, making it harder than ever for them to get their messages out there without paying for promotions.

Don’t worry, however. If you’ve been affected by these algorithm changes, LinkedIn could be your saving grace. Read on to find out everything you need to know about B2B marketing for LinkedIn.

Why Should You Care About LinkedIn?

It might seem like a small fish in a big pond, but LinkedIn now drives over 50% of all social traffic to B2B blogs and websites. And for those willing to put in the groundwork, the benefits you can reap from LinkedIn are huge:

  • LinkedIn makes up 64% of all visits to corporate websites from social sites
  • 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn to be the most effective platform for lead generation

LinkedIn isn’t getting too comfortable, however. It’s still putting in the effort, recently announcing a 60% spike in their engagement rates.

What Best Practices Should You Use for LinkedIn marketing?

There are a number of best practices that should be followed when marketing on LinkedIn. The first rule is this – think before you act.

Set up a LinkedIn company page, then produce a strategy to keep your marketing efforts focused and to prevent you from getting distracted by new initiatives.

Remain Focused

After the initial spike in interest after joining LinkedIn disappears (don’t worry, it happens), it’s not uncommon for real estate agencies to lose momentum.

However, like any marketing activity, it’s important to understand that B2B marketing on LinkedIn takes time to develop, so it might be a while before you see a return on your investment.

Pick Your Audience Well

Iron out exactly who it is that you want to build relationships with on LinkedIn. Whilst connecting with an executive in London might be alright if your niche is overseas property investors, if you’re looking to sell a 3-bedroom home to local buyers it might not be the best use of your time.

Stay Tactical

You need to create a clear strategy for each element of your LinkedIn B2B marketing, covering what you’re going to post and when.

How to Maximise the Results You See from LinkedIn

Here is a quick list of the tactics you can employ to maximise the benefits you get from your LinkedIn B2B marketing efforts:

1) Focus on content – make it clear in your content how your service can help buyers and sellers in your area.

2) Don’t oversell – your content should help your readers, not directly sell to them.

3) Be relatable – make 25% of your content about the issues you care about in your community.

4) Post regularly – once a day is your best bet, but if you can’t make that, post as often as you can.

5) Engage with your team – get your team and other brand advocates to share your content to boost your reach.

6) Focus on keywords – use keywords within your business page to help it appear in search results.

7) Go on the hunt – use the search functions of LinkedIn to identify potential new clients.

8) Analyse and improve – use the analytics function on your company page to discover what content works best.

How to Design and Launch Effective B2B Marketing Campaigns

From video ads to Sponsored InMail, there are a number of opportunities for advertising your real estate brand on LinkedIn. With these, you’ll also be able to effectively target specific segments of your target audience.

However, which one is right for your goals? Let’s take a look at each option to help you work it out:

LinkedIn Text Ads

These show up in the top and right sides of your audience’s feeds, featuring short ad copy and an optional brand image.

This is an affordable and basic yet effective option that’s a great choice if you’re looking to target specific audiences, find new talent and boost website traffic.

LinkedIn Sponsored Content

This is a standard post, boosted with an ad budget. This is a chance for you to get a company update using 150 characters or less, along with introduction copy using less than 70 characters and an image into the news feeds of your audience.

LinkedIn Sponsored Content is ideal for promoting your thought leadership, boosting brand awareness and increasing your follower count.

LinkedIn Sponsored Mail

Got a specific message you want to communicate to a number of people? Sponsored Mail lets you send private messages to LinkedIn users, featuring their name, a subject line, body copy and a CTA button.

If you’re looking to send out personalised event invitations, boost downloads of your content such as whitepapers and guides and engage with your prospects, this is a great option.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads adapt to each user to give them a more personalised experience.

Depending on who you’re targeting, the profile image within the ad will change, making it a top option for attracting new followers or acquiring applications to jobs you’ve posted.

LinkedIn Video Ads

These appear within your audience’s feeds, with sound disabled by default. As a result, it’s best practice to include subtitles.

Video Ads are a great way to sell your brand through creative storytelling and boost clicks to listings you might have. They can also help you to preview events you might be running and position you as a thought leader in the market.

Segmentation and Targeting on LinkedIn

With LinkedIn, you can drill into the details of your userbase and target people based on a large number of features and traits.

With such a wide variety of advertising options available, targeting and segmentation allows you to ensure that your ads are getting seen by the right people at the right time.

LinkedIn recommends that you choose two targeting options for each campaign, as well as setting a location radius where the ad will be shown.

Although typical targeting options such as age and gender are included, there are also a number of other more detailed attributes you can use to home-in on those leads:

  • Company name
  • Company industry
  • Company size
  • Company connections
  • Followers
  • Job seniority
  • Job title
  • Job function
  • Level of experience

These can help you to attract relevant buyers to your properties based on how much they earn, as well as get the right people looking at your content.

You can also use the LinkedIn Audience Network to get your ads shown on other platforms, showing your content on the sites of a large network of publishers. On top of that, you’re also able to retarget users who’ve visited your website to further increase your lead generation conversion rates.

Testing Your Ads to Boost Performance

Sadly, launching your B2B marketing strategy and LinkedIn ads is only half of the battle. From here, you’ll need to continually test your campaigns to continually improve their performance. Here are a few tips you can use:

  • Find the right balance between being too broad and too niche – use targeting, but not to the extend where your audience is too specific. Use A/B testing to find the right balance.
  • For each ad you launch, create 2-3 variants to see which performs best. Change one variable in each and you’ll have a clear insight into not only what performs the highest, but why.
  • Stop your lowest-performing ad once a week and replace it with a new one – this will help you to increase your relevance score, reducing your ad spend.

What to Take Away from this Guide

Everything we’ve mentioned in this short guide is important, but here are a few of the takeaways that you can action right now:

  • Create a detailed plan for your content to give your LinkedIn marketing strategy direction. This will help to maximise its impact.
  • Work out which ad formats work best for your brand and the goals you’re looking to achieve.
  • Ensure that your content is being seen at the right time by the right people with LinkedIn’s extensive audience targeting options.
  • Use analytics features to work out which ads are performing well and which aren’t.
Pet Dog

Pet Profiles launched on Realestate.com.au

Real estate giants realestate.com.au have recently launched an interesting new feature. Pet Profiles will allow tenants to show their pets in the best possible light – and also help property managers save time when weeding through rental applications.

As part of a national survey, landlords, property managers and tenants were surveyed in a drive to make the property rental purchase easier.

The study identified that 48% of property managers spend a large amount of their time looking into animal breeds, temperament and personality when reviewing tenant applications, even though it’s come to light that tenants aren’t always 100% honest about owning a pet when applying to rent a property.

In order to make the rental market more transparent, the popular property portal have created the Pet Profile function, which allows prospective tenants to include a short description and photo of their pet when applying for a property.

The feature was launched off the back of the study, which found that deciding whether or not to accept pets was one of the trickiest aspects of the rental process for property managers. It’s also been launched in a bid to improve the user experience for tenants and make it easier for them to find suitable properties.

The study also revealed that:

  • 27% of people have hidden a pet before rental inspections have been conducted
  • 25% of people have lied about owning a pet when trying to rent a property
  • 72% of Australians agree that most of the basic damage within their property is caused by humans, not animals.
  • Despite this, 93% of property managers think landlords will be concerned that pets will damage their property.
  • 50% of Australians with pets have found it hard to get a rental property.

Since the launch, over 57,000 people have added their pets to their 1form applications, with positive responses being received all round.

Client expectations

Set Accurate Client Expectations with these 4 Tips

Setting client expectations early on into a business relationship is vitally important. If you don’t, you could well end up with a dissatisfied customer, even though you’ve gone out of your way to please them.

As a result, it’s essential that you discuss the entire real estate process with your client during the early stages of your relationship. Give them information on how you’ll be contacting them and do everything you can to help them understand your role in the process.

Be sure not to over exaggerate your role and don’t over-promise to keep them happy, as this can land you in hot water down the line. Instead, set realistic expectations and you’ll help promote trust and confidence in your abilities. Here’s what you can do:

Make a Clean Distinction Between Needs and Desires

A large part of your role as a real estate agent is to separate your buyer’s needs and desires. Although many head into the real estate process thinking they know what they want, the opposite is often the case.

Talk through what they’re looking for and help to make distinctions between what they absolutely need and what they’d like. By doing this, you’ll be able to target your work and meet their expectations.

Delve Deeper into the Information You have

Take a look at the information your client has given you then take a few extra steps. Consider any influential and aspirational factors that match with the needs that they’ve set out.

From here, you’ll be able to develop an idea of what their perfect home looks like. For example, if they’ve told you they want a massive outdoor space on their property, the truth is they could just be looking for a secure space that their kids can play in. If they’re looking for a large kitchen/dining room space, they might just be looking for a way to spend more time together as a family. Above all else, don’t be afraid to ask questions and suggest options that they might not have previously considered.

Ask the Right Kinds of Questions

If you don’t get the information you need, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do a good job. In order to get the kinds of properties your client is interested in, you need to ask the kinds of questions that will build a clear picture of what your client is looking for.

Make your clients feel at ease and be sure to listen to them, but also be direct in your questions and ensure you get the information you need. You should also ask them about any past experiences they’ve had with real estate agents, as this will help you to learn about the types of behaviours they like and those that they don’t.

Educate Your Clients

There’s a lot of bad advice floating around in the real estate space, and it’s your job to make sure your clients don’t fall into the trap of being misinformed.

Speak with them in simple terms about the state of the market, what their options are and whether the timeframe they’re working with is realistic. It might be a difficult conversation, but they’ll appreciate your honesty in the long-run and trust you far more than if you just tell them what they want to hear.

google-maps

Changes coming to Google Maps

Google recently announced changes to their Mapping platform, including a new pricing model. As a result there will be some changes to the way Google Maps are integrated with websites.

Presently all websites we host use the Google Maps Javascript API. This allows us to add a Google Map to your website with an accurate and interactive map marker. It also allows you to ‘override’ the map marker with your own latitude and longitude coordinates if the automatic marker wasn’t accurate enough. From the 16th July Google will start charging for this service.

What’s going to change?
In the lead up to 16th July we will be gradually switching websites over to use Google’s free Embed API. This will ensure you still have maps appearing on your listings, however in some cases the map marker may not be accurate, such as when mapping a listing in a new street, subdivision or development or when Google doesn’t recognise the street address.

During the switch to Google’s free Embed API we will also be rolling out the ability for our customers to optionally obtain their own key from Google for the original Google Maps Javascript API and add this to their website settings. This will restore the original map functionality. Whilst Google will be charging for this API, if your monthly spend is below $200 USD you won’t be charged (we’ve estimated that the average real estate website would be no more than $20-$30 per month).

Is there anything you need to do?
Not in the immediate term. If you find Google’s free maps are not the best solution for your office, you can contact our help team who will assist you in signing up to Google Cloud, obtaining your key and adding it into your website settings. This will restore maps to how they previously worked.

Note you will need an email address already attached to a Google account and a credit card; even though you won’t be charged if your monthly spend is under $200, Google still requires that you have a valid card to keep your account active.

Set Goals

How to Smash Your Real Estate Business Goals by December

Time has flown by and somehow, we’re already past the half-way mark in the year. In addition to quarterly reviews, this is also the time of year when you should take the time to reflect on your performance across the year to date.

Are there any changes you’d like to make? Targets you’ve yet to hit?

If you’ve got achievements you want to land over the next 6 months and you’re not sure whether you’re going to make them, we suggest you take a look at the questions below.

By prepping answers to them, you’ll help to get yourself on track and give yourself a bit of added perspective in preparation for the months to come.

  • How many market appraisals have I carried out?
  • How many listing opportunities have I pursued?
  • Have I hit over 200 calls per week? If so, how many times?
  • Am I on track for hitting my GCI goal this year?
  • If not, what changes do I need to make to my numbers to hit my goal?
  • What’s my current sales number?
  • How does my marketing plan look for the second half of the year?
  • What’s the best thing that’s happened to me so far this year?
  • What’s the worst thing that happened?
  • How can I learn from these to improve my performance and experience over the next 6 months?
  • Does my daily routine support me achieving my goals?
  • If not, what can I change in my daily routine to help?

Finally, all of your power in business comes from making intelligent, thought-out decisions. So, in order for you to achieve your goals by the end of the year:

  • What am I doing that’s working that I could be doing more of?
  • What can I do to schedule my days and weeks more effectively?
  • What should I stop doing regularly?
  • What should I start doing regularly?

Whether it’s breaking old habits or making new ones, there’s always room for improvement in our day-to-day lives, both professionally and personally.

By focusing on your past performance, you’ll help yourself to grow, improve, and hit your targets over the next 5 months.