Author: Buildout This post originally appeared on Buildout’s Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to blog with us on theBrokerList.
Social media marketing is a critically important component of brokerage and CRE marketing strategies. But with limited time, it can be difficult to sustain a professional and consistent social presence.
That’s where social media tools come in.
Social media management and content generation tools can work to reduce the time spent managing your social media accounts, improve your reach to target audiences, and provide key insights on post and campaign performance.
And because spending your time researching the thousands of tools out there isn’t ideal, we put together a list of the broker favorites for you.
Social media management tools for brokers
Posting manually on social media every day can be time consuming and extremely inefficient. To avoid wasting time, there are numerous powerful social media management tools that allow you to draft and bulk schedule posts in advance and monitor your CRE firm’s social performance. Here are a few broker favorites:
1. Hootsuite
Price: Based on plan level, free 30-day trial available for some plan levels
Hootsuite is a social media management platform that allows you to curate content, schedule posts across all your social networks, keep an eye on the latest CRE social conversations and trends, view social post analytics, and collaborate as a team.
With Hootsuite, brokerages and CRE firms are able to do more on social in less time, grow their social following with quality content that reaches more prospects, create a dialog and connect with target audiences, respond to customers faster, and make better decisions based on real data.
2. Buffer
Price: Free and paid available, paid analytics only
Buffer is a social media scheduling tool for the major social networks that is easy to use and streamlines your processes. It installs a button on your social media pages and adds a widget to your browsers that allows you to share content with a few quick clicks.
Similar to Hootsuite, you can load several posts into your queue and they will automatically post at times you’ve scheduled in advance. The platform also offers in-depth social analytics, strategy recommendations, and reports for an additional cost.
3. Sprout Social
Price: Based on plan level, free 30-day trial available for all plan levels
Sprout Social is a social media software that helps businesses manage their entire social presence from one central platform—much like Hootsuite and Buffer. Although it has many similar features like publishing, scheduling, and analytics, it is much more robust when compared to other tools.
Designed for businesses and firms like yours, Sprout Social has a social inbox for tracking keywords, unlimited reporting features, and location and keyword monitoring—among others. The plans are a bit more expensive when compared to other tools, but monitoring and reporting features are much more advanced.
Learn more about Sprout Social
4. Mention
Price: Based on plan level, free 30-day trial available for some plans
One of the best ways to leverage social media as a brokerage or CRE firm is to create a dialog with your prospects and target audiences and connect with people who are already talking about you—which is where social monitoring tools like Mention come into play.
Mention constantly crawls the web looking for mentions of your brand, stakeholders, or properties and notifies you so that your firm can take action. With competitive review tools, influencer search, and automated reporting features—Mention can help you connect with more prospects and stand out from the competition.
Social media content generation tools for brokers
It can take a lot of effort, special skills, and time to generate creative content for social media. But with social media content generation tools, you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create stunning visuals for your brokerage or CRE firm. Here are a few broker favorites:
5. Canva
Price: Free and paid available
Canva is an online design and publishing tool that makes graphic design easy. Meaning even if you have zero experience in graphic design work, you can publish professional and creative social media content that captivates your target audiences.
With over a hundred design types, two-hundred thousand free templates, and hundreds of thousands of free photos and graphics, the free version is a great place to start. And if you plan to leverage visual social media channels like Instagram and Pinterest, Canva is the tool to get.
6. Visme
Price: Free and paid available
According to Visme, whether you’re a seasoned designer or you have no creative ability, Visme marries capability with ease of use to create a platform that anyone and everyone can use.
With Visme, brokers and CRE professionals can create engaging charts and infographics, eye-catching social content, and shorts videos or animations—all while maintaining brand guidelines. The free version is a great place for brokers to start.
7. Adobe Spark
Price: Free and paid available
With Adobe Spark’s Spark Post feature, you can pick a photo, add text, and apply design filters and animations instantly to help you stand out from the crowd. Or—with the Spark Video feature—you can create videos by easily adding video clips, icons, and your own voice, or select from existing options.
Adobe Spark is a great tool for CRE professionals not wanting to use more complicated and expensive Adobe tools like Photoshop. Although the free starter version is limited, you can still pick from thousands of free images and icons for your designs.
Learn more about Adobe Spark
Looking for more ways to streamline your marketing efforts?
With Buildout’s marketing software—built specifically for CRE—you can streamline more of your marketing efforts by generating individual property websites, producing and sharing branded marketing materials in an instant, and promoting listings everywhere with a single data entry.
If you haven’t seen what Buildout can do for you and your team, get in touch with us and ask for a personalized demo today.
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