Increasing numbers of agents are planning to use social media to promote their listings, says Zoopla, while more consumers are using Facebook to look for homes.
But Zoopla would not be drawn on its its short-lived Facebook Marketplace partnership or say whether it had plans to return to it.
The portal has released the latest findings from its State of the Property Nation survey, which found that 65% of agents plan to harness social media to promote listings this year, with a 50% annual increase in consumers browsing homes on Facebook.
The research found that 12% of house hunters now use Facebook to browse for homes, up 50% from a year ago.
While social media is increasingly important, Zoopla said email marketing remains key for savvy house hunters, with 47% signed up to portal email alerts, rising to 64% in London.
Almost six in ten (59%) agents surveyed used portals as their primary marketing tool. This is in line with consumer preference, with 77% using portals to conduct their property search.
A fifth of consumers said they have a property app installed on their digital devices, whether active in the market or not, and they are using them on average 4.8 times per week.
Andy Marshall, chief commercial officer at Zoopla, said: “The industry is adapting to changes in consumer behaviour and looking to capitalise on the amount of time that prospective buyers and vendors spend in the digital environment.
“This is nowhere more apparent than in the research stages of buying, selling or renting a new home; agents know this, which is why more of them are embracing digital marketing than ever before.
“Our strategy empowers agents to develop a meaningful digital presence and communicate with consumers in the most effective ways, whether via Facebook, an agent’s own website or our app.
“Whether agents want to reach out to buyers and sellers in a more targeted way, or if consumers want to stay up to date with current market trends or new listings, we have a breadth of digital tools to facilitate this.”
EYE queried if this recognition of the importance of social media meant Facebook is seen as a rival to Zoopla, or if Zoopla would return to putting listings on Facebook Marketplace after mysteriously dropping them just four months into a partnership.
A spokesman said: “We never comment on future plans or other companies.”
“Almost six in ten (59%) agents surveyed used portals as their primary marketing tool. This is in line with consumer preference, with 77% using portals to conduct their property search.“
Almost a quarter of potential buyers don’t use portals – and they even have the ‘nads to shove the info in your faces…
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Zoopla etc are the exit lounge for property and rental property. Social media is the import lounge for gaining vendors and landlords.
Back in the day your newspaper advertising was both the product, houses, lets, and your brand – that huge masthead brand name of your agency that hung above all of your advertised stock.
On the property portals your brand is removed and your product is diced into tiny digital squares used to re-enforce the brand of the portal. Question – does ASOS post its products on a portal with other competitors, or does it use targeted social media to sell its products.
The beauty of social media, is that in the same household you can send a different message to different people, so unlike a newspaper advert – universal in its reach – but a blunt instrument – a bespoke piece of social media can really engage the correct target audience.
This is why new estate agents (this term includes letting agents) who are of course using social media are killing the market, overturning established legacy businesses in medium sized towns. Customers – vendors and landlords – are being influenced by these companies.
That is why I in my consultancy spend a large amount of time talking about having a bespoke social media solution, and maybe cutting portal spend and using social media to get the brand out there, so when you sit with the landlord or vendor, your brand is already inside their head.
And just posting on your Facebook, twitter or Instagram account may be doing very little to grow your digital footprint, you need to pay for a digital marketeer, to ensure that ‘copy’ which also needs to be produced gets in front of the correct people at the correct time.
For those who think social media is for children, here is a fact, half the globe is now populated by Generation-Z. This is your up and coming client, they look at Tik Tok, they speak on mobiles only 38% of the time using social media for all their other communication, if your business is founded on the telephone (Alexander Bell’s invention in the 19th century) you are going to be increasingly out of the loop. If you want some sound advice on this topic contact me.
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‘new estate agents (this term includes letting agents) who are of course using social media are killing the market’
Who and where are these firms? I’d love to examine their social media activity. I’m not seeing this anywhere in my sphere (yet).
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Great words Andrew. Its like estate agents still using paper and pen to write to their clients, instead of using email, whatsapp etc. Its like Night and Day – those who fail to speak to you are left in the dark, and in turn will have their office lights turned out permanently.
I cant believe there are still the large % of agents with their head in the sand, surely calling you for advice would help.
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The struggle that agents will still have, whether its using portals such as RM and ZPG or social media platforms such as Facebook, is that they still won’t be harnessing their own big data, audiences or algorithms as they will rely on these companies to do that. The more data they obtain, the more you will need them. You supply them the content, which is consumed by people, who are segmented into micro audiences or profiles of their interests, which you then pay to advertise back to them without knowing who they are.
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