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Mar 22
Love2

The best time to post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in 2021

By Social Media

According to Hootsuite, who should know the answer to this, it is early morning weekdays that are your best bet. (Read More)

The best time to post on Facebook

The best time to post to Facebook is at 6:15 AM and 12:15 PM PST on weekdays, for the Hootsuite social media team.

The best time to post on Instagram

The best time to post to Instagram is anytime between 8 AM-12 PM or 4-5 PM PST

The best time to post on Twitter

The best time to post to Twitter is weekdays between 6-9 AM PST

The best time to post on LinkedIn

The best time to post to LinkedIn is weekdays between 8-11 AM PST

Photo courtesy of howtostartablogonline.net

Apr 20
Love0

Giant List of 100+ Marketing Stats Reveals What Actually Works

By Marketing Strategy, Realtor Marketing, Social Media

Jeff Desjardins has assembled the definitive marketing stats for almost anything you could imagine. You can read the post and view the Infographic by clicking here. The actual Infographic is too big to post here, but here are some of the highlights. Since writing this post I have come across a similar resource at Uplead.com titled 100+ Sales Statistics You’ll Want to Share with Your Team TODAY. Click here to read the post.

Search:

  • The top five search results for a keyword on Google get 70% of the clicks.
  • Google is responsible for 94% of total organic traffic.
  • 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engine results.
  • 50% of searches are 4 keywords or longer.
  • The top 5 results get 70% of the clicks.
  • Search engines drive 300% more traffic to websites than social media.

Read More

Jun 08
Love0

Social Media Marketing Stats – What Works?

By Social Media

A recent major study by Buffer, a Social Media Management Company for marketers and agencies sheds some new light on the use of Social Media.

Buffer looked at over 14 million tweets, 2 million Facebook updates, and data from Pinterest, Google Plus, and LinkedIn to “figure out how brands have been sharing to social media over the past 12 months.” They found that Twitter and Facebook are still dominating the social media scene, with almost 80 percent of brands’ online posts appearing on Twitter.

Twitter is particularly conducive to posting multiple times per day, and indeed, Buffer found that brands posted an average of 18 posts per week on Twitter. Meanwhile brands are posting to Facebook at a slower rate, about once per day.

Facebook links generate more engagement than photos, perhaps because, when you post a link on Facebook, the site chooses a large photo and some metadata from the link for the post. This creates a very eye-catching visual for the news feed.

Meanwhile, a study by Shopify found that 87 percent of Pinterest users had purchased a product the found on Pinterest, and the brands on Pinterest that post multiple times per day have experienced steady growth in engagement.

In a nutshell: post more videos, and while focusing on Twitter and Facebook, don’t forget to hit up LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Read the whole story by clicking here.

May 27
Love0

Is Social Media Worth the Time Investment for Realtors?

By Marketing Strategy, Social Media

I think this question is one of the most asked by Realtors and one of the hardest to answer, but this report titled Is Social Media Worth the Time Investment by Gill South for Inman News is the most enlightening.

Key Takeaways

  1. Agents are, at times, damaging the reputation of the real estate industry with their haphazard and sometimes alienating social media activity.
  2. More than 35 percent of brokerages are not supporting their agents with their social media strategy.
  3. Agents are criticized for being boastful, too personal, too impersonal and for posting too many listings on social media.
  4. Facebook is the most important social media platform for real estate professionals followed by YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Click here to read the full report or click here for a pdf version.

Here is a sample of the data the report uncovers:

What social media platforms are agents using

How often each week

Jul 30
Love1

Social Media for Realtors: How to Use the Key Platforms

By Realtor Marketing, SEO, Social Media

Limelight Marketing writes weekly guest blog posts about Realtor Marketing for the Real Estate Weekly website; one of the leading real estate websites in Vancouver. This weeks post was titled Social Media for Realtors: How to Use the Key Platforms. Following is a brief summary. You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

Where do you start?

Facebook

Facebook is good for interacting with people on a more personal level, so it is useful for real estate. You can use your personal page, but a separate business page is recommended to keep your personal life separate.

Twitter

Compared with the lifespan of a Facebook post, where 75% of engagement occurs within the first five hours, a tweet has a life span of about 18 minutes.

YouTube

Posting a video of a listing on YouTube works the best for exposure.

Instagram

This is purely visual – showcase your listings by adding key photos to Instagram.

Pinterest

People will see your pictures, re-post them and provide free traffic to your website.

LinkedIn

Building a network of potential buyers and sellers is difficult on LinkedIn, but within the real estate industry, LinkedIn can serve as a means to participate in community discussions with fellow professionals and those interested in real estate.

Google+

Google+ is the second largest social media network behind Facebook.

You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

 

 

Jul 08
Love0

Real Estate Websites and Social Media

By Social Media, Website Design

Your website is your brand. It is how you represent yourself and your business. It is where you present your listings, accolades and client testimonials as well as a fountain of knowledge for buyers and sellers. Unfortunately in a profession like real estate, it is important to have an esthetically pleasing site but even MORE important to have a well optioned site also. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be your number one priority because without it – you will be lost in the sea of Google pages.

Like you would stage a house to sell, you need to also stage your site properly. Make it user friendly with links to help the “not so world wide web” familiar customers easily navigate the information presented to them. Also make it easy for them to find your listings as about 80 – 90% of your visits are to your listings.

With these two things to consider – invest your marketing budget in continuous Search Engine Optimization (SEO), continuous website development and treat your real estate website as YOUR prime realty!

Capitalize On Your Existing Clientele

Though an existing client isn’t always ready to immediately buy again they are also your most valuable sales force. One happy buyer or seller will lead to a future buyer or seller. Not to mention, word of mouth and happy customers will create a broader customer database. Return clients are the BEST clients so focus on the existing ones to ensure the best customer service…it will serve you well.

That being said, whilst you nurture your existing relationships, the new customers will be doing their due diligence which is where the importance of SEO and Site staging will come full circle.

Let’s get started with some revenue generating tips:

Local SEO

The good thing about the real estate industry? Doing local SEO is easy.

The bad thing about the real estate industry? It’s so easy, a lot of realtors forget to do it.

The number one place to start is getting set up on Google Places for Business.

Some things to consider:

  • Local Reviews on social platforms such as Yelp
  • Local city directories
  • Trusted Service referrals
  • Email newsletters
  • Donate to local community initiatives
  • Volunteer your time in some way in the community
  • Piggyback on local events and sponsorship

Social Media

Social Media is excellent for creating a community. Find interesting articles, real estate updates, home decor, local news etc with appropriate hash tags to gain a following. Don’t forget to include all of your social platform links on your website. The world runs on social media and it is a good idea to jump on this bandwagon because it is an important tool that isn’t going anywhere

Twitter

  • Twitter can be a great way to let everyone know about an open house, a reduced price listing, a new listing – anything at all.
  • Use it to link back to your site to gain traffic, use appropriate hashtags (#OpenHouse) and invite people you know using their appropriate handle.
  • Interact with your followers and ask questions or for their opinion…form that community!

Facebook

  • Facebook is good for interacting with people on a more personal level, so it can be very useful for real estate.
  • Post photos, ask questions, reply to all inquiry’s.
  • Treat all communication like a personal conversion and educate everyone else who may come across the post.

Instagram

  • This is ALL visual – showcase the excellent and beautiful elements of your listings.
  • Create a well curated and album of all your clients listings.
  • Tag appropriately and try to post often to create a beautiful display of all your listings – it will be a plus to your clients

Pinterest

  • Don’t just use this to push a sale – use it to become an expert in design, DIY, real estate, decor and anything home related.
  • People will see your pictures, re-post them, and provide free traffic to your website.

YouTube

  • Posting a video of a listing works. If you have ever searched for a house by address and the Realtor has a video of the house it is almost always on page 1 in the first 5 results. Google will rank your video higher than your web page.
  • After uploading your video to Youtube you can also take the embed code and add it to your website.
  • Remember to provide a long description full of keywords and add as many Tags as you can think of.

Website Blogging and Content

You can really stand out among your competition with a well thought out, keyword-rich real estate blog. If you are trying to attract people moving to your city when people buy a house that is far outside of their previous residency zone, they usually immediately need the following:

  1. Information about local schools, daycares, universities.
  2. Information about summer camps.
  3. Information about prospective employment.
  4. Information about entertainment.
  5. Information about sports, music classes, art, and dance.

Think about the kind of information that you search for with regards to where you live and what you do around there, and write about it. Think about questions that people have that deal with where they live:

  • Which restaurants have outdoor seating? Which ones are within walking distance?
  • Are there any good outdoor camps for my kids this summer? What’s the transportation situation for them?
  • Where can we see a professional ballet performance or a play that’s geared towards preschoolers?
  • What are the options we have for my children when they go to high school? Are there early college programs available?

BECOME AN EXPERT IN YOUR COMMUNITY!

The Most Important Blog Posts You Can Write

While blogging about mortgages, renovations and home care tips is nice and may attract a few people interested in advice the most effective real estate blog post is writing about what buyers and sellers are searching for. A blog post titled “New Listings of Homes For Sale in Anytown” will attract all of the early buyers who are “tire kicking” on the internet. Writing a blog post titled “Anytown Homes For Sale From Your Anytown Realtor” will help you get found if someone is looking for a Realtor in a specific area. Even “Anytown Recent Sales and Market Update” is a great way to attract visitors.

A Few Other Website Tips To Consider

  1. Your title and description should look good in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
  2. If you have other social platforms that you use, put that on the home page.
  3. Make sure your site works on mobile!
  4. If you have an open house advertised on your site, list the hours.
  5. If you only sell houses in one area, list it in the title and description of your site.
  6. If someone has given you a bad review on Yelp or any other site, respond to it. Make things right if you can.
  7. If you sell houses in 1,000 different cities, don’t list links to those 1,000 cities in the footer of every single page of your website.

Just like with food, houses are something that people (usually) want to buy. You aren’t trying to sell a product that no one wants. You’re trying to make sure that the people who want to buy something are finding you and buying it from you.

Making heavy use of visuals without forgetting the basics or neglecting social media is key – visuals alone won’t be worth much when your competitors are doing all the other stuff better than you.

Michaela Blaney

Jun 23
Love1

Top 10 Website, SEO and Social Media Mistakes To Avoid

By SEO, Social Media, Website Design

Website marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media marketing are a fact of life and a source of frustration to small business owners. Without enough knowledge or time to spend on these areas it is sometimes easier to take the easy route or hire the first person you come in contact with. Do so at your peril as these three areas are the keys to your online success!

So what are the top 10 Website, SEO and Social Media Mistakes To Avoid?

  1. Letting an amateur optimize your website 
    Would you let the next door neighbor’s teenage son taking an auto mechanic course in high school fix the brakes on your family car? Then why would you let an amateur optimize your website? You only get one chance to add the most descriptive, keyword Page Titles and Descriptions that Google will use in part to rank your website so turn to an expert. They will research  the keywords people use to find your business and service and use them correctly to optimize your website. (…read more)
  2. Buying links
    While this was popular a few years ago, recent Google algorithm changes actually punish websites that have unnatural links coming in to your website. If the link is not from a legitimate, known source such as a supplier or customer then turn it away. Better yet go through all  your link and make sure they are legitimate.
  3. Letting the intern handle your Social Media
    Who knows more about your business and clients than someone who has never worked in your business? Everybody, but the intern! Your Social Media is is critical to your brand that it should be handled by an experienced marketing person or company. You need to plan your social media strategy and implement it professionally. An intern is a great resource and can manage the posts etc, but let the propfessionals do what they do best. (…read more)
  4. Buying content
    See Buying links above. The only content that should go on your website is content related to you, your product or your service. If it is not related to your business and helpful to the visitor it will not contribute to your search engine success. If the content you buy shows up on dozens of other websites it will actually penalize your rankings from what we have read.
  5. Emailing the same thing to everyone rather than segmenting
    It is rare for every customer of yours to be at the same stage of their relationship with your company or have the same interests. Look at your database and at least differentiate between prospects and clients and email appropriate information. If you are a Realtor segment between buyers and sellers.
  6. Buying Likes
    When you were 5 years old having someone like you was important. You would invite them over for dinner or share a treat with them so they would like you, but buying likes for a Facebook page is akin to leaving your phone number on a bathroom wall. If the people “liking” your page are not interested in your product or service then you will never know how many people are really interested in what you have to say. Post good information and people will like you for who you are and you will always know how many prospects you are reaching.
  7. Falling for SEO Claims to get your website on page 1
    Do you really believe someone when they make a claim they can get your website on page 1? Do you really think the Google algorithm with a reported 185 elements that no one knows about can be tricked by the guy who emails you or calls you randomly? Would Google jeopardize the multi-billion dollar search business by letting inferior websites on page 1 of a Google search? The short answer is not in a million years. We do make claims that with our knowledge of “white hat” tactics and lots of hard work your website can get on page 1 for specific search terms over time, but no one can “guarantee” page 1. The flip side is if you do nothing we can guarantee you won’t be on page 1. (…read more)
  8. Getting Likes using animal photos
    See Buying Links and Buying Content above. Visitors who “like” your Facebook page because you add cute kitten photos are there for the photos and not your brand, product or service. It does not hurt to mix up your content, but you want people to “like” your page because it is informative, entertaining and interesting.
  9. Submitting links and articles to bogus directories
    This went out with bell bottoms, but people still flog the idea that they can post a new release on 200 “legitimate” new release sites which will create 200 links back to you and is as harmful to your website rankings as Buying Links and Buying Content above. Do not let anyone do this on your behalf.
  10. Setting up E-Commerce on a global platform like Amazon instead of a more targeted platform
    If you have a local or regional product and you want to make it easy for people to buy it find an E-Commerce platform that makes it easy for people to buy online. Adding a single sku to Amazon and expecting people to navigate through all of the ancillary crap on the website is a recipe for abandoned shopping carts.

I did not start this list to slag every SEO technique or vilify legitimate companies or individuals starting in the business, but like I said in the opening paragraph your website, optimization techniques and Social Media strategy are the key to your future so avoid these mistakes.

For more information please call us at 800-568-8338.

 

Mar 04
Love1

Top 10 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses From Hootsuite

By Social Media

Social media is an important aspect of promoting your small business. In order to set up an effective marketing strategy, a basic understanding of the relationship between business and social media is needed. Hootsuite helps you expand your presence quickly. Engage frequently and share links to useful and engaging content to maximize influence.

Our friends at Hootsuite have written an ebook on the Top 10 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses:

  1. Use social media to sell your product
  2. Join Twitter
  3. Increase Twitter followers
  4. Build relationships by following back
  5. Figure out the number of tweets per day
  6. Tweet at optimal times
  7. Join LinkedIn
  8. LinkedIn company pages vs LinkedIn profiles
  9. Share engaging content on your Facebook page
  10. Post appropriate content

Setting up a Hootsuite account is part of our Social Media service. Hootsuite is a Social Media Management System. It helps you keep track and manage your all of your social network channels. It helps you to monitor what people are saying about your brand and enables you to respond instantly. You can view streams from multiple networks such as Facebook, Linkedin Twitter and Google+ and post updates or reply directly. With so many networks for businesses to manage, it’s no doubt Social Media Management tools like Hootsuite have become so popular and relied upon by many leading companies worldwide. Check out our Social Media Customization Service by clicking here.
hootsuite-logo-dashboard

Top 5 Reasons to use Hootsuite to manage your Social Media

  • 1. Moniter multiple platforms in one place
  • 2. Customer service management
  • 3. Free reports by email
  • 4. Cross posting between different platforms
  • 5. Available on iPhone and Android
Mar 03
Love0

Social Media Customization Service from Limelight Marketing

By Social Media

Social media is here to stay and will always play a part in your overall marketing efforts. Initially pundits thought Social Media would replace some traditional mediums, but as the years have gone by it is apparent that Social Media is just another part of your overall marketing mix. How you choose to utilize it is dependent on your industry, your market and to some degree your skill set.

Just like you have experts create your websites, marketing material and advertising you need an expert to advise you on your Social Media. We have combined our years of Social Media experience and success and created a customization package for both users with no Social Media in place and seasoned veterans who recognize that having their brand consistent across all of their platforms, while balancing the nuances of the specific platforms also impacts their ROI. Our customization service includes the set-up and or branding of your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin accounts.

View a sample project for a client that had a personal Facebook page and a Linkedin account, but wanted her online presence to convey her new business venture when people searched for her name. Click here to view the project.

Facebook

  • Custom profile picture and banner image using existing branding
  • 3 Facebook posts to engage using links to site
  • Customer engagement for following post (up to a week)

Twitter

  • Custom profile picture and banner image using existing branding
  • Will follow 10 industry related users
  • 3 tweets to engage using links back to site

Google+

  • Set up Google+ Account
  • Add custom banner
  • Share 3 posts
  • Follow 10 industry related users

Linkedin

  • Profile setup for company (or person)
  • Add profile photo
  • Link to 10 industry related users

We will even set up a Hootsuite account to consolidate all of your Social Media in one place making it easy to track activity and participate in the conversation.

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