How to use web monitoring in the real estate sector?

Home prices are growing consistently. There are more and more sales offers and realtors are coming up with more and more ideas on how to bring their offering to potential customers. If you are a property broker, Internet and social media monitoring might help you succeed in that rivalry. Thanks to it, you can track queries made by those who look for flats and sell property as well as monitor your competition.

In the first quarter of 2019, there were 65,000 posts with the phrase “I have a home for sale” and 21,000 posts with the words “I want to buy a home” in social media. By finding those posts, you can get to know where your potential customers are and respond to them on an ongoing basis – join the discussion or immediately offer a specific solution. Social listening will make it possible for you to find such golden opportunities to network with the customer and capitalize on the opportunity to sell at the best time.

WHAT TO MONITOR?

Internet and social media monitoring make it possible to accurately check who asks questions on the web and about what they ask. You can start by ordering the search for the phrases “I want to sell/buy a house/a flat” combined with the name of the town you operate it. Compulsory knowledge also includes posts about your company – you can order the monitoring of its name and the name of the owner if it is a recognizable brand on the market. It is also good to look for information about the sector and services – their condition, results, published reports, forecasts or the latest trends. Make sure you add the names of competitive real estate agencies or surnames of realtors.

Thus, you can access all the posts made by those who look for property or want to sell it as well as user opinions about your company and its competition at any place and time. You also won’t be taken by surprise by changes in the market because you will be able to keep abreast of all the information about the sector.

WHAT TO DO WITH MONITORING RESULTS?

Having a pool of searches about the topics you ordered, try to capitalize on their potential as best as possible in leading active communication with the customers:

• Queries about sold or bought property and realtors – this is where you should look for your future customers and be helpful! Remember that internet users expect not only ready solutions but also opinions, recommendations and advice. Even if you do not have an offer which responds to specific needs, you can provide expert advice. By educating, you draw attention to yourself and win trust. And it is a good introduction to start running effective promotional activities. Carefully monitor the posts in which internet users ask for a recommendation of a broker – recommend yourself and thank for recommendations.
• Opinions about your company – recommendations are the most valuable mentions you can get from your customers. Thank every time and brag about your positive opinions! Always respond if you get a negative review. Apologize, try to offer a satisfactory solution – respond as fast as possible. If you lead the discussion properly, you have the chance to turn a dissatisfied customer even into a brand ambassador. Responding to opinions is an integral part of customer service on the web. Even if the client does not want your services anymore, you will get to know the reason why and will be able to improve your business. Thanks to quality analysis of mentions, you will get valuable knowledge about the needs and motivations of the customers in the form of consumer insights. Emotions are an integral part which often is even a decisive factor in making the purchase, therefore carefully analyze the sentiment of the publications. Thanks to ongoing knowledge about what is being said about your company in the media you can effectively prevent any possible crises.
• Posts regarding the sector and services – show yourself as an active player on the market, posting a comment about the published data. By following the discussion, you can join it, get your customers involved and win new ones. By knowing which websites post the biggest number of publications and whose posts get the biggest number of responses, you can properly direct your promotional activities. By doing that, you can also identify opinion leaders and influencers who have an impact on potential customers. Media monitoring is a source you can tap into, educating yourself in new trends, forecast expectations and needs of service users.
• Mentions about your competitors – competition monitoring is one of the most important elements of web research. This way you can get additional information about the sector. Track the experience of your market rivals and learn from their mistakes. Due to growing competition, it is more and more difficult to get across to the customer. It is thus all the more important to know where your competitors are called up to the board.

At the moment, even the best website and social media profiles are not enough – when running a company, you need to know what is being said about it outside of your own media, how your competitors are doing and what the direction of changes is. Capitalize on the latest solutions offered by the internet and social media monitoring and reach for a strong position on the market.