Insights

This week, realestate.com.au discussed the increasing need for social media policies amongst real estate agencies. The article explains the fundamentals of an effective policy for those working in real estate and draws on the advice of Hodges St Kilda Director, Michael Townsend. These fundamentals include the most effective platforms, who can post, who has the admin passwords, and how it all fits into a wider consumer engagement strategy.

Michael lists eight key considerations to think about. Some of these include:

Employees – In order to create a more dynamic presence online, it is important that you get more than one staff member involved. He encourages staff to ‘like’ the page, share activity and celebrate personal wins in the interests of building a local community.

Filter – The decision wasn’t made lightly but he explains that they don’t have a filter on their page as the benefit of allowing community members to post far outweighs any cost of potential “trolling”.

Controlled Message – “While people can put what they want on our Facebook page, it’s very much controlled messaging from our point of view, and we do steer it down a certain path.”

Trolls – Luckily they have never had any negativity put on the page however if there were a hypothetical complaint Michael says “as long as there’s a response and it’s dealt with straight away, then that’s just how a good real estate agency works.”

To read the full article click here.