How These Popular Social Networks Will Help You Connect With Millennial Buyers & Renters in Hong Kong in 2017 And Beyond

Millennials, also known as Generation Y are the demographic of individuals following Generation X who grew up in an electronics-filled and increasingly socially-connected world through digital platforms. Millennials are so special in that they are the one generation that has received the most information through technology - sometimes to the point of over-saturation of information. 

In today’s world, millennials are fast becoming one of the most significant demographic groups of real estate buyers, investors and renters.If you can grasp and understand how to connect with this group of people, you will be able to create amazing lifelong relationships with endless opportunities for business leads and deals.

The digital space is a challenging field to understand, especially for the older generations who did not grow up with so much technology. The real estate industry has been relatively slow to embrace technology and most real estate businesses did not even need a strong online social media presence in order to succeed. However, more and more so these days, social media is no longer an optional choice for real estate professionals, it has become a base requirement. Simply having an social media account for your business is not enough, because you need to be very active, and consistent about posting and updating all of your social media handles. 

In the real estate industry, the older veteran professionals and investors grew up and developed their careers using very different mediums and methods of communication and marketing to drive leads, negotiations and sales for their businesses. Technology changes extremely fast and it’s very easy to get left behind if you don’t actively keep up with the updates of the digital world. For example, the generations before millennials grew their businesses using much more traditional media channels such as television and radio - which are already fast becoming outdated in targeting this era’s millennial generation of consumers. Whereas computer desktops and laptops were the medium of choice in the last decade, even this has been becoming updated since most people these days consume almost all of their information from their smart phones. In order to be able to reach your targeted audience groups to expose, build and expand your business, you need to understand this concept and learn how to leverage that to properly communicate your messages to your audience. You need to go where your consumers are - or in this case - where your buyers, investors and renters are. You need to understand how to reach their eyes and capture their attention by using the newest forms of technology that has the most active users for your niche. It’s no longer enough to just cold call and email - as business savvy individuals, we need to think on the scale of social media platforms to drive our businesses. The best real estate marketers use social media in creative and intelligent ways to further connect with their local clients and groups in order to boost their real estate marketing efforts for maximum exposure. The more people see the services and products you offer, the more leads and sales will come to you. The good news? You can do all of this simply and efficiently with the help of social media! Social media is very unique in that it can help a business build trust with its corresponding consumers and clients digitally. You can essentially reach more people by physically doing less - if you know how to approach it. There are so many social media platforms out there now that its important to know how to pick and choose the right one for you. You need to be selective about the social media channels you invest in because working social media is very time-consuming. Furthermore, every social media platform reaches a different demographic and has its pros and cons for different types of businesses and content. What works on Facebook won’t necessarily work on Instagram. What works on Snapchat may not work on Twitter. As a general example, if you are trying to reach an older audience, Snapchat is probably not the tool for you since Snapchat caters to a much younger audience. Using the wrong social media platform for your business will only hurt your it as it will not alight with your goals and end up wasting time,money and effort.

If you are a real estate agent or real estate professional and social media scares the heck out of you, you have come to the right place. In this blog article, we will give you an overview of the most popularly used social media platforms and how real estate professionals can use them for social media marketing purposes.  

Read on to learn about the various digital social media platforms that you should be using (if you aren’t already) to connect with millennial buyers, investors and renters. 

FACEBOOK

Since its start and rapid expansion in 2004, Facebook has fast become the most popular online social media and social networking platform in the modern world. Facebook continues to be the biggest and most influential social network service in the entire world with over 1.86 Billion active users and continuously growing. Do you understand just how powerful of a tool this is for businesses? Facebook is at the top of its game when it comes to targeting focused groups for businesses looking to scale their conversion rates and is one of the best for marketing ROI. For real estate professionals, Facebook cannot be neglected if you want to reach a large audience. You can showcase your properties on Facebook by using Facebook ads and analytics to target Millennials who are searching for properties just like yours. Understand and use this powerful tool to your advantage if you want your real estate business to thrive. 

Facebook is home. Facebook is familiar - and not just for millennials these days. Facebook is now a platform that everyone uses, whether you are a child, teenager, university student, young professional, or someone from an older generation. Facebook is where people go to connect with friends, family, acquaintances and businesses online. As real estate professionals, our job is to figure out how to connect with and network with as many people we are able to reach. It is essentially building trust and word of mouth marketing but in the digital world. What are some things you can do on Facebook as a real estate agent or property owner in order to tap into this market? How can you get your brand and property listings marketed to the right local clients using the largest social networking site online?

• Create a Facebook Page for your business -  This is important because you should never use your own personal Facebook account for your professional and business services. You need to set up a Facebook Page strictly for your real estate services to best engage with your current and potential clients. A Facebook business page is very easy to make and will be worth your effort in the long run. Once you have a Facebook business page properly set up, it’s time to figure out how to expose yourself to your targeted audience and start the interaction process. You can do so by posting your listings and sharing unique content about your properties’ neighbourhoods. People appreciate useful information and when you create content that is helpful to your audience, there will be higher chances for engagement. Remember to use quality images and videos when you update your posts. The more likes, shares and comments your posts have, the more they will be viewed in Facebook’s News Feeds by the friends of your Facebook Fans - the people who Like and support your page and business. This is why its crucial to create quality content that is shareable. Other things you can do - post about cool and interesting events in the neighbourhoods where your property listings are, and continuously talk and engage with your followers. 

YOUTUBE

More so than pictures, videos are fast becoming the most liked and shareable digital content online. People love videos because they are so interactive. Where Facebook is great for the older demographics like parents and grandparents now, the younger generations are opting for more interactive social media platforms like Youtube. Younger buyers, investors and renters are much more active on these other social platforms like Youtube, which is a corporate giant with billions of views everyday and enormously massive engagement for viewers. Real estate people can use Youtube by posting quality and professional videos of their real estate properties to showcase their business and portfolio. You can use your videos to show off the best features in your neighbourhood, on your properties. A picture may speak a thousand words, but a video can basically transport you to there through digital means as if you are actually there in person at the real location. Now, that is crazy powerful!

SNAPCHAT

Snapchat is quite a new but very popular social media platform. Snapchat basically is a mobile app that lets you easily talk with friends through video formats, view live videos and stories from around the world, explore the news and discover all the popular happenings in the world. This powerful image message and multimedia mobile application system has been growing rapidly in popularity especially amongst the younger populations. It is a great tool for real estate professionals to use. It is all about immediate interaction, which is great for create urgency, exciting and limitless opportunities for creative marketing. Snapchat allows you to literally and directly engage with your audience in real time. 

INSTAGRAM

Instagram is a mobile app that lets its users capture, edit and share photos and video content with friends, family and followers. Instagram is most often used for business purposes for brands to promote their products and services. For real estate professionals, it can be used to build up a following, reach massive audience groups, promote property listings and find leads. 

WECHAT

We cannot forget about WeChat when we are dealing with the China Market. Since all of the above social media platforms are blocked within China, WeChat is the go-to social media platform in the huge potential real estate market in China. WeChat is so powerful because it combines almost all of the most popularly used western social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Paypal, Instagram…etc) in to one mobile application. WeChat users do not ever need to exit the mobile app to do anything. It is an all-in-one platform and is used by billions of people around the world. WeChat is China’s most popular social media app, and Chinese buyers and investors are even buying multi-million luxury homes abroad, outside of China, through the means of WeChat. Real estate agents can communicate with clients via the app, give video tours, share photos of the properties, negotiate deals - all solely through this immensely powerful social media platform. It’s a very new way of doing business but it works because WeChat has become indispensable to consumers’ daily lives and has even change Chinese consumers’ mobile behaviour in profound ways. Chinese buyers and real estate investors are a huge market, which is why the WeChat platform has become so appealing to digital marketers. 

We have touched on a few of the most popular social media platforms in this article and how real estate professionals can implement marketing techniques in to their business strategies. Remember, it’s called social media for a reason, so do not forget to engage with your clients online as you would offline. There are limitless ways you can do real estate marketing for your social businesses through social media platforms. Social media platforms have helped tremendously break down the traditional barriers of traditional marketing methods and helped strengthen agent and client relationships. The digital space is no longer a “virtual world, it has become a very real world that we live and exist in. Being active on social media is more powerful than ever today, it has become a necessary part of our lives. It is a powerful way to establish a strong online presence where you can position yourself as an expert in the real estate field, connect with your clients and build long-term trusted relationships. Social media does not have to be stressful, when used right, it can be very fun and help boost your business tremendously.

Have you found these above tips useful? Are there any additional tips you would suggest to further engage with real estate clients? We would love to hear your comments and feedback!