What happens when we shift our social media perspective from ego posting to community posting?
We explore how a focus on educating rather than self-promoting can drastically change your relationship with your audience and engagement.
Let's dive straight into the world of content creation, demystifying how to craft content that resonates with your local community.
From promoting your local favourites to leveraging council newsletters for video blogs.
We underline the significance of blending storytelling and facts in your content, showcasing your expertise without losing the human touch.
Plus, we introduce you to the concept of a 'day in the life' video, an excellent avenue to remind your audience that beyond the professional persona, you're human, just like them!
What happens when we shift our social media perspective from ego posting to community posting?
We explore how a focus on educating rather than self-promoting can drastically change your relationship with your audience and engagement.
Let's dive straight into the world of content creation, demystifying how to craft content that resonates with your local community.
From promoting your local favourites to leveraging council newsletters for video blogs.
We underline the significance of blending storytelling and facts in your content, showcasing your expertise without losing the human touch.
Plus, we introduce you to the concept of a 'day in the life' video, an excellent avenue to remind your audience that beyond the professional persona, you're human, just like them!
Million Dollar Agent. The podcast Tom Panos, troy, malcolm, john McGraw, where together, in the lead up to the, it's a grand final, grand final AFL, grand final NRL. None of our teams are in there, and, geez, it makes me feel good to know that you're sitting watching the game with the Tigers, the rabbits and the roosters, and congratulations it's good to be amongst losing fans. But also congratulations to Brisbane, who have got both the NRL team in the grand final. We've got a lot of listeners in Brisbane and Queensland and also in the AFL, and did they have soccer? No, they'd lost that one. So who's your tip guys? Who's going to win? Let's quickly get that out of the way. Brisbane versus Penrith Troy who's going to win?
Troy Malcolm:I'm going to stay with my preliminary final recommendations. Mack Pies is going to win the AFL and Panthers are going to win the NRL.
Tom Panos:John, Collingwood or Brisbane for the AFL.
John McGrath:That's an easy one. Troy's the obvious, which will be the case. They'll both win. I mean Brisbane won't win either, but that's okay. But I just wanted to rewind the tape time of last week and we had tips for this week and I'm sure one of the panellists said that Brisbane will get into both grand finals. Is there a Troy? Have you got a recollection of that or have you gone quiet?
Troy Malcolm:No, well, I don't know whether that actually got recorded or not. I can't remember. I think, both the black and white teams would do extremely well. I think you did say that, jm, I pull out the tapes.
Tom Panos:The tapes will be released.
John McGrath:I think this is, along with Easter. This is close to the funnest weekend of the year this Labor Day weekend because you've got the two grand finals and there's always a bit of sort of vibe in the air, and then Easter's always a cool time as well. So, anyway, get your opens, finish your auctions done on Saturday and then take a couple of days off, recharge and go and watch the footy.
Tom Panos:Beautiful, well said, great weekend ahead. So today I'm going to talk about with our, my two co-hosts, social media. Social media. I'm going to talk about it specifically about how to shift from being an ego poster to a community poster, and that's a big difference. An ego poster will normally put content there that elevates them. A community poster will put information there that educates. As Seth got and said at Eric the year before last, if you start looking at people not as prospects, as students, you'll have a different approach in the way you communicate. You'll give them information that educates them. And that's what I want to do, and I particularly.
Tom Panos:John Aladdin Hassan saw me at Broadway shopping center the other day and he said to me oh, tommy goes off, and you know, I just want to ask you you know he goes, you're not pumping up the market. You don't believe it's going to go off. I said, aladdin, what do you mean by that? And he says, oh, he goes. I noticed that you know the market the way I see it is not necessarily the market the way you see it, and I said to Aladdin look, you're a buyer's agent that's trying to buy quality property, predominantly in the upper end of the inner west. That's what you aim for and I think that in that marketplace, like in the eastern suburbs and lots of the high-end market places where people don't have Significant mortgages, there is a shortage of quality property. But I said a ladder and I need you to understand that when I'm looking at things I'm looking at the whole market and and the whole market does not indicate what we saw like.
Tom Panos:I read an article today about a property that Breschick Whitney went to auction In dollar chill on the weekend and so for seven hundred thousand over reserve. You know, and I think the point is that you're not gonna hear about the other 1,000 auctions that didn't get 700,000 over reserve. That's what media is all about. So I said to him I just say it as it is and I think some of the content I want to just cover today, john and Troy, is what I think consumers want. I think consumers want Stuff that's not exaggerated stuff.
Tom Panos:That's actually an insight that an agent can give and often you don't have to create the content yourself. Often You're just pulling up an article and you're it's called content curation, where you're giving a view Whether you're supporting the article or giving a conflicting view to the article. But Troy and John. We've gone over this many, many times. I do, I do. I have noticed some agents have actually toned it down a bit Over the recent few months, but there are still people. There are still people that are renting cars, trying to look flash, creating the impression. We see it all the time. It's all over Instagram and TikTok, and less so in Facebook. What do you say, guys?
John McGrath:It's. It's embarrassing, isn't it? And I often think them to you, tommy, early in the morning. Early in the morning, you know, because I'll often go through and have a little bit of social media early just to sort of see what what's being said, and it's seriously embarrassing. I mean, yeah, it was. Uh, who was it? We're risk with a spoon.
John McGrath:Yeah, she said think what your audience is interested in. Oh, damn well T. They're not interested in you driving a Ferrari into an open home, especially one that. No, whether you're renting it or whether you're owning it to your element, it's just, it's all legal puffery. And they're not interested in your watches. And they're not interested in your 12 awards, and you know they're not interested in anything else. So, anything either way, they're interested in is the property, the market, what's happening, what are the trends? Interior trends, uh, interesting results, statistics, all that sort of stuff. And I know, tommy, you've got some stuff You're going to refer to shortly that I think your gym members you took them for recently, which I saw on that slide deck, which is terrific, but, um, yeah, look, you know, take Seth Godin.
John McGrath:He's probably one of the best marketers in the world. You know, see all your customers as students. Take what Reese with a spoon said you sold a business for a billion dollars. Um Is, you know, ask yourself what are my customers interested in? And just serve them up. That, not what. What is my ego interested in? Fueling itself on Um? And I think if you just, you know, remember what those two said and take that as a bit of rule of thumb. Yeah, education is great and some people, you know, try 10 more towards the Personal social, where they do quite a bit of, you know, talk about what's happening in their family and kids first day at school and that sort of stuff. Other people are very strictly stick to business. You know, it's what I sold on the weekend, how many opens, what, the trends in the market, and I think you've kind of got to weave your own personality into it and kind of work out what feels right for you.
John McGrath:I think you can go too far into the social bits, you know, and we've all seen agents taking off for their expensive, you know, european summer holiday in june, july, and and they, they post things all the time. We had expensive hotels and I think, especially right now, as you said, tell me, don't be tone deaf like most of the world is doing it tough. Forget the ones that go 700 000 above reserve. Most of the world, most of your community, most of your clients, most of your buyers and sellers are feeling the pinch. So don't be tone deaf. No need to do it at any time, certainly Absurd to do it at this particular time. Post imagery and stories that that kind of rub salt into the wounds. So anyway, yeah, I think it's.
John McGrath:It's about education, it's about Enlightenment, about sharing information and insights that may not be regularly available to someone not in the industry. It's about interesting case studies and not just I mean, I love yours, tell me, ever said to harvoh, because you get the real deal, you know transparency. Yours is not about sugarcoating. You'll say you know five out of nine this weekend, and the five, to be honest, they all were one bit of auction. So some of the stings come out of the market. That that that gives credibility to your story and your statement, rather than agents that are just continually gilding the lily Troy. What's your view about this important topic?
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, I think, john, what you're kind of touching on, there is a lot of the authenticity and imperfect is ideal. Like Tom doesn't wait for a professional cameraman to come and film on a Saturday afternoon, 99% of the time it's in the front seat of his car, he's driving home, or he's just arrived home from his auctions and he's giving a wrap. I really think the difference right now of the ones and the agents that are winning is that they have a level of their personal brand and authenticity that's consistent, and so they don't try to be someone that they're not. They pick the persona that they're actually becoming and they make sure that there is a consistency across that. All their platforms, without any ego, and I think that they're the ones that are definitely getting a lot more people engaging with their content.
Troy Malcolm:Now, engagement doesn't always mean number of followers. You can have not a huge number of followers, but a really engaged audience, and so you've got to be careful. Followers doesn't always equal better. You just got to make sure that that's there. But, john, you're right Authenticity, it's okay to be a little bit imperfect in your approach, because that's ideal. That's where people understand that you're a real human being. And also what you touched on there about the personality and also the personal and business side of things that actually connects everyone to make sure that they understand that you're a real person as well. So there's a lot of stuff to unpack, but this is a really interesting topic right now as well Lead in into spring, where we are going to see the sale cycle increase and the listings come on the market. Got to make sure that there's a consistent approach, otherwise you'll look like every other agent out there.
John McGrath:So what I tell you, what was telling you on those slides, because I had some terrific insight and sort of ideas.
Tom Panos:What I do, john and Troy, is I surf a lot over social media looking at agents, and often the content comes from agents that are overseas, including the New York agent who spoke at ARIC this year. I look at the kind of content that they put up and actually your articles, john, in the Newscorp Australian Network. I've been following those articles and I've been to becoming out every second. You must write for them every second or third week and I've been reading some of the articles and what you do is you take away real estate speak and you speak to people. I'm looking at the one in front of me now. Property guru John McGrath shoots down real estate's biggest myths and then you've gone off and you've covered things about. You know if you're selling winter, you'll be a buyer in spring, and you talk about useful practical information and what I've got up here on the slide. I'm just going to run through a few things. You can't see it, obviously, to our listeners, but here's a sort of content that I seem to think resonates when I look around the world in agents posting local community hotspots. A real estate agent has got the ability to be able to work out what a real hotspot in their area is, and then events highlights from their area your favorite. I think people love it and I know that you've got to be careful because you don't want to put one business offside. But you could turn around and say, hey, my favorite sushi in Haberfield is at you know, tokyo, my favorite new business. So what you're talking about is you're promoting businesses in the area, you're giving people information on places you've gone to and I think like things like best places for best places for you know, a side bowels are here Top 10 things to do if you're in our area over the next weekend. But, john and Troy, I think often underrated and very easily used is to take the local newsletter from Council every month. You can get it on their website and you can actually convert that into a video blog and I think that that would be more effective than just sitting in front of a mobile phone saying Hi everyone. I had four opens today and I had a total of 20 groups. Come through, see you next week.
Tom Panos:I think, as long as you're giving information that brings the community together, other sort of content that I think resonates very well is just listed, just so. But having maybe sometimes you see where I put a green post behind me where I've got the story behind me, like have a house and you tell a story about it. You know nothing wrong with the just listed automatic posts that come through the right, my agents and the ones that a lot of the social media companies provide, that are sort of cut and paste type. But I think a story sells. Story sells and facts tell so. If you sold the property on the weekend you could go to realestatecom created as a backdrop. Then you appear in the video and talk about you know what actually happened and what sort of people boarded and and and who the underbidders were and what kind of properties the underbidders are looking for. I think things like that. I think live successful auctions that are emailed. If you email out on a Friday to your database, people can watch that auction from their mobile phone live on social media and that works really well, particularly if it's a very good auction.
Tom Panos:And then I brought up another slide here and that is content categories proof that show you that you're an authority. And the way that you can do that is to to get articles out of the fin review and comment and give you a view on the content. You know, support them, you know, maybe create an argument on them, maybe why things are different in your area, stats predictions, and the other one is client questions and I don't think we've got to guess what client questions are, because if you're an active agent, you're always asked the same things and sellers in the area. It's pretty clear what information people want. And I think, between all of that and also take advantage of, you know, take a few photos and videos of you at the marketing shoot, showing that you care about the detail. Going to appointments, maybe a few photos or videos in team training.
Tom Panos:I love the day in the life. I don't know Troy and John. If you watch on TikTok often you'll have people. Oh, my name's Sarah. I'm a flight attendant with Virgin. Here is my day to day. I woke up at seven.
Tom Panos:People get fascinated on what the lives of people in different occupations are. I think those sorts of videos do very well. Finally, what I'll just say, and then I'll get a hand over to you both to get your comments on it. So I've noticed that. So when I went to Bali and I went to Sulla and Christina had gone to Europe, but I couldn't, I couldn't travel then, so we only went for a five day or six day trip to Bali, I noticed there was a lot of engagement of photos of me and Madeline at a waterfall or that, and a lot of people would send messages saying it's good to see you, know you're having a good time, you know with your family, it's good to see what you're like outside of work, just giving people a bit of a glimpse that I'm a human like you. I'm not a robot, I'm not a real estate fanatical machine.
John McGrath:Yeah so yeah, tell me, what about the nut that said you shouldn't be taking holidays, you should be back at work and get you.
Tom Panos:I got so upset that day because what happened is I got home and it was about 10, 11 o'clock at night and I looked at the and you should never it's something that I shouldn't do at night look at things, because they actually do affect my sleep if they upset me. And the post for those that didn't see it said it was a guy called Andy, from Melbourne and his profile photo was a guy doing bison curls at the gym right. And he put down on there a surprise we're all suffering here and you're having a holiday right. And then, like, I thought I don't. I don't have another person. I've never, never, had a relationship. He's not even connected with me on social media. But I took a screenshot and I actually made him public and said Andy, next time I'll ask for a leave before I head off on vacation.
John McGrath:It's funny. I'll just write down three things, tommy, that I'll summarize with and I'm pinching first one from you storytelling, or commentary. You know, don't just stand there and be a news reporter and just sort of sort of read from a script, actually take an opinion, have a view, be thoughtful and then be natural. Just, you know I hate scripts, as you know, and I think that you know, if you just have a few bullet points is good, you know. These are the three things I'm going to talk about, but people do love storytelling and they like the detail behind the outcome. Number one. Number two is, I agree, live stream. You know as much live stream as sort of something edgy about live stream that people really like. What could go wrong? What are they going to say? This is not pre-rehearsed, this is not edited, this is live, so live stream.
John McGrath:The third one is video, which I guess is a delayed live stream, but you know more video. I know that Instagram stories and Instagram in general is awesome, but the more video you can place out there, I think the better, because people would much rather watch a 60 second video than kind of, you know, read too much 60 seconds worth of content. So I think, troy, that would be the things that I'd be going for authenticity, storytelling live when possible, video when possible, or at least have a high level of video content. And I reckon if you follow a bit of that and what Tom's just said, you're going to be doing some damn good social media.
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, the other one I'd add in there, John and Tom, is consistency. Just make sure you stack everything you're doing so there's a rhythm and a repeat insight into what you're doing out there in the market. You know, if it's Saturday afternoon, if it's Monday morning, what does that look like? Have that calendar of events and make sure that you've got those high standards about what you need to deliver to then create momentum.
Tom Panos:Yeah, that's why I put up on the screen now, troy, this simple social media calendar which is set and forget, you know, right through the week, and then on the left hand side, you obviously can't see it, those are the listening to the podcast, but it's quite simple. It's a seven day plan that set and forget, and your team and you know that on this day this is what we're doing. Last thing I'll say before we leave 90 second videos. It's the simplest answer, it's more engagement. But, more importantly, if you use a 90 second video, it will be allowed on TikTok, facebook Reels, Insta Reels and you can use it on YouTube Shorts. And I know there are times when you might want to be a bit of a Joe Rogan and do a one hour conversation, right, but I think for most of us, 90 second videos that can be repurposed, because Reels, which is where you want to be posting on Instagram, only allow 90 seconds. So every video I do, I'm basically looking at the timer and when it gets to 1 minute 23, 24, in my head I'm thinking, okay, you've got to wrap up Like, we're going to wrap up right now. We're going to wrap up right now. That's what we're going to do, and I agree with what John said.
Tom Panos:This is a great time of the year. You can tell that the afternoons are getting longer because of the daylight. Saving is actually around the corner. Is it this week, troy? It's this week, yeah.
Troy Malcolm:Sunday night. Sunday morning 2am.
Tom Panos:So great time of the year it's warmer, you don't have to have a jumper on all day. I think within a couple of weeks it'll be t-shirts and shirts for most of the day. But, john and Troy, great to see you. We'll see you next week again for another episode of Million Dollar Agent and we will have a look at who was right and who was wrong on the footy tips. And I'm going to go look at those videos, troy. I will go look at those videos.
Troy Malcolm:Catch him out, tom, catch him out. See, you guys have a good week.