- Fewer than a third of survey respondents use TikTok or YouTube
- 36% use social media to get new leads/prospects
- 46% gave social media credit for generating the highest-quality leads
The Research Group for the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has released its 2022 Technology Survey with the latest Realtor® perspectives on social media and technology tools used in their businesses.
The results may surprise you.
The survey also touched on technology tools used in their businesses and some of the newest innovations, asking respondents to weigh their potential impact on the real estate industry. If you want to see the full results of NAR’s survey, check it out here.
As far as real estate agents and social media, here’s what you need to know.
Top social media channels
Social media is essential to creating a durable presence in the real estate industry.
Sure, every platform feels like it is crawling with real estate agents, but it turns out, there could (and should) be a lot more realtors on social.
NAR’s survey asked Realtors to share the specific platforms they used in their business and why they used them.
- 89% use Facebook in their business
- 59% use Instagram
- 53% use LinkedIn
- 26% use YouTube
- 12% use TikTok
With the growing importance of short-form video, those low percentages for TikTok and YouTube should be a call to action in itself. Even Instagram is under 60%.
Instagram may still be the best video platform for building a community around your brand, but TikTok is the best place to grow an audience right now. As The Broke Agent says, TikTok is “where the trends start.”
If you’re not on TikTok yet, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your business. It’s not too late to create a profile and get acquainted with TikTok’s newest features.
YouTube is the best platform for getting immediate business. It’s the number one platform for long-form video and now hosts TikTok-style short-form videos. One of the best things about creating long-form video content for YouTube is its versatility; a five-minute YouTube video can yield several clips to post on YouTube Shorts, as well as TikTok and Instagram.
Every real estate professional who takes online branding seriously should be on TikTok and YouTube as well as Instagram and Facebook.
How are Realtors using social media
As for the main reasons agents use social media platforms:
- 63% said their main reason was to promote listings
- 59% said they are expected to have a social media presence
- 57% said it helps them build/maintain relationships with their clients
- 36% use it to find new leads/prospects
That last one is super-important to keep in mind.
Social Media Produces High-Quality Leads
Even though only 36% of agents use social media to find leads, it ranks high on the list of tech tools that have given respondents the most high-quality leads in the past 12 months:
- Social media: 46%
- Local MLS: 30%
- Customer relationship management (CRM): 26%
- Digital ad campaigns: 23%
- Email marketing tools: 19%
This is huge. More people get high-quality leads from social media than from anywhere else. Yet fewer than a third of the survey respondents are building a presence on TikTok or YouTube.
This could be the best news you’ve heard all year.
Not all agents are going to put in the work to create an omnipresent brand on social media. We say this not to shame anyone but to point out an opportunity for those who are driven (more than the average agent) to grow their business—especially when the going gets tough.
More people are consuming content on TikTok as entertainment. Some scroll through TikToks more often than they watch TV.
And YouTube has always been a favorite source of videos for entertainment and education.
If you know how to create videos that get results—that are both informative and entertaining—and you post them on all the platforms your audience is using, you will get more leads.
You’ll take up residence in your viewers’ minds. They’ll start hearing you in their sleep. It’s not weird (unless you make it weird). This is how you stand out from agents who just want to work their 40 hours each week and post the occasional update on Facebook or Twitter.
Think about those percentages using TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Are you one of them? And if you’re not, how soon will you change that?
