Pinterest is a new social media tool that is growing fast. Lisa B discusses the best ways for an agent to use this tool in their social media marketing strategy.
Of all the social media that we deal with today, Pinterest is relatively new, but it’s growing fast. Pinterest is a photo and video sharing social media site that is like your own virtual pin board. It stores a digital collection of your photo and video albums, and allows others to share your photos or ‘pins’ or to comment on them.
It’s a fantastic tool to help people get to know you on a personal level: what you like, your interests, and your personality.
As real estate agents, we are always looking for points of commonality in listing appointments and buyer appointments. Social media sites really show people your true personality, values and what’s important to you. Through them, buyers and sellers can determine for themselves, from a distance, if they feel compatible or aligned with you.
What do you have to do to get started?
Log on to www.pinterest.com to request an invitation. Or email me at [email protected] and I can send you one. The invitation acceptance could take a few days. (If you need help, check out the easy to use help section in the drop-down menu on the top right.)
First set up your basic profile, and then you can:
- Upload your own photos
- ‘Like’ others boards or photos
- Follow people of interest
- Comment on their photos
- Re-pin other people’s photos (once you have set up your own boards)
I highly suggest that you create a profile on Pinterest, in addition to having a presence on sites like Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google Plus. Then, fully develop one or two that you are comfortable with to create a massive online profile, in order to develop strategies, and to generate leads. Choose the platforms you wish to use—the right ones are the ones you take the time to master, because only those will truly help you to generate traffic, leads, and listings.
Think of Pinterest as an organised filing system of numerous photo albums that encompass who you are. It is important to make sure you create several boards with different topics. For real estate agents, some great options are:
- The most beautiful homes in your area (create a board called ‘Best homes in ‘where ever you live’ (Try using relevant key words your target market could be searching for in Google)
- The most unusual homes in your area
- The most beautiful exterior/ interior homes in your area
- The most amazing gardens in your area
- Your suburb profile
- Your local schools and local area knowledge
- Your local playgrounds and fun activities for kids
- Funny looking homes
- Staged homes – before and after pictures
- Renovation ideas
- Celebrity homes.
Your aim should be to relate to others through your interests, and to refer traffic to your website by including a direct link on your profile. If enough people like your pins, they might even go viral, and connect you to even more people.
Just like other social media sites, Pinterest will help you attract more viewers to your site, particularly if you explore others’ sites through their pins. If a specific image starts to work for you on Pinterest, consider re-purposing it across the web through the other social media you use.
Join and have a go – to pin images onto your boards, simply click on the “add” feature and then “pin it”.
How to make Pinterest more social:
- Like and comment on other peoples pins
- Use the @ symbol to tag other people in your posts and comments
- Turn comments into conversations by responding
- Search on Pinterest for the target market of a real estate agent: people or businesses in your local area (get to know the locals).
