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How to Use Snapchat for Real Estate 101

• ByPAIGE
• Posted in Marketing & Branding, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media Marketing
• Avg Rating

The trick to real estate in today’s digital world is to be tech-savvy. As a real estate agent, your business and services, and the way in which you market them need to stay current with the world you live in. It’s crucial to be familiar with the internet, smartphones and tablets, but you also need to be aware of the applications available on these platforms, as they can help you succeed within the industry. One of the biggest cultural and technical trends of today is Snapchat. With 100 million daily active users as reported by Expanded Ramblings, Snapchat can be more than just a source of entertainment, but a powerful marketing tool for your firm.

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat can be summed up as being all of the most popular social media apps combined into one. It’s a messaging app that allows users to communicate via text, photos and short videos that only for a short amount of time. For example, you can take a photo of the interior of a new home you’ve listed on the market, and share it directly with your clients (they must also have a Snapchat account). They’ll be able to see the photo for up to 10-seconds. You can also share it on your story to connect with everyone that follows you, in which it’ll appear for 24-hours.

Use your Snapchat to Provide your Clients with What They Want

There’s no denying that most people do use Snapchat as a source of entertainment. However, people also subconsciously (and consciously) use Snapchat to find valuable information that pertains to them, such as fancy interiors, do-it-yourself projects, home gadgets and even home listings.  Whether your clients are using it for entertainment, information or a combination of both, you can leverage it to provide valuable content.

Share photos and videos of homes for sale, unique interiors and even home gadgets that everyone will enjoy. Even if your clients aren’t buying or selling a house right now, they will start to associate your Snapchat as being an entertaining, valuable and informative place for enjoyable content.

Brand Yourself as an Area Expert with On-Demand Geo Filters

Arguably, one of the best Snapchat features for real estate agents is the geo filters. These are filters (similar to a virtual sticker) that Snapchat users can apply to their content if they’re in a specific area. For Snapchat users, placing a geo filter allows you to brand your content without having to say much. When you’re in a specific area, unique filters become available that are associated with your location.

For real estate agents, this provides an excellent marketing advantage. You can instantly brand yourself as an area expert by creating a geo filter specific to an area. For example, when users are in a city and/or area, they can use your fun, unique and innovative filter. In turn, everyone that they share their content with will also see your filter, which helps build brand awareness and generate interest. You can have your geo filter available for anyone within a minimum of 5,000 square feet to a maximum of 5,000,000 square feet.

Use On-Demand Geo Filters to Promote an Event

Since on-demand geo filters are associated with a specific location, real estate agents can use them to promote special events. If you’re hosting a community event or participating in a local charity, brand your real estate services with an on-demand geo filter. This allows you to raise brand awareness, while also bringing awareness to the event and/or charities in which you’re involved.

In addition, the on-demand geo filter would be available for everyone at the event. As such, all attendees would also be enticed to apply the filter to their content because it pertains to them and helps create a story within their content without having to type a message, apply stickers, emoticons, etc.\

The Snapchat Secret is Creativity

The secret to Snapchat success is creativity. The on-demand geo filters can be used to promote everything from an open house, community event or local charity – and that’s only to name a few. However, it’s up to you to find new and innovative ways and designs in which you can use geo filters to bring awareness to your brand and services. The filter needs to be informative, yet visually appealing. After all, you are designing an on-demand geo filter with the hopes that other people within the area will also use it to increase word-of-mouth and interest.

So, it’s imperative to keep your clients in mind when choosing an on-demand filter to implement into your Snapchat marketing strategy. While it may be tempting to design one with your name and phone number, you have to remember that it needs to be something your users will want to apply to their content. It takes a bit of creativity, but the rewards can be exponential.

Snapchat’s on-demand geo filters definitely have the potential to change the way businesses advertise on their platform. The options are endless and constantly evolving, and consumers love it just as much as businesses do. So, this is one social media application you’ll want to add into your social media marketing strategy.

Patriots in the Super Bowl usually means good news for Boston sellers

This column by broker and analyst David Bates originally appeared on Curbed Boston in February 2015. We're re-running it because of the Patriots' pending appearance in Super Bowl LI.

The year the Patriots won their first Super Bowl, 2002, reports from the region's multiple-listings service show that there were 36 percent more Boston condo sales and the city's median condo sales price went up 23 percent compare with 2001. For real estate, that's a championship year!

The year the Pats won their second Super Bowl, 2004, MLS reports show a 48 percent increase in Boston condo sales and a 10 percent appreciation in the median sales price. And the year the Pats defeated the Philadelphia Eagles to win their third Super Bowl, 2005, was a year that had more Boston MLS listed condo sales (4,687) than any year before or since.

Patriot championships seemed to go hand-in-hand with banner years for the Hub condo market.

When the Pats lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl in 2008, the local market was good enough for Tom Brady to sell his condo at 314 Commonwealth Avenue for $5.285 million shortly thereafter. By mid-year, Boston median condo sale prices were up 3 percent.

But, on Sept. 7, 2008, something more unthinkable than the David Tyree catch happened: In the opening game against the Buffalo Bills, Brady sustained a season-ending injury. Almost immediately afterward, as if there was a direct correlation, the financial markets collapsed and the local real estate market sank, too.

The Pats failed to make the playoffs in 2009; got blown out at home by the Ravens in 2010; and lost to the hated Jets in 2011. Naturally, folks voiced their doubts about Hub real estate as well ... But, when the Patriots returned to the Super Bowl in February 2012, those doubts went away, provoking Hub condo sales in 2012 to shoot up 24 percent and the city's median sales price to go up 8 percent.

Tom Brady seemingly immediately identified the newfound optimism for the Hub condo market, and sold his Back Bay penthouse for $9.2 million.

With the acquisition of superstar cornerback Darrelle Revis in 2014, there was incredible optimism about the Patriots' Super Bowl chances. Not surprisingly, Hub real estate developers started announcing and breaking ground on projects of unprecedented size and scope.

And now that the Lombardi Trophy has returned to the City of Champions, it quite possibly means another banner year for Hub condo sales.

How to persuade without manipulating

Bob BurgContributing WriterSuccessful sales professionals persuade. They don’t manipulate.

I’m often asked to explain the difference between the two. Actually, it tends to take more the form of a challenge, as in, “Aren't persuasion and manipulation the same thing?”

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And, it’s a good, legitimate question. After all, in both cases you are attempting to elicit an individual or group to think or do something they would not presumably think or do without your influence.

Persuasion and manipulation are — in a sense — cousins (i.e., good cousin and evil cousin). After all, both are based on certain principles of human nature, human action and interaction.

Good persuaders and good manipulators understand those principles and know how to effectively use them. That’s why there is perhaps nothing more dangerous than a bad person with good people skills.

Yes, the principles are similar; often even the same. In actuality, however, the results are as different as night and day. The big difference is the intent. In his magnificent 1986 book, The Art of Talking so That People Will Listen, Dr. Paul Swets provided an outstanding explanation regarding both intent and outcome. He wrote:

“Manipulation aims at control, not cooperation. It results in a win/lose situation. It does not consider the good of the other party. Persuasion is just the opposite. In contrast to the manipulator, the persuader seeks to enhance the self-esteem of the other party. The result is that people respond better because they are treated as responsible, self-directing individuals.”

Different intentions, different results

The persuader aims to serve; the manipulator, to hurt. Or, if not necessarily intending to hurt, certainly not caring if that occurs. The manipulator is simply so focused on him or herself and his or her own self-interest that — like any other totally self-serving organism — they do only what they feel is for their own benefit and, if someone must suffer as a result, then so be it.

What they don’t realize is that not only is this not good life practice — it’s not good business practice.

A manipulator can have employees, but never a team.

She can have customers, but rarely one that will be long-lasting and a source of referrals. And, once discovered, the manipulator’s customer-base tends to crumble like a stale cookie.

He can have friends and family, but rarely are these relationships fulfilling and happy.

Yes, both persuaders and manipulators know the how and why of human motivation. And, both use their knowledge to cause the action they desire a person to take. However, the crucial difference between the two is that while manipulators use that knowledge to their advantage only, the persuader uses it to the other person’s advantage.

Ultimately, your influence and ability to persuade is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.

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