How to Use TikTok for Real Estate Marketing and Connect with Millennials
What is TikTok and How Can Real Estate Agents Use it to Generate Leads?
TikTok for real estate marketing might seem like a weird idea. After all, what do lip-syncing and dancing have to do with real estate? The secret lies within the TikTok’s features and its popularity among Millennials. The platform shows great potential for a promising future and it’s growing very fast.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook made image sharing popular Later they focused on videos. What they created now is being put to use on other emerging platforms. TikTok is a social media platform that focuses on videos with cool effects and music and allows users to heavily modify their videos before posting them. The app was created based on the lip-synching idea first introduced by other apps like Dubsmash and is very popular among millennials, younger ones in particular.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social media platform that can be downloaded for free on iOS and Android. It is a social media platform so it can be used to create content, share it with others, like, and comment on content. The core of the TikTok revolves around Videos with music.
The majority of the videos that are being created right now are about fun and entertaining topics accompanied by music or audio. Videos can be recorded for 15 or 60-second periods. You could say TikTok is the story feature of Instagram but heavily upgraded to house fun effects especially.
People share videos created on TikTok to other platforms like Instagram. Due to the video base of the platform, it is easy for users to show their sense of humor and personality. That’s why the platform has been growing in popularity for the last 3 years.
Why Do Realtors Need TikTok
What do you think you would have to do to get a thousand views or more for your listings? What if it only took a few minutes every day and was free? That might sound too good to be true but that is what TikTok for real estate can do for you. You just have to leave your comfort zone and join the party. See how Las Vegas Realtor dances to the music while showing a house! That’s leaving your comfort zone!
TikTok for real estate is perfect for content marketing. Grab your phone, record a short clip, choose a music track, and let the app do the rest. You have an edited video for your listings that cannot be comparably created with other famous social media platforms. You can also use your already recorded footage. See how Derick Jones is using a pre-recorded professional video in his post to show listings:
To the cynical realtors out there, the platform seems like a toy. Though we don’t disagree with the entertaining aspect of the platform, it has qualities that make it a perfect choice for businesses, especially realtors. Here are some reasons why realtors should use TikTok for real estate:
1. Competition is Low
TikTok is popular with a younger demographic. Currently, other platforms like Facebook and Instagram are crowded with realtors and competition is tough. It is much harder to be heard among all those realtors marketing their services, especially if you are new to promoting your business on social media. Alisa Glutz Scottsdale mortgage broker managed to grow her network on the platform (455,000 likes and 77,000 followers) in a time span as short as 60 days.
Realtors already use other platforms like Facebook and Instagram on a large scale, and it seems like everybody is claiming the same thing. But TikTok for real estate is wide open for realtors. Your competitors either don’t know what it is or discard it for being frivolous and not business-appropriate. Avoid this thought process, platforms like Facebook did not start with business pages.
2. It Grows Fast
TikTok has been getting much attention recently, but it’s not a brand-new platform. In its early days (2014) it was called musical.ly. Through rebranding, it became the platform we know today. TikTok is growing fast and already rivaling platforms like Instagram.
In the brief three years since its 2017 launch, TikTok has grown to have 800 million monthly active users. It took Facebook four years and Instagram six to reach the same monthly users.
The entertaining value TikTok offers has made it a different app that is so appealing it has been installed 1.6 billion times.
3. It is Popular With Millennials
41% of TikTok users are aged 16 to 24 years old. Although they all may not sound like the best candidate to market real estate services to at the time being, the older end of this population is the youngest of the Millennials (those born between 1980-2000) and may already be thinking of buying a home. Also, 59% of the TikTok users are older than 24 and are definitely in the home-buying age. Despite the fun and entertaining nature of the platform, no one can dismiss it.
TikTok is popular and easy to use. Promoting your brand is actually easier on TikTok compared to other platforms.
Unlike Facebook, known for being the social media platform of older generations, TikTok has captured younger age demographics. Millennials and Generation Z are active users. And these generations should not be ignored; they are social media-savvy future businesses.
4. Video is the Business
Video is in high demand online, and realtors are realizing they need to take advantage of videos if they want to stay in the game. It can be discouraging for some. Creating a video requires time, and using TikTok for real estate requires being a tad outgoing.
The platform offers many cool video editing features that everyone can conveniently take advantage of and produce high-quality content. Real estate happens to be heavily dependent on videos which makes TikTok a good bet for realtors. Videos hold the audience longer where images can be scrolled up and away from within seconds. On average, users spend 52 minutes a day on TikTok, which is almost the same as social media champion Facebook with 58 minutes a day.
5. It Generates Leads
TikTok can help you reach the local micro-community interested in buying or selling where you do business. Your TikTok videos act as a demo version of videos for your listings. After your audience sees your TikTok video, they can proceed to your Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube accounts and view longer videos. Given the fact that a part of your target audience is already on these sites, this is where the lead conversion occurs.
Cool Ideas for Using TikTok For Real Estate
TikTok is just another social media platform despite its differences and features. Therefore, the many existing rules for other platforms also apply to TikTok. That means you need to be producing valuable content regularly. Remember these two words: useful and regular.
The next point to remember is to consider the audience when producing content. you need to have defined your target audience, which in the case of TikTok, should be the younger part of your audience who might be contemplating buying their first home. You should keep this in mind when choosing the type of content and the tone of voice you’re going to choose when addressing them. See how ZacharyLoft addresses the younger generation:
Put yourself in their shoes. Remember the time you were their age. What are the things you wish you knew back then that would have changed how you handled real estate or when you bought your first home?
There should be lots of things you can use to educate the younger generation. Here are some ideas when using TikTok for real estate:
Listing Videos
One of the most popular and practical videos you could make on all social platforms is listing videos. Record footage showing the house, and add some music to it alongside some cool effects that will appeal to the millennials and will introduce them to you in a fun way.
See how professional this looks, yet it is entertaining. This is what TikTok is made for:
this clip, which is essentially a music video set in a bathroom:
2. Neighborhood Videos
As is known to almost everyone, people first choose the neighborhood and then buy a house. Therefore, producing content about neighborhoods is a must. You can use TikTok’s music feature to add more vibe to the neighborhood, giving it positive associations.
3. Personal Moments
Although your ultimate goal on social media is to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and make money, it won’t hurt to post non-business content occasionally. One of the most critical factors in creating a bond with your audience as a realtor is letting them get to know you personally.
Most exalted realtors share moments of their personal life on their social media accounts. Try to casually use TikTok for real estate and let your audience see a tinge of your hobbies and things you do for fun. This will give your audience the idea that they know you not just as an agent but as a person. Posting videos of your kids and pets creates a sensation of closeness and friendliness, which will do you good in your business if you want to know more about real estate social media marketing read our blog.
4. FAQs
Respond to what people ask about real estate on social media and online forums and compile a list of the most frequently asked questions. Then, create short videos answer these questions, and upload them to your TikTok account. If there are comments and questions, reply as soon as possible. Caring for your audience leaves a good impression on commenters and others reading those comments. And don’t be shy. Go on, and have fun while answering questions.
5. Behind-The-Scenes
Further to the point in number 3 (personal moments), it is a good idea to let the audience know what is happening behind the scenes in your business. Creating and recording short videos on what a typical workday looks like or how you help your clients will give your audience a clear idea of what you do and create a stronger bond while building trust in your relationship. Show them all the trouble you go through to sell their property and buy one for them.
6. Teasers
You can create a series of videos about a property, for example, a home walkthrough chopped into a couple of 1-minute videos. Then, create 15-second teasers promoting the videos in advance. This will create a feeling of anticipation in your audience and keep them tuned to your account for more content.
7. Happy Clients
Marketing, especially in real estate, finds perfection in storytelling. Stories about homes and properties and the services you provide. Stories in which you describe your professional journey and how you help your clients with their needs. Fortunately, TikTok is built to tell stories.
One way to build trust with your audience is to share the success stories of your happy clients. Use TikTok features to create your own style and tell your story. If 15 seconds is not enough, you can create a miniseries in which you tell their story’s different parts in each 15-second episode.
Ask your happy clients to describe their journey: where they started, what problems they had, how you helped them, and finally, how glad they feel now.
8. Educate
Buying or selling property is a complicated and time-consuming process. There are many steps in the process and many chances to make mistakes. You, as a realtor, following the mission to provide valuable content for your audience, can create mini videos educating your audience about the process ahead, including but not limited to:
- Home buying process
- Home selling process
- Best time to buy a property
- Best time to sell a property
- Common mistakes
See how danielle_mignone uses the fun side of TikTok for real estate to educate her younger audience:
Follow Best Real Estate TikTok Accounts
To get a sense of how to use TikTok for real estate marketing, you would be wise to follow those agents who are doing their best.
1. Aaron Grushow
With 1.3m followers and 23.7m likes, Aaron is one of the accounts to follow on TikTok. Aaron uses TikTok’s music feature to showcase properties in short videos. Using uplifting music, Aaron does a great job of creating positive associations with the property.
He also creates longer videos like this one introducing the most expensive homes sold in certain areas.
Watch how he tells his success story while explaining how he has utilized social media to achieve such goals.
2. Pillar Properties
Piller Properties has 313.7K Followers and 2.9M Likes on TikTok and uses TikTok’s features to showcase beautiful listings with eye-catching footage. They use music to make the audience feel good about the properties and use hashtags to increase the discoverability of the posts.
See how they use the video and creative filming techniques to showcase the property in the video below:
3. Dkrizestates
Darren Kriz, an LA-based realtor, has close to 500k followers and almost 10 million likes. He uses TikTok for real estate to present luxury homes and does some home walkthroughs while highlighting the property’s features.
He also uses music on his listings, which are mainly luxurious. He keeps a friendly tone with his audience, trying to create a sense of trust. The following video has close to 40k likes, in which he uses on-screen information describing the property.
Tips For Growing Your Real Estate Business on TikTok
TikTok is a relatively new platform. It offers unique features. To help you with the basics and how you can get the best out the platform, we have gathered a few helpful points:
1. Use it for Yourself First
To truly understand how TikTok works, you have no option but to use it how others do. Try searching for a hashtag on a topic you are interested in and watch videos you like. Then, follow some accounts that are related to your business. See how they share content and what they do. Try to find inspiration and come up with your ideas.
2. Don’t Sell to People Right Away
It may not make sense to start selling homes on TikTok as soon as you join the platform. Also, as a part of the audience is pretty young, they may not be ready to buy a home. For these reasons, you should start by introducing yourself as an excellent realtor and create non-promotional content that is still related to the business to grow an audience. After a while, when you have a decent fan base, you can start promoting listings.
Your main goal in using TikTok for real estate should be creating a solid relationship with your audience and introducing yourself as an expert realtor who knows their way around. Promoting listings and direct sales should make up a small portion of your content. The content you share should be valuable and should help your audience with the problems they have in real estate.
3. Make Your Videos Fun
TikTok is fun and should stay that way, or you will not be received well by the younger demographic of the platform. Tailor your content to fit to the fun atmosphere of the platform.
Always remember why people use social media. People find social media a relaxed place to learn about the latest trends and news and be entertained. They might find content amusing and helpful but don’t like being directly sold to.
4. Build An Audio Strategy
A cool feature TikTok offers enables users to use the audio of other clips and add their video to it, similar to lip-synching videos. This allows audio to go viral.
In another scenario, you can use highly viral audio tracks to create your videos so that once that audio is searched by other users, your video will show up. TikTok offers different sound and audio tracks from movies, viral YouTube videos, and chart-topping hits.
Ensure the audio tracks you choose relate to your business or industry. It is okay to use whatever you like for some fun unrelated videos occasionally, but the core of your social media activities for your business should incorporate relevant content in terms of both video and audio tracks.
5. It is OK to Copy Content
Content is most valued when it is original. In content marketing, curating content from many sources and adding your thoughts to improve it is okay. However, TikTok is pretty different. On TikTok, people are re-creating the same video over and over. Usually, there is music or a soundtrack that people use to add their video to. So, it is okay to copy others’ content, but make sure you relate it to what you do as a realtor. See how CC Underwood is using this famous audio track to educate her audience; this audio track has been used in 20K videos so far:
6. Get Creative
TikTok is naturally creative and requires users to utilize many effects and features to create visually appealing content. Therefore, a simple image used in platforms like Instagram won’t cut it here. It would be best to leave your comfort zone a bit here.
7. Use Hashtags
Tagging is critical. Your hashtags determine where your videos appear on TikTok. Hashtags come and go, and some stay popular for a long time. One of the things you can do to take advantage of daily trends is to create related videos about hashtags that are business-relevant. However, occasionally, you can create videos about non-business hashtags just for the sake of showing the social aspect of your personality. Trending hashtags are what people would like to see in the #Discover section of the app.
To get started, here are the top general hashtags on TikTok for real estate. If you are new to TikTok, don’t get your hopes high; expect a bit of slow growth. TikTok allows a 100-character caption for posts, so you need to plan your hashtags within these limits. However, like any other social media platform, you shouldn’t use many hashtags. First, it confuses the platform’s algorithm when deciding what your content is about. Second, using too many hashtags looks spam and desperate, which users frown upon.
Top 10 TikTok Real Estate Hashtags:
- #realestate w/ 251M Views
- #realestateagent w/ 40M Views
- #realestatelife w/ 8M Views
- #luxuryrealestate w/ 8.3M Views
- #realestateagents w/ 269K Views
- #luxuryhome w/ 7.7M Views
- #luxuryhomes w/ 10.9M Views
- #luxurydesign w/ 1.6M Views
- #luxuryhouse w/ 277K Views
- #luxurymansion w/ 2.8M Views
These are just a few of the common hashtags used in real estate provided by Luxury LB Branded to give you an idea of the bigger picture. Get creative and find your hashtags defined for each post. Coining your brand’s hashtag is also a great idea to make your content exclusively found while searching for that tag. However, as in the beginning, nobody will know about your hashtag, so you might not get a lot of discoverability. As you promote the hashtag and grow, this tag will be your exclusive tag.
8. Trends
TikTok has 800 million monthly active users at the time being. Now and then, something goes viral and becomes a trend. Trends come and go, and something hot today will be forgotten next week. So, taking the best out of these trends and striking when the iron is hot is something you should be focused on.
If you see a video or audio track going viral, get a move on quickly and create similar related videos that promote your business and brand. Creativity goes a long way here, allowing you to tailor trends to your business. TikTok is the platform of creativity, and the most popular videos are the most creative. However, do not sacrifice value for being fun. Try to offer something valuable besides being just entertaining.
9. Partner With Influencers
Influencers are people with a high number of followers (audience). They are essential as they can convey a message or share something with many people. They are one of the best options to promote your business on social media.
Check the #Discover page on TikTok to find the influencers. Then, narrow this list down to those somehow related to your business. The next step is to follow them, start a conversation with them, and ask for collaboration.
10. Post Daily
Although TikTok’s atmosphere is more lenient than Instagram’s regarding what standards you need to follow for your content, the basic rule for having a regular flow of content still applies. Content marketing, what you are doing on social media and your website, requires content producers to keep a steady flow of content and be consistent. If you go silent for a while, you might lose a significant portion of your followers. Share content at least once or twice weekly to keep your audience tuned and highlight your online presence.
11. Share Your Posts With Other Platforms
One of the weirdest features TikTok offers is the ability to share your content on other social media platforms. The videos are watermarked with TikTok’s logo and the user’s ID. When you share your or others’ videos on other platforms, you are promoting TikTok and provoke their sense of curiosity to join TikTok.
However, it does not matter why such a feature exists. What matters for you is that if your content does not do well on TikTok, by sharing it to your other social media channels, you have a better chance of being well-received and getting your audience to follow you on TikTok. See how Meghna Dhillon is reposting her TikTok video on Instagram:
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Takeaways
TikTok is known as the social medium of the new generation. That is true to some extent, but there are older people in its demographics. Young, middle-aged, or senior, you can use the high engagement rate of the platform to increase your brand’s awareness and create a fan base. Getting your name out there can be easily done on the platform provided you are ready to get your feet wet and leave your comfort zone.
Social media is a place to promote your content, help and educate your audience, and introduce yourself as an expert. Therefore, refrain from trying to make direct sales. Be fun and let them discover the real estate side of you while getting to know your fun side.
TikTok for real estate is perfect for content marketing. Grab your phone, record a short clip, choose a music track, and let the app do the rest. You have an edited video for your listings that cannot be comparably created with other famous social media platforms. You can also use your already recorded footage.
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