Category Real Estate Agents
Inviting Invitations: Promoting Open Houses on Social Media
If you're a real estate agent trying to promote your open houses, you want to reach as wide an audience as possible. In today’s world, that means using the web and social media to publicize your open house events to gain maximize exposure and attendance. Here are some great tips on how to use the internet and social media channels to promote your next open house.
Facebook
Use the Events button on your Facebook page to create Events for open houses. Add some photographs and be sure to check that the privacy settings are set to Public rather than Friends. You can then use the Event to invite people to the open house and Facebook will send reminders to people who've accepted the invitation. There are also apps such as Open Home Pro for the iPad that make it easier to post your open house events to Facebook.
Twitter
As with anything you're promoting on Twitter, don't overdo it. Tweeting the same link 10 times an hour makes you look like a spam account. Time your tweets thoughtfully—for a weekend open house, send a tweet out on Friday at 4 or 5 p.m. PST, as people are planning their weekends. Try to vary how you word your twitter posts and make them simple but engaging, with tweets like: “Nothing to do tonight? We'll welcome you with open arms at the Oak Street Open House!” or “First-time home buyer? Check out the Oak Street Open House for your perfect starter home.” Include a link to the event on Facebook or your website in the tweet. Because of Twitter's 140-character limit, a link shortener such as Bit.ly is helpful to minimize the space taken up by the link for the open house.
LinkedIn
Use LinkedIn to create an event for an open house. It's easy to do from your LinkedIn dashboard. Go to More, select Events from the drop down menu, and click the “Create an Event” button. Enter the event details, a description of the event and your website address. When you create your event in LinkedIn, you're given the option to promote the event on Facebook and Twitter. Remember that you're trying to avoid automated-sounding tweets. Change the wording to make your tweet personal. The tweet will contain a link to the Linkedin event that you've just created. Within LinkedIn, you can send an invitation to your event directly to individuals or share the invite with any group that you belong to. Don't forget to promote your open house event on your LinkedIn company page.
Blog About It
As well as listing the open house on your website, consider writing a blog post about your event. Include good quality pictures and any details that will make your blog readers want to attend the open house. If you have a YouTube channel to showcase videos for your website, shoot a two-minute video showcasing some of the best features of your listing. When you put the video on YouTube, add some keywords to improve your search results. Remember that local keywords score well with Google: add “open house Santa Clara” rather than just “open house,” for instance.Social Media Promotion During the Open House
During the open house itself, be discreet about social media promotion. We've seen articles suggesting that real estate agents should actively promote their Facebook pages during open houses, offering prizes to attendees who “Like” their pages. It's true that everyone who walks through the house is a potential client—but you don't want to give people the impression that you use your clients' open houses primarily as a networking tool for yourself. Discreet ways to promote yourself could include the following:- Use a sign-in sheet to collect email addresses. Fill in the first line of every page yourself, filling out all the fields appropriately. People filling out sign-in sheets tend to copy the line immediately above; they're more likely to give you their email address if someone else has just done so. Include a “How did you hear about the event?” field to help you assess which of your marketing strategies is working best.
- Send thank you emails to open house attendees the day after the event and then add their emails to your online marketing database.
- Beside the sign-in sheet, have a bowl of giveaways with your website address and social media information. Fridge magnets are a good choice—they're likely to last longer than pens or other gift items, and will be seen every time the recipient opens the refrigerator.
- Within a week, write a blog post about the open house and what a great event it was. And ask your blog readers, Facebook friends and Twitter followers to tell you about their own open house experiences—you may well pick up great tips for your next open house!
Mar Andres Keehn - Coldwell Banker Los Altos 
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