Luke is the Head of Marketing for Innago, a free property management software company dedicated to helping landlords save time and money.
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A crucial part of being a rental property manager is advertising those rental properties. Marketing your vacant properties is how potential tenants will learn about your unit and how you can fill those vacancies quickly. In 2024, I've found that the most successful rental property owners are using social media to get the most eyeballs on their available spaces as possible.
Platforms like Instagram or Facebook can help landlords curate a brand image. They differ from using websites like Zillow as rental advertising methods since Zillow is used exclusively for real estate, while Instagram or Facebook are not. You can reach a wider audience this way.
Building a welcoming and inclusive brand on social media apps can also allow potential renters to feel connected to the person managing their next home, and it can attract quality applicants. Additionally, since social media is typically free and easily accessible for most people, it is an excellent place to provide your current and future renters with updates and important messages, and it can also open a path to stress-free communication between you and your tenants through messages and DMs.
Tips For Growing And Keeping A Social Media Presence
How can a landlord who wants to advertise property without previous marketing or social media experience curate a strong presence online? Here are a few tips.
Narrow Your Focus
It's a good idea to only focus on one social media platform at first. If you create content on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and any other app you're curious about, you will most likely just waste your time and create more frustration than success. Narrow your efforts on one platform—preferably, one you think will resonate most with your target audience. For example, millennials tend to use Instagram and Facebook more than Gen Zers, who may be more likely to pay attention to TikTok.
Once you feel comfortable with your first platform, feel free to expand your sights to one or two others. Becoming familiar with one social media platform should help the others feel more intuitive, and you may find that the second platform you conquer is easier than the first.
Keep track of what kinds of content resonate with your followers the most. You can identify popular content by seeing which posts get more likes, reactions or shares than usual. If you know a particular property is more popular than others, you can get more data on what someone in your target audience is looking for—whether it's location, rent amount or amenities.
Provide Valuable Content
Patterns will start to emerge as you pay attention to what resonates with your potential (or current) renters the most. Leverage this new knowledge to help engage new potential tenants.
Try to avoid continuously posting content that doesn't seem to align with what your audience is looking for—if a particular property doesn't perform well on socials, it could be a sign that it needs better staging, renovating or is not in an area that resonates with those who use social media apps the most (millennials and Gen Z).
Your main goal is to move potential tenants from your social media accounts to your personal website or another platform that showcases your available properties and offers them the next steps for applying. A great way to provide the most value from these accounts is to make sure your contact information is easy to find. Your bio should include a phone number, personal website address, email address and any other relevant information that may help potential tenants get more details about your available properties.
Post Eye-Catching Visuals
While you can adjust minor details of your property photos (i.e., adjusting contrast and brightness), you shouldn't try changing what the property itself looks like. Photos of the interior and exterior should make tenants feel like they are seeing the full story.
Videos are another great way to make your real estate brand more clear. Audiences can see properties as though they are walking through the property physically when they're only viewing it. Don't overcomplicate your videos—simple guided virtual tours can be very effective.
Conclusion
The key to using social media advertising for real estate is to simply try new things. The only way to fail is to never start—you learn a lot of information about what kinds of social media campaigns fail, too. Keep an eye on your data and metrics and adjust your methods accordingly.
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