The Biggest Lie Ever Told
Automating your real estate social media processes is a big part of an effective real estate marketing strategy.
And everyone who knows me knows that I’m on social media… A LOT
I’m constantly marketing my business on social and keeping up with trends to serve my community. And because I teach real estate agents how to market themselves on social media, I’m seeing a lot of the same ads you guys are.
If I had a nickel for how many times I saw the phrase “automate your social media” my mortgage would be paid off. Seriously.
You Can’t Automate Relationships
The problem is that you can’t fully automate social media, because social media is inherently…social. And the last time I checked, people rarely like to have social conversations with robots.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve turned over a desk because my bank, cable company, or cell provider refused to let me speak to a human… Again… Mortgage paid for.
If a marketing company is shouting at you to “automate your social media” by plastering their crap all over the internet, just know that they’re selling you snake oil.
Auto posters are the WORST. And here’s why…
Social Media platforms only get paid when people are actually on the platform, so they program their algorithms to punish posts originated outside of the platform.
These algorithms slap down auto-posts from a mile away, so most of your community members won’t even see it (and the few that do, will begin to ignore it).
You’re killing your engagement, damaging your brand, and losing leads every time you use one of those services.
It may work initially, but posting and ghosting is not a viable, long-term marketing strategy.
Here is a Method That is Helping Me Automate My Processes…But Not My Relationships
Plan Everything Out In Advance
This is the most important tip I can give you!
Sit down and plan out a month’s worth of content in one afternoon. I know it seems daunting, but you can do it.
This is how I pump out so much social media content in my own business, and how I teach real estate agents to create content in my Academy. So I know it can be done – we have thousands of students in LSA who are doing it….and you can too.
If you need help creating captions and graphics, join my Lead Strategy Academy! Because outsourcing is another great way to automate the process.
Schedule All Social Media Posts
Another way to automate your process is to schedule out all of your social media at once.
Sit down, play a little Beyonce, and start scheduling!
To schedule out a month’s worth of social media, it will only take you a couple hours…even less when you get better!
To schedule on Facebook and YouTube, use their native scheduler (not a third party auto poster) right inside of the platform. When you schedule directly on the platform, you’ll get way more reach, engagement, comments, likes, and shares! Which equates to free leads (yay)!
Instagram doesn’t let you schedule just yet, so for now, use a third party tool (like Later or Planoly). These tools will allow you to schedule all of your content, then it will ping your phone when it’s time to post on Instagram. When you get the notification, just copy and paste into Instagram. Easy.
It literally takes 5 seconds.
The key, again, is to post using your own phone, not their auto-scheduler.
Time Block 60 Minutes A Day To Respond
Time blocking is crucial for anyone who owns a business. People often ask me how I get so much done in every day and the answer is: I time block.
There’s no part of the day that’s unaccounted for. Left to my own devices, I often get sucked into the innermost depths of the internet – wayyyyyyyyyyy past funny cat videos, sunkissed glow makeup tutorials, and Korean hip hop choreography dances. Which is typically how it starts.
So to prevent distraction, I always time block. I typically start with the year, then quarter, then month, week, day, hour, all the way down to the minute.
When it comes to social media, give yourself 30 minutes a day in the morning and 30 minutes a day in the afternoon. Treat it just like any other lead generation time – you’re building relationships for business, not for fun – even though it often IS fun.
The Bad News is…
You can’t fully automate or outsource your social media, because it’s impossible to automate relationships.
But the good news is that you CAN automate and outsource the processes, systems, and tools.
And we highly recommend the latter!