Do you fall into the trap of waiting for and checking for likes and comments each time you post something on social media? Are we doing it for the likes or remembering the big picture?
Totally guilty here. After creating any post or blog and sending it out into the social media universe I cannot help but check back to see if there have been any likes, comments or shares – all our modern day measures of engagement. It can be consuming and can contribute to spending too much time on our phones or checking for notifications.
But what if perhaps the measure of our true online engagement cannot be measured by the immediate results of likes and comments, what if instead the true results come from those who don’t immediately engage, but the results come long term from those that watch our voice, and watch our activity across the days, weeks and months. Slowly making an assessment if they like us, trust us and want to use us.
In real estate world we could liken it to a person on a street in our market area… we may not actively know that they are watching us, but they see each time we list and sell a property, they see how we interact with the community both online and offline. They see that add in the newspaper or that letterbox drop in their mailbox. Listing to what the neighbours are saying. And they are gradually making an assessment of knowing, liking and trusting that person or brand so that when the time comes… they are somewhat warmed up to making a decision before even picking up the phone.
This is the same online with what we are choosing to post on social media each day. We may not get the immediate likes and comments, but our future clientele are watching and assessing. Slowly building an impression of you so that when the time comes, they are warmed up to reaching out to you for help.
And if its not our current followers, it may be that landlord who at 9pm one night decides they are fed up with their current agent not returning their calls, so they jump onto the google machine to search for the best property manager in X suburb. Upon finding the results they are looking back at months of reviews to see how others feel about you. And then delve into weeks of social media history and of course your website to make a judgement as to whether they would like to engage your services.
So perhaps that post you made today won’t get all the likes and comments right now, but ponder what story you are leaving online for your current and future followers and clients. Because we ourselves all operate in the same way with companies and businesses we follow or will follow in the future (like the new hairdresser I just found online, looked at their reviews, looked back at their instagram history showing their work, and could feel the vibe of their brand – all online one and was able to make a decision to use that business before I even got in contact)
Perhaps by thinking of it from this perspective we can let go of the need for waiting for engagement and let go of the feeling like we’re just hearing crickets. If we can trust that we are putting out our voice to share our story through education, information and content that that our clients can truly resonate and get value from. Perhaps understanding this can even also shift the kind of content we are posting to tell a whole story about our business that people can use to know you, like you and trust you. And we know what comes next.
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