Are you finding it challenging to keep up with multiple home builder social media profiles? Are you looking for a way to simplify your social media efforts, and still grow your lead list?
Social media is a challenge for many home builders who are already stretched for resources of time, training, and marketing budgets. As new tools such as Google+ and QR Codes emerge, maintaining a dynamic online presence can be even more challenging. Fortunately, there is way to minimize the time required to maintain your social media marketing without compromising online results: create an online hub.
An online hub is one central location on the web that draws traffic from all other online marketing. A hub can be a home builder blog, website, a Facebook page, a Web 2.0 property such as Posterous and Tumblr, a Youtube channel, or (less often) a Twitter account. A hub enables home builders to post content to one central location and then promote it on all other profiles to direct traffic back to the hub. This saves home builder teams time and creates a cohesive message across all social media platforms.
So what is the best online hub for you? Here’s 8 key factors for selecting and creating an effective hub:
1. Control
Your hub should be a tool that you have hands-on access to at all times without incurring additional expense from a designer or developer. Your hub is your most dynamic online presence, and you will need to update it and make changes quickly, easily, and without asking for a line item approval in your marketing budget. Websites and home builder blogs that are built on WordPress are ideal for this; Facebook is also a good choice.
2. Accessibility
Having a successful Grand Opening event at your new home community? You don’t want to wait until you get back to your office to post photos, updates, and videos. You want a hub that can be easily accessed and updated from mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads. Posting immediately to your primary hub increases excitement and urgency. Select a hub that has a smart phone app to make updates-on-the-go effortless.
3. Multi-Media
The best hubs use a variety of interactive tools such as videos, photos, surveys, virtual tours, and other methods for buyers to see your homes and find out more about you. Websites, blogs, and Facebook are the best hubs for creating interactive experiences for buyers.
4. Relevance
Every market has an audience with different technographics, or how your buyers get information and interact on the web. An urban condo developer might use different tools than a senior living community. Of course, home builders should use a variety of tools since buyer technographics can vary, but a successful hub is one that is actively used by a majority of buyers in your target audience.
5. Passion
Many people naturally gravitate toward the social media tools that feel most natural to them. Maybe you are excited by video and have a background in production. If so, YouTube might be a natural hub for you. Maybe you prefer the personal interactions on Facebook or the idea-driven conversations on Twitter. You will be most successful wherever you are most comfortable. Don’t feel like you have to be jack of all trades, master of none. Find the one that is right for you and dig in. Use other channels to cross promote the content on your hub.
6. Scalability
It can take a village to run an online community, and you may have several team members involved: front line sales, marketing managers, and sales managers just to name a few. Your hub should be something that the entire team is comfortable with, or can easily be trained on for business. (Even if your employees have a personal Facebook page, they might not be familiar with how to use Facebook effectively for business.) Your hub should be a tool that can be easily learned and managed.
7. Conversion
The most important part of any online hub is a clear, compelling reason for visitors to subscribe, like, follow, or otherwise opt-in. Create a call to action that enables visitors to opt-in directly on the page, or click a link to a landing page on your website with a special offer. Your hub should drive more new online leads than any other online space, and the most successful online hubs create a compelling reason for buyers to opt-in.
8. Measurement
Since your hub attracts traffic from all other online sources, you’ll want to be able to measure how much traffic each source brings. If the primary goal for your hub is engagement, Facebook’s tools offer tracking for likes, comments, impressions, and shares. If the goal for your hub is increased traffic and/or new leads, a website or blog that has Google Analytics can give you insights for both the quantity and quality of your traffic.
By developing one primary hub you can focus your social media efforts, spend less time maintaining your profiles, easily track results, and convert more visitors to leads.
What are you currently using for your hub?
2 Comments on "Home Builder Social Media: Save Time with an Online Hub"
Dawn, I love the way you wrote about passion and conversion. For me, I’m using my own scheduling tool so I won’t get tired of all the posting and sharing of interesting content for my peers – which frees up 80% of my time so I can enjoy conversing with them for real. Then, I keep track of conversions via Google Analytics and other social media analytics tools out there, like Klout. I think that the major cause of social media stress these days is having to update a lot of social networking sites on a daily basis and the task can be daunting if you’ve got a lot to keep.
Hi Aaron – thanks for stopping by the blog. I think your point about about freeing up 80% of your time so you can focus on the “real” conversations and connections is excellent. It’s a balance between “the job” of getting specific messages out through social media and “the work and reward” of making real connections. Really good feedback, thanks!