Company: Royal LePage Canada, Royal LePage Niagara Real Estate Centre Brokerage
Industry: Real Estate
Contacts: Ryan Johnstone, Broker/Manager, Royal LePage Niagara, Deanna Gunter, Broker/Manager, Royal LePage Niagara
Web References: Royal LePage Canada, Royal LePage Niagara, Inman.com – 6 social media tools for real estate, Increasing Real Estate Social Media Engagement
In a previous post (Top Share of Voice Rankings for Royal LePage due in part to Social Media) I spoke of how Royal LePage Canada has adopted a strong social media strategy centred around content publishing to increase brand awareness and maintain its ranking as the Voice of Canadian Real Estate. While RLP Canada would not comment on how they measure or what tools they are using to do so, it is clear that the strategy is working. Check out these results!
Facebook followers are up 150% in the last 6 months and their posts have been shared more than 2200 times!
Twitter is also up more than 50% in the last 12 months and with over 14,000 followers and more than 8278 tweets!
LinkedIn has a strong following also with more than 2.5 times the number of followers than the closest competitors.
All these great results have translated into a Klout score of 58! According to Jordan Scheltgen of Inman and his article 6 Free Social Media Tools for Real Estate Agents, a Klout score of 40 is the average and anything higher than 63 is in the top 5%! Way to go Royal LePage Canada, by all means it seems your strategy is working.
Of course, all this activity on a national level has a significant crossover effect to the franchisees. Royal LePage Niagara is beginning to measure their social media activity. In my continued interview with Ryan Johnstone, he noted
“as we delve deeper into social media, it becomes more and more important to measure our activity and leverage it to make better more informed decisions for the future”
In this video clip, Ryan explains further.
I was able to gain some insight on how lead conversion from the Royal LePage Canada website are handled locally. Deanna Gunter of Royal LePage, explained that every lead is tracked and measured. RLP Canada promotes the Royal LePage Canada website. Leads come into the central site and based on the geography of the lead it feeds it to the brokerage in that geo location. From there, there is a manual process to distribute leads to local agents to follow up. Once sent to the agent, the lead is entered into the in-house system where the agent name and lead name is recorded, then later once a trade is handed in with the matching criteria, you know the lead was converted.
Deanna also noted that
“The most important element about these leads is that of timing. The life cycle of the lead is rather short, it’s only hot for a while, so unless it can be followed up on very quickly, then interest dies. You basically want to connect with that person while they are still on that same web session so to speak.”
The reality of the internet today is such that if someone doesn’t get the reply they are looking for within a certain time, they will move on to another way to find the same information. And in a business where leads are a necessity to survive, a quick response is the key. To date this process has yielded a return of approx. 2-3%.
Learnings for Others
For those whose business survives on the conversion of leads, leveraging every piece of data you can muster to get to know your audience on each platform is paramount. After all, a great marketing message is lost if it’s not relevant to the person it is meant for.
- Listen and learn: Set up a listening post, engage your audience with questions, use relevant industry content to round out your own. Take note on what content sparks the most chatter and build yourself a list of relevant topics that interest your audience
- Perform A/B Splits to test your content and see which message your audience gravitates to. Use this information to guide you on content and formulation of your message to ensure you engage each audience in the best way possible
- Customize gateways to your website for each of your social media platforms so you can track how each one is performing
- Consider your goals and how you need to measure each social media platform before you engage it otherwise there will be a disconnect between the two and your time, energy and resources to make it happen will be lost
- Find an automation tool that can collect the leads and filter them directly to your sales force for improved response times. Leads are only hot for a while so capturing them quickly is key. There are plenty to use out there so research your options and decide which one will suit your business best. Understanding what your competitors are up to could offer significant insights as well.
Facts and Figures:
Royal LePage Canada is a Canadian real estate franchiser and owner-operator with more than 600 locations and over 15,000 Realtors in Canada. The company recently just celebrated 100 years of Real Estate. More
Royal LePage Niagara Real Estate: ROYAL LEPAGE NIAGARA IS A TEAM OF OVER 400 spanning several offices across the region. #1 MARKET SHARE In Niagara*. Royal LePage Niagara completed 5238 transactions in 2013. We are dedicated to providing a competent and high level of service. Helping you is what we do!
*based on closed transactions in 2013
Submitted By: Lisa Taylor, student, SMPB, University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email at: lisataylor255@gmail.com
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.