Followers Are Not Customers!

How many social media followers do you need to earn $100,000 a year as a Realtor? How about $500,000 a year? $2,000,000?

There’s no good answer because it’s the wrong question! It doesn’t matter how many followers you have. In fact, growing your follower count may actually lead to LESS business as you dilute your ability to pay attention to each of them.

Clients vs. Followers

Too many agents are taking advice from INFLUENCERS. Influencers need as many followers as possible because that’s how they make money. That’s NOT how real estate works though. Rather than followers, you need people who are thinking about buying or selling a house in YOUR MARKET. That’s a big difference!

Rather than trying to grow a following, you should be trying to attract customers. An ideal customer for your business has specific traits. They live in your community. They share your interests or passions. They care a ton about certain things and not at all about many others. Use that information to attract them!

Instead of big follower numbers, focus on the quality of your followers. It helps me to think of them as prospects, people I want to get to know better in order to try to do business with them! If you’re attracting so many followers that you don’t have the time to click on each and explore their profiles a bit, you’re probably growing too fast.

Outline Your Ideal Client

If you are willing to do a bit of work I’d suggest you try to outline two categories of info about the people you want to attract. What are their INTERESTS and PAIN POINTS? Don’t worry about these having anything to do with what your business does. Instead, think of this as getting to know them. Just like making new friends, you have to find what you have in common! Interests are easier, but pain points are the secret weapon.

If you can share some advice or tell a story about a challenging situation you faced, it could have a huge impact on your followers! We tend to form the strongest bonds through shared trauma. This is one way you can use your more painful experiences to help someone else, and the connection that results is hard to break!

Build Relationships

Once you understand what matters to your ideal customer, make lots of content about those things! Focus on videos where you are on camera. These give you meaningful face-to-face type interactions with your followers. You’ll build the relationship much faster. Every now and then mix in a video where you promote yourself and give your followers a way to contact you to schedule a meeting. You’ll find certain topics you like to come back to. Make those your marketing pillars, and rinse and repeat for years to come!

Remember that relationships are two way streets too. It’s not enough to simply post regularly, even if you’re being vulnerable or sharing something valuable. You should also engage with your followers. Follow them back. Comment on their posts. Send them messages when you have something useful to say in response to something they’ve shared. Try to actually get to know them a bit! You’d be stunned at how much business you can generate from just 100 followers if you approach it this way.

Get ready to feel a whole lot better every week too! You get to make content about stuff you care about while no longer worrying about how many people see it. Every time a new follower shows up you get to be PUMPED because you know they are a great fit for you and your business. That’s a lot more satisfying than comparing yourself to the influencers who have totally different goals too.