What is personal branding?
I get it. You are a Realtor®, not a Personal Branding powerhouse. Kudos to you for knowing the difference, but chances are there is more you could be doing to build your personal brand. And this isn't just some vanity endeavor or way to get more business without being compensated for it. Building your personal brand will help enhance your business overall.
1) Understand How Your Personal Brand Can Boost Your Real Estate Career
Real estate is an industry where many agents work for themselves and build their brands and businesses. You don't just work for a company: you're the company. This makes branding yourself as a real estate agent extra important — and can set your business apart from the competition.
It's no secret that real estate is a great industry in which to work. The job is rewarding, challenging, and you can even make a little money while doing it! But you're not the only one thinking this way. There are thousands of other real estate agents working today competing for buyers by offering the same services. This poses the question: how do I stand out among my peers?
Many real estate agents struggle to build a personal brand, and without one, they often feel disconnected from their community. It's an agent's job to know their community well enough that they can offer advice on things ranging from local restaurants to stay-at-home tips. A personal brand isn't just about building your reputation as a dedicated real estate expert; it also helps you appear more relatable and approachable, increasing your chances of impressing clients, closing deals, and getting referrals.
Creating a strong personal brand may be the answer if you're looking for a competitive advantage in your career. Homebuyers and sellers want to work with real estate agents who feel like approachable people who share their values (i.e., not some random robot they found on Google). To do this, create your brand around the image of who you are as an agent.
2) Establish your personality and Identify Your Values
It isn't easy to put your personal beliefs, values, and desires into words. That's why it's essential to communicate these values to clients through your brand. According to Entrepreneur magazine, personal branding is “the process of gaining influence by creating and communicating value-based behaviors that lead to an individual's unique work-related success.” Real estate agents will establish themselves as thought leaders in their local market by providing value to their clients and potential clients. This will help build trust with clients and prevent them from basing decisions on what they hear about their agent from other people in the industry who may not. Some examples of possible values that may appeal to clients include:
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Experience
- Good communication
- Dedication
If you're brand-new to the real estate business and you're looking to build your career, start by asking yourself what values matter most to you. The next step will be to take those values and ask why they matter to you. Then it's time to take those answers and ask: If I was a client, how do these traits shine through?
Once you've figured out your top three values, the next step is to identify how you can demonstrate these values to your target market. You might already be doing this, but try to think of ways you could act on each value more consistently.
3) What Sets You Apart? Differentiate Yourself
With so many agents out there, it's crucial to position yourself to stand out among potential clients in the best way possible. For most people looking for a real estate agent, it's just a matter of opening up an app and choosing the first person whose profile or website about whom they want to learn more about. To set yourself apart, you need real estate agent branding ideas.
Personal branding real estate agents find more success than their peers because strong personal branding ideas differentiate their offerings from the pack and help them land potential clients. The benefits of personal branding include: knowing who you are and how you can offer value to the world, leveraging your unique strengths for business reasons creating content consistently, so everyone knows what to expect.
Whether you've been in the real estate industry for a long time or are just starting, cultivating a solid personal brand won't just help you stand out from your peers — it will also give you a sense of direction and purpose as a person and an agent. Popular real estate agent brands can even help you land new clients. It seems counterintuitive that being memorable online could help you increase your number of deals closed, but it's easier than you might think. Personal branding can inspire trust in prospective buyers or sellers and give potential clients a reason to call you instead of one of the dozens of other agents who have access to their phone numbers thanks to coveted online leads. Today, we'll walk you through the steps of building your personal
4) Give Customers Someone They Can Relate To
Personal branding is about getting to know you, what you are passionate about, and why you are the right person for the job. It is how others perceive you. Your brand should support all your marketing materials and be consistent with the image you want to present.
Personal branding is all about getting the home buying community to know, like, and trust you. It's important to be yourself, not your company. When you are yourself, you will attract more people who appreciate your style. Personal branding is not about being stuffy or putting on airs. It's simply using your authentic voice to attract people who relate to you.
5) Get a Website and Secure Your Social Media Identities
Your online presence has become an essential aspect of the real estate business. With all of the real estate professionals out there trying to get noticed, you need to ensure that you're taking every step necessary to truly differentiate yourself from the masses. Your website's reach might not be as extensive as the following you build on social media. However, the more people you push to your site, the easier it will be to qualify those leads and figure out the exact ways that you're able to help.
It's easier than you might think to create a network of personal profiles online. Many real estate agents are still only on Facebook, which leaves them in the Stone Age in terms of marketing in 2021. Although you should focus your efforts on the most extensive social networks, don't ignore the smaller ones. The site TikTok is one of the fastest-growing platforms for user-generated video content. LinkedIn, meanwhile, could be the best platform for promoting your content and building your personal brand within your company. By breaking down your social media marketing into individual pieces, you'll be able to better reach different buyers and sellers across multiple channels.
6) Create Online & Offline Content
Just because everything is available online doesn't mean that your clients want to do everything there.
When we think of real estate, we naturally think digital – and we're not alone. Trends show that more and more people are viewing properties online before even pulling out the key. But coming into real-world space and interacting with a physical brochure or phrase can be just as effective as an online presence, especially for those who prefer to make choices from a place of curiosity rather than impulse.
When many of you first started in real estate, digital marketing was still in its infancy. But now, it's everywhere, and people have been conditioned to view the world through the lens of technology-enabled devices. In this day and age, it can be easy to prioritize digital content over physical media. But brochures, signage, and other forms of offline content are just as important and eye-catching as online content. Printed materials can even help you generate leads in clients who might respond more positively to them.
7) Be Consistent
Most importantly of all, be genuine and stay consistent! A consistent brand looks appealing, which enables it to end up being memorable to prospective clients. A real estate agent having a fun and playful social media presence will confuse clients by using a sleek and edgy logo, and an agent who prides themselves on their years of experience and knowledge should make a point to consistently demonstrate their expertise as opposed to seeking to post funny videos on Instagram. When considering personal branding, real estate agents really should not be afraid to craft a powerful brand in their own business and adhere to it consistently.
Need more local marketing tips? Check out The Essential Marketing Guide for Real Estate Professionals
