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The engagement is a key factor inside the real estate marketing and it is linked to a social media strategy. However, what it is, why it is so important and how we can increase it are ambiguous matters.
For a real estate in Spain, the engagement is still not properly evaluated, mainly because the potential offered by the social media platforms is not paid too much attention to.
The social media engagement is a value defined by grades and it shows the level of interaction of the users with the real estate brand.
The grade in which the user interacts with the brand (in this case the real estate) is the achieved engagement. This concept is much more complex than it appears to be.
A basic social media does not cover the concept properly. The likes, the clicks on images or links of the real estate, the comments or every time a content is shared on social media platforms are only a small part of the global engagement.
In order to achieve a higher social media engagement, the real estate must generate a community around its pages on social media platforms, get followers, interact with them and understand their expectations.
Real estate engagement and EdgeRank.
Linked to the concept of engagement, we find EdgeRank, a very important factor which is actually essential for platforms such as Facebook, Google Plus or Twitter.
EdgeRank is an algorithm which determines the updated status of a user on his activity flow panel. A concept normally associated with Facebook and which is used with different other programming variants on all social media platforms.
Without focusing on technical details of EdgeRank, we must underline its link to the engagement and how EdgeRank influences the engagement.
The used algorithms determine the importance of a content which is going to be showed to the user on its Feed News, depending on several variables. One of the most important variable is the frequency of posting.
Any user of other platforms different than Facebook, such as Google Plus, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest can notice that behind any new post of a user there are actually algorithms that control those operations.
EdgeRank is actually the name of one of the algorithms, which is also used with other variants on other platforms. This aspect and how EdgeRank is linked to the engagement are aspects really important to take be taken into consideration.
Those algorithms evaluate three significant variables in order to measure the EdgeRank of a profile or of a page. Those variables are: the relationship between the user who creates an object, the popularity achieved by the object and the fact the older the objects, the lower their relevance.
In social media, by objects we understand an update of a status. For a real estate, it could be the action of sharing an image or a video of a property for sale, sharing a link to the real estate blog or any similar activity.
How EdgeRank interacts with the real estate engagement.
The higher the interaction level of the user with the real estate social medial page such as comments, likes, shares, etc, the higher the level of displays of a status.
If the level of popularity of a status update or the object shared by the real estate is high, the bigger the possibilities of a user to receive the notification. In consequence, the level of exposure of the shared content will increase.
The real estate page on Facebook counts with thousands of followers and the real estate agent has the same number of subscribers on his profile. However, if he does not have a recent activity, he will not appear on the header section of his contacts.
In other words, even if the engagement does not link to EdgeRank, the latter influences the former. EdgeRank conditions the possibilities of increasing the engagement level.
Real estate engagement means compromise.
Through its social media page, a real estate gets to set an online communication channel. Through the use of programs, it can automate tasks, receive notifications and access practical functions.
However, the level of personalization of the interaction is not too high.
Personalizing the actions does not mean placing a logo on the answers of the comments. It means that the user will notice a personalized service from the real estate.
The several mobile devices available today are also an excellent resource, as they allow the instant interaction with the users from anywhere. The speed of answering is a very important factor for social media and answering fast is actually an added value to the real estate engagement.
These are the main variables that the real estate must take into consideration, in order to increase its engagement:
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Create long relations.
The target of a social media channel is not only to stick to a punctual communication; the real estate must generate a long-lasting relation with the help of its contents right from the first social interaction.
In order to maintain long-lasting relations inside the social media sector, especially if the real estate is quite present on several social media platforms, the real estate needs to use one of the many programs available on the market.
Creating relations on social media does not mean only posting contents and status updates. It is important that the real estate Community Manager answers the enquiries and comments of the users fast enough, and joint the conversations in a proactive way.
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Supervise the tags of the real estate.
Engagement and its impact must be controlled, analyzed and measured by the real estate. Tags received by the shared contents must be supervised.
It is important to tag each contents shared and each status update with the name of the real estate on them. This is a common system for many platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or Scoop.
A frequent error from a real estate in Spain is to think that Twitter is the only platform that uses the hashtags. All social media platforms allow the use of hashtags. With the help of the hashtags the real estate can achieve a better brand development and an increase on its engagement.
Google Plus and Twitter use the symbol # followed by the word (the tag) in order to create the hashtag. Other platforms such as Scoop and StumbleUpon allow the writing of the word without using the symbol.
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Team real estate engagement.
Depending on the social media presence of the real estate, a Community Manager will not be able to manage all the interactions with the users. If the real estate has pages on various languages, the difficulty might increase.
Segmenting the social media competences by specific roles in order to manage effectively is another element to be taken into consideration. The real estate can diverse the competences and segment them by area and languages in the same time.
The social media collaborations and team interactions must be supervised by the real estate Community Manager in order to maintain the line of the planned strategy and mainly because he will be the responsible person for the obtained results.
No matter the technological roles assigned inside the real estate organizational structure, and linked to different languages, we can segment the engagement by area and departments (rentals, sales, customer service, legal services, real estate training, post sales services, etc.).
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The importance of FAQ section.
FAQ section (Frequently Asked Questions) is a passive element and it seems to help answering the users´ questions on the most frequent questions that they ask.
FAQ section can be built up based on the info gathered by the real estate Community Manager, but also from the feedbacks of the members of the real estate team (of course, those who manage the real estate pages).
This is a simple element, but it answers the basic questions of the users. On the other hand, FAQ section can be used on the social media pages, on the real estate web or on the real estate blog.
In the same time, depending on the type of the real estate websites on Internet and their languages, different versions and updates can be done when the real estate receives the same questions.
The real estate engagement it is not only about getting followers or sharing contents. The creation of positive synergies with the users are necessary, as they might be potential buyers.
