The rise of Estate Agent influencers

From Million Dollar Listing to Selling Sunset, we’re used to seeing real estate reality TV in full force on Netflix. Whilst the dramatic, and sometimes cheesy content might not float your boat, there is one important thing to remember about all these reality TV stars selling billions worth of property each year – they all started out as social media influencers, building up their profile as experts in their local market.

This year we are seeing the continued rise of the UK Estate Agent influencer on Instagram and TikTok, with more than 40 new profiles per week being tagged as ‘Estate Agent’, paired with an accompanying rise of consumers using social channels to search, buy and sell property. According to Google Trends, ‘property’ search via social channels was up 400%* from January 2022 to January 2023.

Love them or hate them, there is a lot we can learn from social media influencers and their approach to building an engaged audience. It’s not even the millions of followers that we should take note of, it’s their ability to build an engaged community of people that all share similar goals and interests.

Authenticity

Defining someone as an influencer is just a new way of describing someone who has developed a successful personal brand – something talked about a lot in the property industry.

People buy from people, so knowledge and personality must shine through all communications (Estate Agents already know this), but influencers succeed because they take this a step further by making sure:

• content aligns with audience’s needs and values to be perceived as authentic and build genuine trust.
• data is used to understand what their audience is searching for, and the words they use to search.
• content either solves problems or inspires.
• their language mirrors audiences, taking on sayings and phrases and even local cultural references.

Influencers’ success comes from their audience feeling like they are being talked to directly, drawing them in so they’ll listen, engage and act.

What can agents do to build authenticity?

• Collect data to really understand who you are talking to and what content they want to see.
• Use that data to create a plan for what you should talk about on your social channels.
• Ask yourself – is this post really adding value to my audience?

Consistency

For the successful influencer, consistency is key – not just in quality but in frequency.

Influencers earn credibility as an ‘expert’ by talking about topics with confidence and consistency. This gives audiences a reason to come back to their channel and believe in their brand.

Just like influencers, Estate Agents need to build their ‘reason to believe’ with their potential customers and consistency is a great way to do this. When it comes to social channels, we usually see two types of profiles:

1. The profile flooded with pictures and videos of houses for sale, but with no regional content, market insight or personality.

2. The profile which was last updated in 2021 or 6 months ago, with posts about a charity golf day and a ‘house sale of the week’.

The most successful channels are those which have at least three posts per week and include a variety of content, from slick images and video, to market analysis and regional top tips.

How can agents build consistency?

• Aim to share three posts per week and have a plan for what the content should be.
• Mix it up with different types of content, it doesn’t need to be a professionally made video to get an audience interested.
• Quality check and ask yourself – will my audience be interested in this post and why?

Storytelling

Influencers are skilled at storytelling and creating engaging content, and just like a story, all content has a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning sets the scene and lets the audience know why they should be interested, the middle builds excitement and helps the audience to see themselves in the story, and the end gives the audience resolution and a call to action. Agents can use this technique to better tell the story of every property they list, to tell the story of the market in which they operate and to share their knowledge. Every story has a unique tale to tell, just like every home.

What makes your story stand out?

• Think about the beginning, middle and end of social posts. Be bold and show audiences why they should be interested, build the excitement and give your audience a clear call to action at the end.
• Showcase unique property features on social channels to build an exciting story.
• Tell your audience a new story they aren’t used to hearing from you, like how to get their home sale ready, or why they should want to live in this area.

Aesthetics

Influencers know that visual content is king. Whilst extreme home dressing and celebrity styled open house parties might be something that stays on TV for now, the power of aesthetics can’t be overlooked when it comes to social media. Influencers create ‘stop the scroll’ content that grabs the attention of their prospective target. Their content has a style and theme that is relevant to their audience and fits with their lifestyle and aspirations. Estate Agents can use consistent styling, branding and high-quality photos and video to showcase the quality of their properties, stand out on social channels and attract more clients.

Want to be more creative on your social media?

• Build visual consistency by ensuring key branding is present across social posts or pick a style that can be consistent across photography and video.
• Do some research to find out what else your ‘typical customer groups’ are interested in, what they aspire to and the types of content they like to see.
• Do some testing on visual styles and content types to see what drives most engagement from your audience. Make sure you know what works and what doesn’t.  

Innovation

Experimentation is key to staying ahead of competition. Influencers stay on top of trends and try new things with content to surprise their audience. This doesn’t mean they don’t maintain consistent themes, tone of voice or areas of focus, they just push the boundaries so that their audience has a reason to return and see something new. Experimenting with content is a great way for agents to stand out and make their audience pay attention.

How can agents surprise and delight their audience?

• Ask yourself, when was the last time you did something on your social channel that your audience would value, but wouldn’t expect from you?
• Explore new ideas and research what others in your industry are doing, in the UK and other countries.
• Ask your customers, what could you do on social media that they would value as a home buyer or seller.

Audience

For influencers, building the right audience is critical to success. They need to prove to the brands that they can put collaborative content in front of the right people – potential buyers. Estate Agents must do the same, and building a personal profile in their market patch means they don’t have to rely on the business brand alone. Agents must convince sellers that they can put their property in front of the right audience, and convince buyers that their local knowledge can help them to find their dream home.

For personal profile building to be a success, agents must make sure their audience on social channels is the right audience.

How do influencers do it? First, they build mass awareness, starting in their local area to build a following of people who are most likely to resonate with them. Often, they achieve this by using some paid advertising to target their content to specific demographics, postcodes or regions. For as little as £50 per month spent on ads in Facebook or Instagram, influencers can reach an extra 100,000 people in just a couple of weeks.

As their audience starts to grow, they often explore content types and competitions to encourage more people to share their content, take the action to follow them and actively engage with them. They also take the time to engage with their audience, answering queries, posting comments, or offering Q&A sessions so people can get to know them a little better. 

Whilst there are ways to speed up the process of building the right audience, once that audience is there, it’s over to the agent to build the consistency and value so that they can reap the rewards.

How can you grow your audience?

• Pick a focus point for your audience. Start small and build out, a collection of postcodes and demographics or those already searching for property in your area is a great place to start.
• Explore ways to speed up the process. Could you add a little budget to get your content in front of the right people?
• Put yourself in the shoes of new followers - would they quickly understand who you are, your expertise and the value you bring?

*Data via Google Trends, correct as of March 2023