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Growing your social media following is an important part of your marketing strategy. If executed correctly, a robust audience will allow you to easily connect with potential clients, homebuyers and like-minded real estate professionals with just one post.

Building your audience will take time; don’t be discouraged when you see others with a much larger follower base than yours. Like all aspects of your real estate business, an organic social media following is something that you need to build upon. Below are four social media post ideas and best practices to grow your following.

Consistency is key

Social media users will follow you because your content is relevant and interesting to them. However, they will expect a frequent cadence to your posts and will tire of either too much or too little.

While posting three great items a day is tempting, space out your content. It will help you to be top of mind with your audience and also not bombard their feeds.

On the other side of the coin, don’t create a cadence and then disappear. If you are heading out of the office or know you won’t be able to post regularly for some time, you can always use a social media scheduling program to take care of that for you.

If you are short on content, always be sure to see what your brokerage is supplying. Marketing departments will be creating content for agents to share for holidays and notable occasions.

Engage with the audience

As the name implies, social media is meant to be social, and your audience expects a response and a conversation. One of the fastest ways to start to lose followers is to have your messaging be one way only.

If you want to spark conversations, try conducting a poll or asking a question outright. And be sure to not let too much time lag before you reply. Keeping content engaging and responding to your audience in a timely fashion will boost the interest of your followers and help spread the word.

Go live and interact

A great way to interact with your audience in real time is to schedule sessions when you will go live. If you are stuck for an idea to go live, try giving a home tour of a listing or a property that you may be previewing, host a Q&A session about a particular topic that you are well-versed in, like the current market in your farm or home design trends.

Be a video content creator

Videos perform exceptionally well on social media and can help grow your following by engaging your audience. Videos are also a great tool if you are not yet comfortable going live and can make sure your messaging is delivered in a clean, edited way. There is no shortage of video content to create as a real estate professional — think home tours, top tips or market commentary.

When growing your social media audience, remember that it will be a marathon and not a sprint. You want to build a qualified audience that will be receptive and will engage with your content.

Creating a following of potential clients, homebuyers and like-minded real estate professionals will take time. Be sure to keep your content sharing calendar consistent, engage with the audience, go live to interact and explore using videos. All of your hard work will pay off when it comes time to review the numbers.