With more than 350 million members, LinkedIn is now the world’s 2nd largest social networking site, in terms of users. Since many real estate agents focus primarily on Facebook and Twitter many are overlooking a large pool of potential clients who use LinkedIn as their primary site for networking. And when used effectively, it can turbo charge your real estate career.
Complete your online profile
Your online LinkedIn profile is like an electronic business card. The more complete your online profile is, the more successful you will be in creating business relationships with potential clients and other business associates. LinkedIn members tend to give more credibility to members with the most complete profiles than those who just enter the basics. Be sure to write your profile in a way that highlights your real estate experience and include a link to your website.
Develop connections
On LinkedIn it’s all about making connections. But in order to prevent spam, there is a limit to the number of connections you are able to make on LinkedIn. So choose them wisely. Start out connecting with other industry professionals like your brokerage firm, real estate attorneys, mortgage brokers and home inspectors, for example, who are most likely to connect back with you.
Share your knowledge
Maintain an active online profile by regularly sharing your real estate knowledge and other relevant information about local market conditions, advice on buying or selling a home and other information your connections may find interesting. Other LinkedIn members who find the information you post and share useful will connect with you to stay in touch and to continue receiving your updates. They may also ask for your assistance in providing a solution to their housing needs.
Add a LinkedIn button on your website
Adding a LinkedIn button to your website is one of the fastest ways to grow your online connections. It not only lets your website visitors know they can connect with you on LinkedIn, it also gives them the opportunity to share the blog posts they like on your site with their online connections.
LinkedIn ads
Since it can take some time to build connections on LinkedIn, you can speed things up considerably by advertising your real estate services to a selected target audience of LinkedIn members. Keep in mind that LinkedIn ads are small in size with enough room for just 100 characters of text.
There are 5 components to a LinkedIn ad: Headline (25 characters); Description (75 characters); Your Name or Company Name; a 50×50 pixel image, and your website URL. There is no minimum budget, but there is a minimum bid of $2 per click. You can raise the bid to increase your ad’s exposure. You are only charged when someone clicks on your ad regardless how many times it was shown. You can also set a budget to limit the amount you spend each day.
photo credit: Jason Howie via photopin (license)
Kale Realty offers 100% commissions on all sales to brokers (minus a $350 fee). We’d be thrilled to add you to the team! You can schedule a call or meeting with D.J. by clicking here.