Nobody Cares About Your Listings (Here’s What Actually Works in CRE Marketing)

0:00 Can you tell me what marketing in commercial real estate looks like? It's all about the relationships, whether you are a corporate brand or you are a personal brand, It should be about the relationships and the community that you're fostering online. I actually just got an e-mail from somebody yesterday and they're like, this person has so many. It's not a person, it's a brand has so many followers on Instagram and literally their engagements. Nothing. Why is this? And I'm like, if you go look at their followers, the followers are legitimate, but the brand itself does not actively engage with their followers. So anybody who leaves a comment, they never comment back. And they don't take the time as a brand to go and foster those relationships with the people that are following them. And that is a big disconnect for all corporate brands. And if you're a little person listening right now, that is a big disconnect for you too, because I see you guys doing it too.

0:52 Guilty. What's a big misconception you think people have about posting social media content about commercial real estate online? Biggest misconception is they assume that it's sales, and I'm talking like sale, sale, sale. Look at what I got here, you know, look what I just sold, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who gives a crap? Nobody cares. The only way you're going to get somebody to care about that is if you tell a story behind it. If there was a hard lesson learned in it, maybe it's a huge benefit to the person who either bought or sold the property or it was a leasing assignment that was really tough. Tell the story. Nobody cares about the accolades that you're trying to build up for yourself.

1:34 They just, they don't care about that. They do care about learning and finding something else. Like say it's something about you that maybe you learned. What it boils down to is, and this is going to sound so bad, not like I've ever said anything bad before, We're basically we've become voyeurs and we want to be involved in your life without actually being involved in your life. And the more that you can make us feel like we're a part of that conversation, the better it is. It's so funny. My husband too is my broker partner and I are working on a deal right now and this is a brutal deal from A-Z. And I just keep looking at him and I'm like it's OK. Like there's going to be a really funny, whether it closes or not out of our control, but going to be a really good story at the end of this and it will be told because Oh my God. But how do you think social media has changed marketing in commercial real estate?

2:32 Well, commercial real estate is far behind residential real estate when it comes to marketing, so there is a huge wide open playing field for anybody who wants to jump in on it. I think what it's going to make people realize, and it's a Gary Vaynerchuk thing, so it's not even a me thing. But for years Gary Vaynerchuk said every company is going to be a media company. And my whole point was at ICSC, I loved seeing everybody reporting what I call reporting or documenting from the field. They were taking video. They were putting these great videos together, montage clips. You're going to have to start looking at your brokerage business as a media company. That's what it boils down to. 100%, it's so interesting.

3:13 Gary's talking a lot right now about, yes, you can make the sale and you can gain in the immediate term, But if you build a brand, you build longevity for your business to gain in perpetuity in the long term, which I find is just really interesting. And something I'm trying to wrap my head around right now in commercial real estate because it's like you said, like this has been a sales, it's a sales and relationship business. But brand has been so, so neglected in the industry in my opinion because I don't think stringing together last names and color schemes is branding. But that's just me. You know who's doing a really great job and they do not sponsor me.

3:54 I do not. None of that stuff. Who does a really, really good job is Krexi. I really appreciate Krexi's content a lot, and it's because they are creating that brand. They're creating a part where you want to see their content, you want to get involved in what they're doing. It has to make you stop the scroll and wants a comment. If it's not causing you to do that, then you have to reevaluate what's going on with your brand. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ain't that the truth? OK, I want to talk to you about the person who gets on Instagram and they post for maybe two or three months and they don't see immediate results and so they stop. Can you talk about longevity in posting in marketing, commercial real estate, social media and what that looks like and the differentiator between posting for a couple weeks or months and posting for a couple, well for years plus? It's a great question and most people have a short attention span and they want those immediate results. And social media is a long game.

4:53 It really is. If people aren't paying attention to your content, you need to look at your content and see what you're doing. If you have to look at your content and go, am I interested in this or would I pass this by, then you know we're going to do bombastic side eye, right? Like maybe maybe you should change up your content. So not just Instagram, but let's talk about LinkedIn. So there was a stat that came out earlier this year that said that 70% of all posts that are put on LinkedIn never receive a like or a comment. Holy moly. So like if you're not receiving anything on your your content, welcome to the club. Like you're you're with the 70% of the people that post. So don't feel so bad if that's the case. If if you want any of the algorithms to pick you up, you need to not post in Ghost.

5:39 You need to actually go and actively engage on OPP. You need to go actively engage on other people's posts. That I learned I I messed this up and I'm willing to come out here and say it versus just showing everything is good, everything is roses, life is great.

6:25 I think for some people, some of the best posts that they've ever had is when they talk about their struggles because it lets everybody else know, hey, like you're not the only one. And we are so as connected as we are, we are so starved for that connection with another person, right? Like we're so starved to actually feel something that somebody else is going through that we can relate to. And so when we do share those things, and it can happen in a professional way, that content from what I've seen just flies it, it grows, it's so huge. So I like to categorize commercial real estate professionals. Am I going to be happy to hear this?

7:05 Yeah, yeah, you're all right. You're you're good. You're on the good side. You're with the good Guess you're Batman. OK, so I have my local community of commercial real estate professionals and they're not Batman. They hate the Internet. They OK, I'm sorry, let me take that back. They don't hate the Internet, but they are anti social media. You know, they live behind the big brands and they look down on social media and it's sell, sell, sell. And I often times get looked down upon for my approach, which I find is ironic. But then I met this larger community of commercial real estate professionals nationwide. Once I started posting online, I started meeting people who have the same job I do and think like me and happened to be really fun, cool people. And that was this community of commercial real estate professionals.

8:00 It doesn't have to be a broker. It could be a syndicator or like you, a marketing thought leader or somebody like, you know, strip mall guy. So I just wanted to take this moment to thank all of the brokers in my market who don't go on social media because you help my business so much and I can literally yell at them from the mountaintops about why they need to and they won't do it. Nope. Why? Why? Because they're stuck in their ways and as of right now, they are under the assumption and belief that they're going to continue to create relationships without really thinking about the fact that as their clientele dies, their clientele's children or their clientele's, whoever holds that, whatever it is that assets, that isn't just a face to face relationship.

8:50 It's what are you doing online? How are you connected? What kind of company culture do you have? And if the company culture doesn't align with what that person wants, you're probably going to lose them. And it's just it Again, it comes down to that relationships, but we want more. We want more than just the surface. We want to be able to connect on a deeper level. Regardless of what anybody says, that's what we want. And social media is a way for you to be able to do that. And it's also a way for lurkers to find out if you're the a real deal, right? I've had people come up to me at conferences and say, I follow you on social and I'm like, I don't recognize them because I've never seen them like, or comment on any of my content, right? Like, oh, OK, that's great.

9:30 Yay. You like comment, let me know who you are so I can figure out like, I could see who you are, you know, like in real life. And, and we can have that connection. The ones that I've had great connections with, we've talked in DMS, we, we comment on each other's posts and it's, it is like just knowing who that person is. Like we met in real life at Beth's Women's Real Estate Investment Summit in 2020223323. I didn't think about that. So we met it there and I was like, Amita, I know who you are. We, we've chatted online and we've comment on each other's stuff. And I already felt like I knew you so. Yeah. I mean, that's how we connected. Was like, I saw MO host, you know, and then it was like, OK, like this is social media marketing in commercial real estate, you know, and then you start checking it out, name to a face, DMS and then meet in person and it feels like we know each other. I think there's magic.

10:22 I think that's what's like funny to me is like the hack and the magic is that you make a video or, and you post a piece of content online and then you go to sleep and the algorithm is working for you and people are interacting with you when you're sleeping. And for somebody like me who needs 8 hours of sleep and to shut off, it networks for you. And it's insanely powerful. And that's just why I live and die by it because it's compound interest. And as investment professionals, we have to know and love compound interest.