• Create Your Real Estate Business Cards and Stationery
  • Superior Quality Printing
  • Enhance Your Real Estate Brand
  • Market Your Real Estate Brand
  • Create Your Social Media Images

LinkedIn for Real Estate Agents

Are you on LinkedIn? If not, why? You could be missing important opportunities to connect with clients and build your real estate business!

Having a polished, real estate-focused LinkedIn profile is one of the most valuable tools in today’s real estate agent’s arsenal. Some people seem to think that LinkedIn is nothing but an online resume when it’s actually so much more than that. It’s a place where you can build relationships with other real estate agents, make contacts that can help you further your career, and connect with potential buyers and sellers who are looking to do business in your area. But to make any of these connections, you’re going to need a great profile that’s optimized for real estate.

Set Up Your Profile Page

If you haven’t been on LinkedIn for a while, you might notice that the profile page looks awfully familiar. Facebook’s layout was such a success that LinkedIn has basically just copied it. If not for the color-scheme, you might not even notice the difference if you weren’t paying attention.

All of that being said, the way that you present yourself on LinkedIn is very important. You want your LinkedIn profile to portray a much more professional side of you than your Facebook page probably would.

For your profile photo, you want to use the exact same photo that you use on all of your real estate business cards, collateral, and advertising. Don’t skimp on this photo–hire a professional photographer. A great photo will pay for itself; you want a photo that will pop both online and on your business cards.

Next, you want to write a killer headline. This is essentially a mini-bio, basically the top line of who you are. Most people just include their profession, but that’s really kind of a boring waste of potential. After all, it’s one of the first things a visitor sees, so this is your chance to say something a little more interesting. Use compelling keywords in your headline, with customer-focused language about buying, selling. This will help you to be found–and remembered- by the people you want to attract.

Develop Your Biography and Accomplishments

Your biography is the meat and potatoes (or tofu) of your LinkedIn profile. It’s the heart of it all.

Potential clients might be on LinkedIn looking for real estate agents in their area, so always include your location at the top of your bio. They may have even noticed your name somewhere else, like on a sign, print materials, or on your business card, and they stop by your LinkedIn profile as part of their due diligence to see if they’d like to work with you. This is your chance to prove your worth!

In the body of your biography, you want to give the reader a chance to get to know you. Don’t just stick with boring facts, tell them something about yourself, and emphasize your accomplishments.

Something you might notice about LinkedIn is the sheer amount of forms that you can fill in. Education, experience, jobs, awards… It can seem daunting, but it’s important that you fill out your profile in as much detail as possible. Sure, it might not seem like putting down volunteer experience from grade 11 will help you find leads, but doing so will help to show that you’re a very well-rounded person and someone that others will want to do business with.

Listing awards and accolades might seem like bragging, but that’s what LinkedIn is for. This isn’t Facebook–the people on here want to know exactly who you are and what you’re capable of. LinkedIn is a professional platform to show off your accomplishments, so… show off!

Optimize Your LinkedIn Account

If you want your LinkedIn profile to be found by others, you’re going to need to do a little bit of optimizing of your account.

First, your URL. This is the address someone would put in the internet address bar to reach your profile directly. By default, LinkedIn’s profile addresses are usually a long, awkward series of letters and numbers. However, through your LinkedIn settings, you can create a custom URL using your name. For example, you can connect with us using: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-hartley/

It will be far easier for people to find you if you adjust your url, and search engines will also have an easier time finding the page when someone searches for your name.

You’ll also want to layer in some great keywords throughout your profile. Don’t overuse them in an unnatural way because Google doesn’t like keyword spamming and neither do your clients. Instead, work them in wherever the words will feel organic. Great keyword ideas could be your location, your name, your job title. And the company where your license is parked.

Build Your Real Estate Network

The fastest way to build your LinkedIn network is to import your pre-existing address book. LinkedIn will go through it and find the profiles of people you already know. This will give you an excellent base of LinkedIn connections to start from. You can then start to seek out other real estate agents in your area through the LinkedIn’s search function. The more people you connect with, the better.

Remember that old Will Smith film, Six Degrees of Separation? LinkedIn works a little bit like that, but there are just three degrees that they bother to count. There are 1st degree connections; people who you are directly connected with. Then there are 2nd degree connections; people who are are connected to your 1st degree connections. These 2nd degree connections are probably prime targets to become 1st degree connections. Everyone else falls into 3rd degree connections; people who are connected to your 2nd degree connections, or farther down the chain.

The way it works is basically that you want everyone in the 2nd and 3rd degree connection columns to eventually become 1st degree connections! Phew, that’s a mouthful!

Posting Content and Being Active

There are many people out there who spend hours setting up their LinkedIn profile, only to think “Well, now what?” after they’re done. Setting up your profile and building your initial network is only the beginning. To keep your connections, and to continue to get more, you need to remain active on LinkedIn.

It’s easy to see when a LinkedIn profile has been neglected, with no content being posted or any activity for months. That’s not the way to build your personal brand, or your business. Posting regularly can make a tremendous impact on your growth.

So you might be wondering, what kind of content can you post? Well first, you can start to think about writing some short articles or blog posts about your business. This has the added benefit of giving you something to post on your other social media accounts too, like Facebook and Twitter.

If buckling down to write an article is a bit too daunting, you could post photos of some of the homes you’re working on selling, or that you’ve sold in the past. You can also post interesting articles about the real estate market and about the neighbourhoods where you work.

You don’t even need to post a ton of content to make your LinkedIn profile feel alive, you just need to be active and engage with other real estate agents online. Become part of the online conversation.

Join Groups

It’s also a great idea to join some groups on LinkedIn. In addition to groups about real estate, look for groups for small business, especially if there are any in your area. You might also find areas of interest and benefit, such as groups about marketing, public speaking, and networking. Even if you aren’t meeting clients right away, these groups can be great for information, collaboration, and motivation, and help set you on the right course for success in real estate.

Make it a Habit

Don’t let LinkedIn intimidate you. It might seem daunting in the beginning, but most things are at the start. Once your LinkedIn profile is all ready to go, you can use it to help find your place in the world of real estate. Keep working on it, keep active on the platform, and you’ll see your online LinkedIn presence start to make solid connections in the real world.

Of course, it always helps to have some professional real estate business cards to hand out to those real contacts. Don’t forget to visit SureFactor for the best real estate business cards to put your best foot forward.