If you’re currently managing your own social media account for your title company, you might be considering hiring someone to do it for you—if only because the investment might prove worthwhile in the long run. There are many different ways to invest in marketing, including social media marketing. Let’s explore.
Understanding what return on investment (ROI) means with social media marketing for your title company is essential before investing your resources into this strategy. Luckily, the tips below will give you the information you need to make better decisions about where your money goes when it comes to social media marketing and your title insurance company.
Choose Your Goals
Setting realistic goals for social media engagement is a critical first step. If you have the opportunity to choose your ROI metrics (page views, website leads, etc.), choose those that best align with the business goals of your title company and most effectively demonstrate the benefits of marketing on social. But be realistic—if you’re getting a limited number likes, shares or other engagements per post and not gaining any conversions from that traffic, you may need to reevaluate what constitutes success for your title company.
When it comes to social media, determination is key. To earn a return on investment, you must be continuously tweaking your plan until you find what works best. Setting objectives is one of the most effective strategies to accomplish this. These objectives must be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Timely
The SMART method of goal-setting is ideal for social networking and growing engagement and brand awareness for your title company among Realtors, Lenders and even buyers and sellers. It will keep you on track and more driven than ever to boost your social media ROI.
Before diving in, deciding your goals with social media is crucial. Most title companies use it for three primary purposes: client service, content marketing, and lead generation. Which of these best fits your company? If you can’t think of one, you may need a different strategy altogether.
Create a Schedule
When it comes to social media marketing, it’s important to post content and have a schedule of when you plan on posting. This can help increase your engagement among real estate agents and other clients and provides a means of interacting with your followers.
Without an effective schedule, you may miss opportunities for sharing valuable content with your audience and find yourself publishing posts at odd hours or times. One way you can organize your schedule is by planning out what types of posts you plan on making and when they will be published.
As you begin creating a social media marketing schedule, you should keep a few tips in mind. First, plan out your posts ahead of time and account for when you have time to make updates or share content. Second, think about how often you want to publish updates and how much content you will need each week or month. For our title company clients, we find that posting 2-3 times per week is the sweet spot.
By planning out your social media posts and sharing content with a schedule, you’ll find that your audience is more likely to engage with you and keep returning for updates. Following an organized publishing schedule makes it easier for other social media users to view your page as valuable and worth their time.
Target the Right Audience
Though everyone likes to think they know their audience—and social media has made that kind of personal connection more accessible than ever—many title companies still struggle with crafting a strategy for the right audience – usually real estate agents.
While it may seem like the goal is just getting as many people as possible engaged, you’ll want to focus on those who will eventually become clients and referral sources. More traffic doesn’t always equal more ROI, so remember that target audience before diving in.
To get a higher ROI with social media marketing, you must know your audience before diving in. Are they interested in real estate tips, local trends, information to share with their clients? Have they closed deals with your title company? Consider what types of content would appeal most to them and how that will affect your budget and overall strategy.
Once you know your audience, it’s time to move on to creating a solid strategy for social media marketing. Do you need posts about your title services? What about links to other articles in the title and real estate industry? Setting a goal for each post type will help keep you on track and focused on content that will generate ROI.
Stay Consistent
Many marketers make a big mistake by trying out many different social media channels. If you’re hoping to get an ROI, you must stay consistent and use one or two channels instead of hopping around. Pick a niche and ensure your brand sticks with it so that you can develop a genuine following. Remember, they’ll trust you more if they know what to expect from your brand!
The following are the secrets to earning a return on investment from social media marketing:
Consistency
Relevance
Determination
Creativity
If you apply all of them in your social media marketing, you'll almost certainly get a far greater return on your investment and attract (and retain) agents and clients.
In addition, make sure you understand your niche before diving in. Again, you must stay consistent and use one or two channels instead of hopping around. Your title company will be much more believable if you truly understand what your followers expect from you. If you plan to share content about the New York City real estate market, read up on local events and issues. Find out when significant happenings are taking place in the market how they affect your clients and their clients.
Once you know your niche, set up a social media page and choose one or two specific platforms. We find that Facebook works well for title companies as most real estate agents are on Facebook. LinkedIn tends to work well, also. However, we are seeing that Instagram is a solid platform where real estate agents spend their time as well.
Look for Trends
Beyond just posting links to your articles and retweeting other people’s content, look for trends to find the best ROI. There are a few ways to do so: Try using Google Trends to search for hot keywords. For example, you can look up what real estate related keywords are being searched in a given city.
These will show you which social media platforms and blogs are discussing these topics in your niche. That way, you can target these audiences on their preferred social networks while they’re interested in learning more about a hot topic in your industry. Plus, if you include trending hashtags, it shows that you’re using popular keywords and phrases within your content.
Next, you’ll want to look at which platforms are getting involved in that conversation and post your link on those platforms. Maybe a lot of people are discussing social media marketing on Twitter. That’s where you should focus. Perhaps they’re talking about it on Facebook. That’s where you should focus instead.
Don’t miss out on a chance to engage in an industry conversation. You can jump in on discussions related to your industry by looking for trending topics. Once you’re part of these conversations, people will start following your content and sharing it within their networks. This will lead to more links to your site and a higher ROI from social media marketing campaigns.
Don’t Cut Corners
ROI is a common and well-used buzzword in the business world. However, when it comes to social media marketing for title insurance companies, many confuse ROI with another term: return on engagement. Return on engagement is much easier to track than ROI because all you have to do is look at how many followers you get for your posts over the period of time that you’re using the social network.
However, ROI is a bit more complicated in our industry because it combines your engagement with your success on a platform. For example, one platform might have 100% ROI because you find great people to do business with on that network—but another platform may have 0% ROI if no buyers contact you about your products and services.
This is why it’s vital for social media marketers not to cut corners when trying to achieve a good ROI from their campaigns. It takes time and dedication.
You’re not going to get a great ROI with social media marketing if you just focus on how many followers you can get in a certain period of time. An actual return on investment comes from creating engaging posts that people want to share and interact with and then combining your efforts with additional business strategies. If you want proof of ROI from social media marketing, make sure you don’t cut corners by just looking at numbers without getting results.
The best way to get a good ROI is by combining your social media marketing with other digital marketing strategies that have repeatedly proven to work for title companies. For example, if you’re trying to get a better ROI on Facebook, you might consider using search engine optimization with content marketing as part of your overall online strategy.
Dalton Digital is a marketing agency that focuses exclusively on helping title companies grow their closing volume. While we understand that you would like to know how digital marketing works; often times you just want someone to do it for you. That’s where we can help. Contact Us today to discuss a social media marketing strategy for your title company.