Top 4 Ways Sales Agents Lose on Social Media

It doesn’t matter if you sell cars, mortgages, homes, insurance, promotional products, watches, books or Google AdWords, social media is a proven marketplace to position yourself to connect with prospects and convert them into clients, but why do so many fail? Or use it but don’t get any results to brag about? Or why do so many walk away with their head between their legs, thinking social media doesn’t work?

I know more people who have failed on social media than succeeded in my journey leading a fast-growing Digital Branding & Marketing Agency. There are four distinguishing characteristics of a sales agent who loses on social media. This list is not exhaustive but it sure does portray a telling story of why it works for some and not all.

1. No Strategy.

You know that social media is the solution to your problem of needing to connect to more people but you don’t have a strategy to do so. You start posting and get few if any leads or sales and eventually quit one month or maybe you hang on for 6 months to a year but the inevitable happens and you stop.  

You don’t win by accident on social media. You win by working a plan just like anything else. And if your plan doesn’t work, find another one, two or ten. Social media works and will keep working even if you are successful without it. Success without social media does not secure success in today’s future. Marketing and branding have shifted like never before in history. You will feel the shift sooner or later but definitely when the economy crashes again.

There are better ways to engage social media than others to make your presence more known and engaging but it all starts with executing a strategy day in and day out. Starting on social media is free and quantity trumps quality in the beginning. But to grow your brand online and your business you need to stick to a plan no matter what season it is and not be selfish.  

2. Too Selfish.

It’s not just about you or what you sell. Social media is a place not just to take but to give. Giving is the secret sauce in a world saturated with selfish, greedy people, only in it for their own personal gain and fame. People don’t want to work with people who flaunt all their fancy stuff all day long as much as people who selflessly use their platform to offer value to their audience.

Participate in the community online. Make intelligent contributions in the comments. Don’t just try to sell someone a home. Show them online through video, picture or written copy how to buy a home, how to get their home ready to list for the most money before it hits the market, how to get the most curb appeal, how to choose a realtor, how to improve your credit, how to find a lender, and so forth. Become an asset, a resource and the expert and you will build a long-term brand not just find short term satisfaction from the next sale.   

3. Too Much of a Sales Pitch.

The great majority of your audience knows you sell houses if you are a real estate agent. You don’t have to tell them every single time you make a post to call you for their real estate needs. No one wants to feel like they are in sales pitch when they are on Facebook or Instagram. They want to feel friendship from you as a result of your posts. Remember, people love doing business with friends so be the best friend you can be with everyone on social media.

Build your personal brand. Be authentically you. Reveal your passions. Offer value. Comment. Show your lifestyle. Encourage Motivate. Inspire. Teach. Network. Partner. It is definitely appropriate to share your real estate career with people on social. But limit it. It looks kind of desperate and border line begging when you add the stereographically call me every single time. If you build a brand, you won’t have to beg. They will call you without asking.

4. Too Generic.

As I mentioned above, quantity trumps quality when you start but you need to graduate to better content. What separates you from anyone else is your videos, pictures and text. If you are using corporate content, templates, recycled images from Google, constantly sharing viral posts and copying and pasting from other pages into yours, you will be ignored.

The more generic your page the less engagement. Facebook does not show posts in pages that do not get engagement. The less engagement you produce from your posts, the less people organically see your posts. Facebook calculates the exact number people who will see your next posts by the analytics of your previous posts. Push the envelope every day in your ability to create more and better content.

The thesis is to create excellent content and you will collect exponential engagement.