How to use social media for your letting agency

Letting agency social Media

As you can read in lots of my blog topics both here and on my how to set up a letting agency blog I talk about social media a lot. There are many forms of social media and if used correctly it can help your letting agency or property management company create awareness with a very small budget.

I looked through a number of my own contacts within my social media circles for a good example of a letting agency who did exactly that and I think an excellent example is Domino Letting in Glasgow.

Introduction to Domino Letting

Established in 2010 by James Callaghan they have quickly risen up the rankings to become a recognised name within the letting and property management industry in Glasgow.

Not being based in Glasgow I can only say this from my knowledge of agents online in Glasgow and lets be real about it online is where its at…isnt it?

Interview with James Callaghan

How long has Domino Lettings been in business?

– Formed in December 2010

How many units are you currently managing?

– Mid level sized agency

You have 7 tenant and landlord pledges which is definitely unique, it certainly personalises the site and makes your agency stand out. Is this something that your landlords and or tenants ever mention to you as the reason they choose to work with you or rent from you?

– Very much so. For landlords they’re not the sole reasons. Our reputation and 3 landlord guarantees lead that. For tenants though they provide a solid wall of assurance in an industry much maligned (sometimes fairly, sometimes not)

Your agency is one of the best agencies I have come across in the UK who uses social media well. Did you always plan on using social media?

– Certainly. I’m actually from a Technology background so very comfortable with new media and the power it holds. We’re also advocates of Inbound Marketing techniques and social media is an integral part of that. Didn’t we meet on such a medium ourselves?!?

What is your favourite social media you platform and why?

– Horses for courses. Twitter for pulse info, Pinterest for aesthetics, Facebook for consumers, G+ for the future. Of all though I would say LinkedIn is the medium that is most suited to my own role of company growth.

Your blogs and video blogs are very informative. Is your strategy in blogging to educate firstly and showcase your knowledge in the industry secondly?

– Exactly that. There’s a lot of mis-information in the Property world so Whiteboard Wednesdays helps scotch myths and empower landlords and tenants to make informed decisions. That this shows us as experts in our field is important, but secondary.

For you in terms of return on investment and that investment may be time as much as money what form of social media or marketing has been the best?

– I’m from a direct sales background so do prefer to see tangible and immediate results. For that reason, LinkedIn seems to yield the best return through my network and groups. However, we have signed business in the last few months with clients commenting that they first saw us on twitter, heard us on the radio, saw a To Let sign and then on an organic google search. All these contact points increased our brand awareness and brought the client to our door.

With regards to your blogging, after how long did you start seeing a return on investment?

– I find blogging to be more ambient rather than a direct lead generator. Clients seeing our blogs acts as one of the reasons they come with us as opposed to being the sole catalyst for an enquiry. It has definitely brought us indirect leads with the client being referred from someone who read a blog/saw a video.

What are your thoughts on Google apps and in particular Google Reviews?

– Controversial! Google reviews are excellent and powerful (in SEO terms) but unpoliced and wrongly weighted (a negative review gives positive SEO lift). We’re not a Google house so don’t use too many of their apps. Google+ may come to be something in the future but it’s hard to find the need for it at present.

Do you request reviews or do you allow landlords and tenants find this themselves?

– We soft request reviews on our email signatures but do ask clients to tell others if they’ve had a good experience with us. Word of mouth generated 74% of our business last year.

If there was one piece of advice that you would offer to another agency what would it be?

– Don’t do it. The market is oversaturated…;-) The advice would be to be the best at what you do and then educate your market with any information you have that would help them to make an informed decision on buying you.

-End of interview

A big thanks to James for his time in sharing his knowledge, experience and success with us. If you are about to frantically go off and set up a Google places account, YouTube or facebook account then you should get knowledge from my blog posts.

February 14, 2014

How letting agents should use Facebook

Many letting agents and property management companies use Facebook but they do not use it correctly in my opinion. In a previous blog post on how letting agents should not use Facebook I discussed this and there reach. So now lets look at how letting agents should use Facebook.

Facebook Reach

To quickly summorise what Facebook reach is ” The total number of unique people who saw your content in their News Feed, ticker or on your Page” , this is really important for your account because lets face it your posting content to be seen.

Here are 5 ways how letting agents should use Facebook

1. Engage with your tenants.

I must admit I love how the guys over at Walton Robinson engage with tenants on their Facebook page. They take a picture of new tenants who collect keys for a property with their company logo and then tag them in the image. They are actually building their audience through their new tenants by asking them to like them. Then once they are tagged their friends congratulate them on the move etc. It appears their main tenant market is students, so by the students friends viewing the image they can see that the agency are student rental friendly.

TOP MARKS

2. Engage with your landlords

There is a couple of ways to do this and there is many companies that are good at it, I haven’t come across many letting agencies that do it great. (if your agency is on Facebook why not like our page and I can check you guys out) One company which I am a fan of is The City Bin Company. They post testimonials on their website which promotes their main message as having excellent customer service. My opinion on this is that it encourages others to send similar positive messages. As more people like the posts the higher the reach of the post will become which feeds to more testimonials etc… Nice trend going 😉 Top Marks

There is also a star rating widget that Facebook allow page visitors to rank. As your page fans or customers rank you with stars you get to show off your star ranking… Aim for 5 Stars.

Testimonials left from landlords on your Facebook page for your letting agency is a great way to build your portfolio.

3. Engage through comedy

Facebook posts which hold an image is much more likely to get a thumbs up in the form of a like, a share or a comment etc and guess what this builds your reach. I must admit the guys over at The City Bin Co do this really well.

This particular post had over 100 shares and 150 likes so you could imagine what the reach is. Any coincidence they have over 7,000 fans.. I think not

4. Ask questions through postings

Rather then just posting a status update and expect a like, post a question and expect a comment. By doing this you are engaging with your fans and opening up the possibility to conversation. Remember its called social media so make sure your social. If you want to bring the possibility of engagement up further include an image and post a question, this really works well once its original. Many property companies and portals post unusual and luxury images with a question to open engagement. Below is an image from the UK’s property portal NeedAProperty facebook page, as you can see this simple question got over 200 likes, over 20 shares and multiple comments.

NB. Its very important to be creative here and looking up “luxury properties” on Google and posting them to your Facebook is not the most creative so don’t expect miracles.

TIP. I would highly recommend that once you are out taking marketing snaps of a property look for something quirky, unique or luxurious at your property. Take a picture, think of a witty comment along with a question and post it. This way you are opening engagement and listing a property.

Remember don’t just list every property you are marketing as your fans wont engage and your post reach will reduce.

5. Engage with other local businesses

If your in property your more then likely dealing with a specific locality, within this locality are a lot of other businesses. A high percentage of this population at some point will either be personally looking or have a close friend who is looking to rent or rent out a property. By engaging with other businesses in your locality your brand will start to be recognized by the community in your locality.

NB. So its quite simple the more of a contributor you are to social media the more you will get from social media.

TIP. Look for other local businesses with a Facebook page, like the page and start engaging.

PLEASE don’t spam as its the quickest way your community will hesitate in connecting with you.

Facebook and social media should be part of your overall marketing strategy. Dont expect to receive a flood of calls over night but do expect if you things correctly to do more business in the near future.

February 12, 2014

How to attract Tenants

How to attract tenants to your letting agency website

Some letting agencies may not be as lucky as our tenant rich cousins in major cities like London , Dublin etc.

How do tenants find your listings

In my previous blog post “using Google keyword planner effectively”, I discussed how letting agencies can drive more landlords to their site. But if you’re an agency that is on the other end of the scale and you are looking at how to attract tenants to your website well then the approach is a little different.

What are the search terms that tenants use

Tenants search terms tend to be a lot simpler as they don’t tend to normally be bothered if they rent from a property management company, letting agency or landlord. They tend to mainly search through the portals and use terms such as “flats to rent in Fulham” . The search results that tenants normally use tend to be dominated by portals and dependent on location and if the search is generic your letting agency website most likely will only ever get listed in the bottom half of the first page of results. This isn’t great as the stats will show 70% of clicks will be on the top half of the page.

How to improve your search return

You can improve your search return by being a little more specific in your listings and to use different sources of marketing. For example if your tenants search term is a little more specific you have a greater chance of returning on the first page. We can target these searches through long tail keywords (In my previous blog I illustrated what long tail keywords were) By listing your property on your own website with a full street or complex address in the page title, keywords etc its more likely to come up in the top half of search results.

Long Tail keywords a more detailed searcher

If your tenant was to look for a property within a specific complex or road within an area you are much more likely to appear on the top half if not 1^st of the search returns.

Example

Lets say a tenant was looking for an apartment on “Manchester Ave”, they may conduct a search such as “Manchester Ave apartment to let”. This gives you a much higher chance and ability to rank on the top half of search results.

How can you rank on top of the search terms

I would first of all recommend to use YouTube when advertising your properties. By recording a quick and informative property overview, uploading it and listing the property on your letting agency YouTube station with the location name in the video title, descriptive text and keywords you are much more likely to get to the top of search returns.

If fact type in “Manchester Ave apartment to let” into Google and you will see how I have done this with a very simple post. Not only does it come to the top half of the page but a video box displays showing that a video is there. As a result the searcher (tenant) will be drawn to the image.

Tenants Database

If attracting tenants to your property management company is what you looking to do then its vital you store the tenants details in a database to use as more suitable properties come on the books. If you want a cutting edge tenants database for free I would be delighted to give you access to one just click here.

February 5, 2014

How to use Google Keyword Planner for your property management company

Google Keyword planner for your property management company

Using Google keyword planner is an excellent way to start off your SEO strategy. Google Keyword planner allows you to see what search terms are being searched for on a monthly average. You can be very specific and break this down by regions such as country and county.

Image credit Michael Wolf

Who is your target market

The very first step in your SEO or SEM plan is to understand who your target market is.

If you are like most letting agents or property managers in any town or city you are most likely struggling to find new landlords and rental properties and have ample tenants on your tenant database. So if this is the case your target market should be landlords. Your content marketing within the site should be aimed at landlords

What are the search terms that landlords use?

Put yourself in the landlord’s shoes and type into Google what you think they would search for in order to employ a letting agency or property management company. As you do this make sure to localise it to a particular market so for example use “property Management London”, this is the type of term that a landlord would normally only search for. These search terms are called long tail keywords search terms and by using these within your site you are more likely to attract your target market.

Examples of Search terms

Below is a graph which illustrates search terms.

Property = 165,000 monthly searches. High volume monthly searches which can generate non qualified visitors. While this will look good on your Google analytics it wont look good when it comes to converting traffic to customers.

Property Management = 60,500 monthly searches. The visitor should be more interested in your service but if the visitor has a property in Newcastle and you operate in London then its not so good

Property Management London = 720 monthly searches. The visitor is most likely looking for a property management company in London and if this is the area you cover your visitor can convert into a customer.

Examples of long tail keywords landlords use

Property management company in London
Management agent in London

If you wish to receive a full list of landlord search terms for your area please email andreas@rentview.com

TIP

In a previous blog post I discussed writing content for your pocket not your ego, what I mean by this is do not try to write content just because it gets 165,000 searches a month.

Google Keyword Planner

Using Google keyword planner is an excellent way to start off your SEO strategy. Google Keyword planner allows you to monthly search volume of specific search terms. You can be very specific and break this down by regions such as country city, town etc.

Multiply Keywords

A really nice feature I am very fond of using is the multiply keywords section, here you can insert multiple keywords and include multiple areas. Google will then give you a return of average monthly search history assorted by volume, by having this detail you can then plan what content your property management or letting agency website should have in order to attract your target market.

So if you are like most property management companies and letting agencies looking to make their letting agency website convert more landlords from visitors look at your long tail keywords.