Social Media: You Don’t Have To Be Everywhere, Promise.

On today’s episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. We’re talking about social media and how you might not even have to be on it to have a successful real estate career. I know probably not what you’re hearing elsewhere, but if you do decide to be on social media, you definitely don’t have to be on every social media channel. So how do you know which one is the best for you? That’s exactly what we’re going to talk about on today’s episode. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. I’m your host, Jennifer Myers, listen in, as I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the U S even opening my own brokerage full of agents to help me serve all the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents. The same strategies I use in date two became top producing agents. Now through this podcast and agent grad school.com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads. Just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen and dive into today’s episode. Have you ever been told you need to be everywhere online to grow your real estate business? I often think that social media has become like the new modern way of getting clients and building a real estate business. But I want you to know that it doesn’t have to be, and you certainly don’t have to be everywhere. So in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about whether or not you even need to be on social media to be growing your business and how you can make the conscious choice about whether or not you want to use social media as a vehicle to market yourself and get clients and grow your business. It is not a must. It’s not a half, two, it’s a, should you and a very clear path to making that decision. And then after you make that decision, if you’ve say, okay, yes, it makes sense for me to be on social media. Then the next piece that we’re told is like, you have to be everywhere. You have to be on YouTube. You got to be on Tik TOK. You gotta be on clubhouse. You gotta be here. You gotta be there, Instagram, Facebook. And I don’t know about you, but like that’s a very unrealistic for the majority of real estate agents in this country. It is a very unrealistic business plan because trying to be on every social media network to grow your business as a solo, like real estate agent. Now there are real estate agents out there that like are naturally good at it, right? And those people absolutely should be on social media growing their business. But there’s probably the majority of the 1.5 million real estate agents in the U S according to NAR, that’s about what we have right now. I have, as of this recording, the majority of those 1.5 real estate agents might not even be on social media, actively as a person, a human being. And I think oftentimes when we become real estate agents, we like force ourselves into becoming something we’re not, and like, feel like we have to be on social media to grow our business. And it feels uncomfortable and we’re not sure what to post. And it becomes a very like ch like stressful way to grow our business. Okay. So the first thing we’re going to do on this episode is talk about whether or not you should even be on social media, make that conscious decision. And then from there, we’re going to talk about which social media platforms make platforms, or even just one platform. We certainly want to just start with one and then expand from there that you should be on based on your particular business. The answer is not the same for everybody. And I get so angry. There’s like these sweeping, I don’t know, pieces of advice that I feel like we get as real estate agents from within the real estate industry. It’s like, you should be on YouTube, or you should be on Tik TOK. And it’s like, no Tik TOK is good for some agents. YouTube is good for is, is great for some agents. And oftentimes the same agent shouldn’t be on both platforms. And so how to know whether or not you should be investing your time, your money into a platform, because what platforms reward is consistency. And so it’s very difficult as a solo agent, as somebody who’s maybe either brand new or doesn’t want to have a team, which is who I speak to here on this podcast and inside agent grad school, right? There are lots of great podcasts out there and coaching programs out there and courses out there that speak to people who want to build a team or want to manage a bunch of people, but who I want to be speaking to, not just on this episode, but in general, are the agents who say like, I don’t necessarily want to have a team. Like I want to have my own small business. Maybe I’ll have a, you know, support staff person or two, but I don’t want to have like a whole media department or marketing department just to run, you know, a very lucrative, profitable and successful business. That’s mine. Right? And so for those agents, it’s very difficult, if not impossible and certainly unrealistic and a very stressful expectation to be everywhere, to be everywhere multiple times a day, consistently over social media. Okay. So for those of you who are listening to this, I want you to take a really deep breath right now, and I want you to know you do not have to be everywhere on social media. Okay. So that’s the second piece that we’re going to talk about is a, should you be there at all? And then B if you are going to be there, which social platform is the best for you. Okay. And then we’re going to talk about, based on the decision, what that means for the content that you are going to do. Okay. So the goal of this episode is just to have you be doing less, not more to grow your real estate business. When it comes to being online and being on social media. Now, some of you listening to this are like killing it and social media, and it’s like perfect for you. And for those of you listening to this, like, I hope that you glimmer a few things that you can apply. And I think you will, to your social media, but I don’t know that you necessarily feel stressed out by the, by having to be on social media. And so specifically who this podcast is for, or for those agents who are like being on social media feels stressful. It feels like something I have to do that I don’t want to do. That’s who really this, this podcast episode is specifically for. Okay. So by the end of this episode, you’re going to know clearly whether you should be on there or not, and where you should be, and you should have this sigh of relief that you don’t have to be everywhere, online to be a successful agent, to have clients coming to you and to run a very good profitable real estate business that’s growing. Okay. So first decision, do you even need to be on social media? And I know it’s like crazy, cause you’re like, Hey Jen, it’s 2022. Everybody’s on social media. And as a real estate agent, I am told I have to be there. And I get that. That is good advice for a lot of real estate agents. But for those of us who me included are not somebody who naturally in my life is going to post on social media, right? Like there are people in this world who, when they do something, when they go on vacation, when they do something exciting in their life, right? They, they just naturally are like, oh, this is going to be a great post, right? Those people absolutely should be on social media. And it’s an amazing way to grow your business. But for those of us who are like, I don’t really share anything on there anyway, but all of a sudden I became a real estate agent and I’m told now I have to be this person online. And I don’t necessarily want to be, you’ve got to, those are the people who really have to decide whether social media is the right place for you or not to grow your business and how you make that determination. Again, I mentioned this at the beginning of this, what I’m teaching you today? Part one of this episode was what I taught last week. And if you want to, I’ll link to that in the show notes for this episode, the episode for this episode’s show notes is agent grad-school dot com forward slash not everywhere, Asian grad school.com forward slash not everywhere and I’ll link to the strategy. So that’s what we’re going to talk about now is how do you know from a strategic standpoint, whether or not you need to be on social media. And if you listened to last week’s episode, you’re going to know exactly how you make that determination. And that determination is really first deciding who is it that you’re talking to. And you have to ask yourself once you really know who you’re talking to. And I don’t mean from a demographics or housing violation place. That’s never what I’m talking about. But I mean, like when you think about who you’re talking to, are those people on social media? And I know it’s hard to believe, but there are many, many, many people that are not on social media and certainly many, many, many, many people who aren’t gonna make the determination about which real estate agent to use based on social media. Okay. You have to know whether or not the people you are trying to find, and that you’re trying to bring to you like a magnet. You have to know whether or not those people aren’t on social media. Okay. So as a very simple example, if you were somebody who is a going to target first time, home buyers, for example, and everyone, you know, in your social group is on social media. And social media is like where it’s at which a lot of times for first-time home buyers, it is. But sometimes it’s not, you’ve got to know this level of detail about who you are talking to. Okay. So like I served first time home buyers, but most, but like people who were drawn to me weren’t really like social media types. So I never felt like the pressure to be on social media because my clients were like lawyers. And like, you know, you know, people working in politics, they didn’t necessarily have a ton of time to be on social media or be posting on social media. So like, I never felt that pressure, but there are some of you out there who are like, yes, like everybody’s on social media, social media is where it’s at. And I’m focused on first time home buyers. And they’re all on social media. And I know a ton of them and it totally makes sense, right. Then absolutely you should be on social media and you should be on that platform. So let’s take that a step further. First time home buyers tend to be these days as of this recording, and this could change at any moment. They tend to be on Instagram and Tik TOK, just so do you see how right away, right. Based on who I’ve decided to target, I know whether or not need to be on social media at all. And then, because I know where my people are on social media, I know which platforms make the most sense. Now that’s not to say they’re also not on YouTube. That’s not to say they’re also not on LinkedIn. They’re probably there also, but like the majority, this is just an example. This is not everybody. The majority of, if you are targeting first time home buyers, and you have people in your world who are on social media, the majority of first-time home buyers most likely are going to be on those two platforms right this minute. And so what happens is you could say to yourself, okay, between those two, which one would be the place to start. And between those two I’ll oftentimes you can kind of like, you know, repost things, right? So that becomes really easy versus, you know, you probably wouldn’t start with Facebook. You probably wouldn’t start with LinkedIn. Certainly you could add those later. And that’s why I’m saying like, you don’t necessarily have to be everywhere right now, but if you have bandwidth or if your business grows and you have somebody who’s coming to like support you in your business, then right. That could be a project where you’re like, okay, I know next I need to be on LinkedIn because that’s my, maybe the third place that my people are versus somebody let’s say who is focused on downsizers. Right. Downsizers not all of them again, this is just an example. But for me, when I think about downsizers, I think about them more on like Facebook versus Tik TOK. And if you look at the demographics of like the age demographics, and again, we’re not violating fair housing, but it’s like, we’re just putting some mark, like some thought into where are my people? I think I looked up tech talk and I think people over 50, which tends to be the majority of downsizers. They they’re, I think they’re only like 7% of them are on Tik TOK, but the, but they’re more on Facebook or LinkedIn maybe type of thing. Okay. So you would probably want to start with Facebook as the place that you show up. If you’ve decided to be on social media and maybe you don’t even have to be on social media with your downsizers only, you’re going to know if like the downsizers that you specifically want to target are there or not. Okay. One of our students, she targets, I’m not going to give away like everything she does, but the one, one of the things she does as part of her marketing plan is she reaches out to a specific group of professionals. And those professionals oftentimes have those clients that she’s looking to work with. So if she’s, if, if I was thinking about a marketing plan for her and it involved social media, if you’re targeting, then you don’t need to be on Instagram. Right. You would start with LinkedIn. So do you see now how you can really start to feel like I don’t necessarily need to be everywhere and I certainly don’t need to be everywhere. Right? The second and the, and the, and a good plan is like, start with where would be the most return on your investment. And when I say the word investment time is also an investment. So where are you going to have the biggest return for your time investment? And that is the social media platform that you should start with. Once you start getting that down. And you’re like, okay, I got this. And let’s say like, it becomes easier over time, which everything does the more, the more you do it. And it takes less time to create things and post things, right. Then you might say, okay, well, in addition to being on the first platform, I’m going to add this other platform. Okay. And you go through the same exercise, who am I trying to reach? Where are they? And then you’ll go there first. Then you go to the next place they are next. Okay. And that is what I hope this does for you is make you feel like less stressed out having to be like throw spaghetti against the wall and have to be everywhere. And all that does is like create, I think kind of, I hustled toxic type of mentality. Like you do not have to have that kind of hustle, that kind of approach to growing your business. It’s like not even realistic to have that because we cannot be everywhere and serve our clients well and well, and have a life. So rather than T have to be everywhere, be the places that actually the people that you want to serve and help, and that you’re positioned to help be there and not everywhere, which then leaves time for you to actually like serve your clients. Love on your clients, spend the majority of your time with clients instead of getting clients and the rest of your time on your life. And I don’t know about you, but I became a real estate agent, so I could have a life and I could have money. I needed both. I wasn’t willing anymore to trade my time for money. But yet when we come become business owners, when we become real estate agents, we do it in the name of what being told. We have to being told that this is the way we have to do it. You don’t have to do it that way. Okay. In fact, I would say like, it doesn’t even make sense to do it that way. Why do you, like, why would you need to be on Tik TOK if only 7% of the world’s population of the people that you are trying to work with are there, and, you know, 60% of them are in a different platform. Why would you even want spend time on the 7% at first? Right. If you totally are nailing it on the place that they are sure. You could get a little bit of more of that 7%, you could go to that other platform. But like, by the time you get there, you’re going to be like, is it even worth my time? Is it worth the extra time to get a potential return that so low? Okay. So what I’m hoping that like you’re learning in this podcast and especially my students who are inside agent grad school is like, just stop. When you, when people are telling you something like, just stop for a second and ask yourself, does this make actual sense? And is there a strategy here that makes actual sense? Or is it just trying to be everywhere? Just what I call like, like being their marketing, being their marketing is very exhausting, very expensive, and like, is very like it dilutes, right? You want to show up everywhere that your people are, you don’t want to show up everywhere that everyone is. And social media is the easiest example of how you can make this happen. Okay. So decision number one, do you even have to be on social media? If your people aren’t on social media, which believe it or not, there are people not on social media. Like I always think about, I know that sounds really silly, but like, I’m always like, would, I’m just using some random name, but like what George Clooney, I don’t know, pick his real estate agent because he, because he found them on Instagram, probably not. Right. Or like what, like, I’m thinking of like all my clients who aren’t even on social media, like my doctor, clients, my lawyer clients. Right? Like they don’t like, they don’t have time to be on social media. Right. My financial planner, like my tax, my, my account, everybody in my inner circle, all the people that generally people hold in high regard, their surgeon, their doctor, their lawyer, their CPA, their financial advisor. Right. Like I want to stand in that circle for my people. None of those people are posting on social media all day because they’re actually working with their clients. Right. And so a lot of it is like, how do you want to present yourself? And for many of you being on social media is the right answer. And for many of you it’s not. And how you know is like first and foremost, like, how do you feel when you think about posting on social media? Are your people even on there? And for those of you who, like, I don’t know about you, but like, we are also human beings. Like we are people. And for those of you who like, as a person before you became a real estate agent, never posted on social media, does it even make sense for you to all of a sudden become, become like a social media influencer simply because you’re a real estate agent. I don’t know. Only if you want to be not because you think you have to be, because here’s what I know for sure. I know I sound like Oprah, which I’m not trying to be, but here’s what I know based on my experience is Building a business, doing things you hate in the beginning only is going to create a business that you hate. I think so often we think like I’m only going to cold call for a little bit, or I’m only going to post on social media for a little bit or something. Right. And I want you to know that, like the tactics that you decide to use to get clients Are generally probably going to be the, the tactics that you use to get clients for your entire career. And that’s why for me, I was always like, people were always like, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And I was like, the decision factor for me on whether or not I was ever going to do those things was like a, is it scalable? Like, can I do this? When I have a client a week, a new settlement a week, can I do this thing? And I’m being told to do. And nine times out of 10, the answer was no. And do I want to do this from the rest of my real estate career? Which for me is the rest of my life. And if the answer to those, either of those questions for me was no, then I didn’t do those things to get clients because I didn’t want to build a business that I hated. And I knew that getting clients never was going to go away. Right? Yes. It gets easier. Yes. They start coming to you automatically, but you still have to do something. So if you build a business posting on social media, then you’re always going to have to like post on social media to keep those clients coming in. Because that’s how like, and then all of a sudden you stop like that doesn’t make much sense. Okay. So you, you’re going to decide consciously whether or not being on social media. It makes sense for you. And then you’re going to make a decision consciously for which of the platforms that you have the choices of. Right. And like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. I don’t know. There are probably others, Clubhouse, like which one makes sense for who you are trying to reach. And again, we’re not thinking about fair housing. Like we’re not violating fair housing when we’re having these thoughts. We’re just like, I can’t be everywhere. Where does it make logical business sense to show up first? That is the question you have to ask yourself and then go from there. And then here’s, what’s so amazing about when you approach social media, not from having to be everywhere and just show up and posting posts and posts like that. Doesn’t work. There are so many real estate agents. I’m telling you that do that. And they don’t have clients. They come to me, I know this, right? Like I know what it looks like on the, and I see the inside. Okay. And so don’t think just because other people are doing it, that it actually works. Other people are doing it because sometimes they’re being told that they should do it or they’re seeing other people do it. Okay. So I don’t know about you, but like, if, if you’re going to use social media as a marketing platform for, to grow your business and get clients, then you need to expect a return on it. So anything you put in, you have to expect like, am I getting clients out of this? And sometimes it’s not one for one, but here’s what’s brilliant about this approach to how you are going to decide on what your social media strategy is, where you show up and not having to be everywhere is based on the decisions that you make, example, which platform you’re going to be on. That will then dictate what type of content you should be posting. Because the type of content that you’re going to post on TikTok is slightly different than the content that makes sense on Instagram. And they’re just slightly different than the content that makes sense on Facebook and is wildly different than the content. That makes sense on YouTube. Okay. Because of the way that each one of those algorithms works and what people use those things for. Okay. TikTok is an entertainment platform. YouTube is an educational platform. You want to post wildly different things on those two channels. If you really like, if you’re showing up on TikTok, then people want like entertainment. They want to, they want to, they want, there’s a piece of them that wants to be entertained in one way or the other. And on YouTube nine times out of 10 it’s because they want to learn something it’s like a different approach. And so you’re so based on which decision you’ve made about which platform that will determine the content that you create, not the other way around, if you actually want to return on posting content, if you’re going to post just to post, then you can ignore everything that I said. And if you’re not looking for a return on investment, then keep doing, just keep doing the random posts, keep pointing and the music and complaining about the market. And, you know, having the pictures of people at settlement, it doesn’t work to get clients. Okay. You might go make, get clients when you’re posting that stuff, but I’m telling you your people on the other end, they want something more than that. And you can give them more if you’re not everywhere. Okay? So I hope this little Social Media mini-course, I guess because this month of June, and we are doing Social Media month, all month long inside Agent Grad School. And it’s been super fun. Not only have we had some classes, we’ve had some of our students who have had successful social media strategies share what worked for them. We’ve had mindset calls, like how to show up confidently, how not to feel like an imposter, how to be you on social media. And it’s been a really fun month. So as we come to a close on the Social Media month, next week on the podcast, we are going to be talking about how the market is shifting and what to do about it and how there’s no reason to panic. One of our students said it perfectly. She’s like, I was sorry. I asked our students like, how would you do, what is the word that you would describe as like the market right now? And there was a lot of words, what my favorite word and the word I want you to be thinking about between now and next week’s podcast episode is normalizing. And I don’t know about you, but I think a normalized market is a very exciting market to be in. So if you do not want to miss next week’s episode, then join The Agent Grad School inner circle. I send an email out every single time we have a podcast, I send special trainings. I send things I don’t share anywhere else, including discounts on enrolling in agent grad school. So you can join Agent Grad, School dot com forward slash inner circle. It’s totally free. It’s an email list. You get one email from me a week every now and then I might send a second one, but generally, it’s not spam. I don’t sell your stuff. And it’s just a way for us to keep in touch. So you don’t miss anything. And I also love hearing from you. And sometimes we can get into a conversation over there as well, which I thoroughly enjoy. So I hope this two part social media class has helped you. My hope is that you feel like you can accomplish more and actually reach your goals in a less stressful way on social media and when it comes to your real estate business. And I hope that that has happened. Let me know in the reviews, if you haven’t left a review yet, I really helps our show. When you leave reviews, we get asked to have sponsorships all the time, and I decline every single one of them because I do not want to involve sponsors in the show. And so what helps the show kind of succeed is V is more people listening to it and your reviews help that. So if you haven’t yet, I’d really love to hear what you think of the podcast. And I guess wherever you’re listening, but I think iTunes helps the best helps the most, but wherever you’re listening, if you could just at the end of this episode, leave a review and tell us what you think. Hopefully you think. Great. Thanks. All right. See you next week, where we talk about the shift in the market, a more normalized market and what to expect moving forward, how your business needs to change, how you can help your clients, the huge opportunities that this new market provides. And I can’t wait to talk to you then. Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. We purposely keep this podcast sponsor and commercial-free so we can focus solely on providing real estate agents with the content that will help them grow their real estate business. And how about life? 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