While many real estate agents stick to traditional marketing methods, those looking to maximize their list of leads have turned to Pinterest. Although Pinterest might not be the first social media platform you consider spending time on as a Real Estate Agent, there is an audience there that you can use to develop new leads and clients. If you’re interested in advertising your real estate services on Pinterest, but don’t know where to start, read our guide below!
Why Should Real Estate Agents Use Pinterest?
The goals of using social media for real estate agents apply to Pinterest as well. Pinterest will help you build brand awareness, send traffic to your website, and ultimately drive leads. However, Pinterest stands apart from other social media platforms in the following ways:
1. Post Longevity
Unlike other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, the lifespan of a post on Pinterest is significantly longer. This means more people will see your posts and get exposed to your business. Plus, you won’t need to post as frequently, saving you time that you can spend on other marketing activities.
2. Visual Platform
While many social media platforms rely on text to convey a story, Pinterest is visual. This plays wonderfully with real estate as it’s one of the most image-based industries in existence. For example, you can post photos of homes you’ve recently sold, dream homes available in your area, or before and after home remodels. Pinterest users love to be inspired and educated.
3. Easy Website Access
The ultimate goal of your social marketing efforts is to get people back to your website, so they can contact you. There are many ways to do this on Pinterest—and the easiest is with pins. For instance, you can format your pins to pull photos directly from your website. Then, when people click on them, they’re taken right where you want them—back to your site. Pinterest also offers the option to add call-to-actions to visit your website in your profile header. So, when visitors are on your Pinterest page, they’re able to navigate to your site quickly.
How to Market Your Real Estate Business on Pinterest
Now that you understand the opportunity for lead generation on Pinterest, let’s review how you can market yourself on Pinterest to get website visitors.
Step 1: Create a Business Account
If you don’t already have an account, you can skip this step and go straight into creating a business account. If you do already have a Pinterest account that you would like to keep as your main account, convert it to a Pinterest business account.
The business version of Pinterest is free and provides metrics like traffic, clicks, and demographic data that you can use to inform the decisions you make with your profile. Keep in mind that you can keep a personal Pinterest account to store your favorite recipes and DIY projects, but your real estate business account should only contain real estate related content.
Step 2: Write a Compelling Bio
As with every social media platform, Pinterest has space for you to tell visitors a little about yourself. Definitely include your name, the brokerage you’re partnered with, your location, and a link to your website. Also include the types of real estate you specialize in, such as commercial, apartments, or single-family homes. These extra details will make your account easier for the Pinterest search engine to find.
Step 3: Add a Profile Image
While this only takes a few seconds, adding a profile image will make a massive difference. Visitors want to know that you’re a real person and legitimate real estate agent, so make sure you include a professional headshot as your profile image. If your account looks spammy or doesn’t include the expected profile elements, you won’t get that desired website traffic.
Step 4: Organize Your Boards
Categorize your Pinterest boards the same way you would categorize the different elements of your business. For example, you can have a board for each one of the locations in your general area consisting of sold and available homes.
Another option is to separate your Pinterest boards by new homes and older homes. However you decide to organize your boards, make sure it makes sense for your audience. And to keep everything organized, only add pins to their appropriate board.
Step 5: Craft Your Pins
Now it’s time for content! First things first, ensure that your pins are all real estate related. But also plan to have a mix of your own content and content from other accounts. Not only is it essential to have a blend of your content and other people’s content for a more natural experience, but the love you show other pins will most likely be reciprocated—giving you even more exposure. Just make sure you don’t accidentally pin your competitors’ content!
Creating your pins is easy if you’re already regularly contributing to your website’s blog (as you should be). Just double-check that you have one pinnable image in each of your blog posts so Pinterest can pull that image directly. Ensure your images for Pinterest are 735×1102 pixels and consider adding text directly on top of the image using a free program like Canva.
Learn More About Social Marketing for Real Estate
You’re now well on your way to marketing yourself on Pinterest and generating a new source of leads for your real estate business. For other tips and further real estate education, explore our real estate continuing education courses or follow VanEd Real Estate School on Pinterest for inspiration!
Written and Published by: VanEd
