Do you struggle marketing your real estate services on social media?
Eric Simon, The Broke Agent, has grown his social media following to over half a million followers across all major platforms. He shares with us his expertise on what is current in today’s social media marketing trends.
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Ryan McMillian 0:00
Lets Do it! Those of you that are here, thank you so much for being here and on time today. So I’m very pleased to introduce our featured speaker today. He’s an out of work real estate agent that became a social media guru.
Eric Simon 0:13
Out of work real estate agent. That’s how you’re gonna introduce me?
Ryan McMillian 0:16
Turned into a giant media company conglomerate. He’s one hell of a golfer, and definitely a guy’s guy, ladies and gentlemen, the broke agents. Eric Simon, welcome!
Eric Simon 0:26
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here to disseminate brilliant social media information upon the Fiv Realty Group.
Ryan McMillian 0:37
Yes, so yeah, you’re well, it’s an honor to have you here. I know most of us, if not all of us, follow you and have seen all of your funny memes and making the lighter side of real estate. So we know it just started out as memes. Tell us a little bit about like the backstory of The Broke Agent, how you got to where you are now.
Eric Simon 0:56
First off, you just invoked my rival, The Lighter Side of real estate. I don’t know if you people follow The Lighter Side of real estate. But that was kind of the real estate humor thing before The Broke Agent. So that’s actually a great starting off point that was a Facebook page or still is that post kind of more e-cards and more memes that aren’t funny, basically. So I started the broke agent eight years ago. As a buyer’s agent, I was working in Beverly Hills for a team I was sitting nothing but dead open houses every Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. I was basically their assistant unpaid I think I made $300 in a span of one year selling actual real estate or trying to sell real estate I was cold calling I was door knocking and nothing was working out for me. So I basically took to social media to, Twitter specifically, as a place of solace to air my grievances in pain that I was experiencing as a real estate agent. I was 25 years old. So you know door knocking and Beverly Hills on a you know, $5- $6 million listing was was not ideal. I was very nervous. I was very anxious. I felt like an imposter. I felt like I was an actor basically. And I realized that all of the the real estate content that was going out at that moment, was grind culture success, suited and booted Beverly Hills motivational quotes, you know, the type of shit that Ryan post, basically. And I know Ryan doesn’t post that Ryan’s got a great, great Instagram. But like this was, you know, prime Gary Vee, where everything I saw was just nonstop success. So I basically took the other route, call it the broke agent, and was basically tweeting out my inner monologue and posting those to Instagram and Facebook. So one of the things I did early on, that was really important in terms of building this brand was building on all of these platforms. So I started posting YouTube videos right away. I had a rap video that now if I was still on YouTube, certainly, oh, my God would certainly get me cancelled, that was removed. So I have, so I was building this following on all platforms at once. And that really helped with the growth of the brand. So that’s basically how it started.
Ryan McMillian 3:05
Okay, so how, like, Did you did you focus just on Instagram? Or did you grow on other platforms as well? Like, how did it start? You said Twitter. But did you just start on Instagram straight up? And that’s how it grew? And then you kind of just started hitting all the other platforms?
Eric Simon 3:21
Yeah, so it started on, you know, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook simultaneously. But this is not before memes. But you know, there was the the fat Jewish is of the word world, the ____ Jared, I’m sorry to curse. But these are very popular meme pages at the time. And there’s basically only two or three. There weren’t too many nice specific meme pages. Now you find a bunch that are stupid resumes, which is like about work culture, you see financial memes, like liquidity, Attorney problems, that type of thing. So the broke agent, I think, was kind of one of the more original niche specific industry meme pages. But it started just as tweets and then evolved into memes, and then video, and now everything you see now. So I think another really important aspect of the brand has been my willingness to evolve as different types of content came out. And I think that should be a big takeaway for this crew here as different technologies and different platforms and different ways to post occur. You have to adopt those because that’s how people are consuming that content. So people didn’t really care about tweets being posted. But the second I put the caption on a photo that provided way more context to what I was doing. And then when I started doing video, it exploded even further.
Ryan McMillian 4:34
And when did you start finally, like showing your face rather than just hiding behind the keyboard like you were doing for so many years?
Eric Simon 4:40
I was never hiding behind the keyboard. But I was you know, I did YouTube videos at first and that was kind of like, you know, 5 apps real estate agents should download but everything I was saying was kind of nonsensical, or like mistakes agents are making on Instagram, but it was me and this guy, Wes Pinkston doing it at the time. But I really started like the brand really started to take a different turn when I started The Broken News Network with my friend Ben Fisher back in 2020. I don’t know if anyone here, watched that. Give me a nod or like, if you did, okay, so basically, it was just the SNL version of, you know, weekend update of real estate where we did market updates, we did Instagram tips. And we would tell like funny stories, basically. And the whole goal of that was, how can we provide value that isn’t just humor based, right? Like, I know, agents get value in the fact that they could see the content, and they could relate to it and be like, Okay, this is happening to me, too. And it makes them feel better about their day. But do I actually know anything else about like marketing, like, clearly, my marketing chops are pretty good for building this brand. So that was kind of the first like moves when I was actually showing my face. And then that evolved, basically into the podcast, the overpass podcast, which is all about, like marketing topics for real estate agents.
Ryan McMillian 5:57
Okay, so if we can, can we run through kind of like what you’re doing on on maybe each platform and just kind of break it down? Like, what are you doing on Facebook? like Instagram, Tik Tok like YouTube? Can you? Can you explain like that so that everyone can kind of maybe take notes and get some ideas? Yeah, definitely.
Eric Simon 6:13
So Facebook right now has more organic growth, by far than it did the last couple of years. So abandoning any sort of Facebook strategy would be a fool’s move, I would say, you want to get back on Facebook, because the organic reach is crushing. Because all of these corporations with the economic recession or whatever we’re in right now have pulled back a lot of advertising money. Also, they’ve implemented Facebook reels, which is Instagram reels for Facebook, organic, vertical video. And that is really helping accounts grow. And also advertisers have found cheaper options right now, like tik tok, where most of the attention seems to be going. So do not abandon Facebook, what’s really working right now is uploading organically to the platform. So if you’re cross posting on Instagram, to Facebook, I’m seeing way less engagement than if I do it myself and upload it organically. So if you film something vertically on your phone, you don’t want to necessarily just cross posted. And when you’re doing that from Instagram, a lot of them won’t even cross posts if you have an audio in it, or if it’s a meme of a video or something that has copyright because Facebook’s copyright rules are significantly more strict than Instagrams even though it’s run by the same, you know, meta company. So anytime you’re filming something vertically or on your phone, or, you know, in your camera roll or whatever, you want to upload that organically to Facebook. So we’re seeing a lot of growth with that. And then in terms of plugging links, what I’ve really noticed is, if you just plug a link, and you post a link to your YouTube channel, or link to your blog, or a link to your listing, it gets no clicks, right. I don’t know if anyone’s seen this. But whether it’s a Facebook business page or your personal page, because anytime you upload a link to Facebook and try to get people off the app, they’re most likely not going to promote it. But if you do it as a Facebook status, like the old Facebook status updates, where you describe your day, then it’s kind of like your inner monologue. If you do that, and write like five to six to seven sentences, explaining what it is, and then put the link at the bottom, you get so much more engagement. So we just did this with this chat GPT workshop, instead of just saying, hey, click the link below to sign up. I wrote this entire description about how AI is not gonna replace real estate agents. But agents are always three to five years behind in terms of adopting new technologies, and wrote this entire thing. And that gets so much more engagement than just plugging a link. So upload organically to Facebook. Don’t plug links, do more Facebook status updates or actual images with the link included like in the actual status. And staying consistent with that not just cross promoting is what I do on Facebook. And yeah, like I said, post nonstop on Facebook, it’s crushing Facebook groups, for me, are an incredible place to mine and source content. So I don’t know if you have an internal Facebook group. Do you guys Ryan?
Ryan McMillian 9:01
For Fiv we do right, Christina? I don’t know if we started one yet. I know that I got invited to it. I’m sure. Fiv does have an internal one. Yes.
Eric Simon 9:08
Okay. I don’t know how active it is. But I source a lot of content and questions from Facebook groups, I’ll go in labcoat agents, or we add one called top producers, which actually is completely inactive. So that would be a lie. But we there’s a lot of Facebook groups that I’m in that I’m getting content from because these are the questions that agents are asking right when it’s agent to agent Facebook groups. It’s not just referrals, they’re asking questions. And those are great hooks for Instagram reels and for videos. And even if you’re in a Facebook group that isn’t just agents that is more of a community Facebook group. These are still very potent lead generation spots is as being very active in these we’ve had a couple of people on the overpass podcast whose main strategy is literally like living in a Facebook group and commenting nonstop so their name keeps popping thing up, and they become like, you know, more well known in their community from doing that. So I could mind content from them. Obviously, you could get referrals from them. And then Facebook group engagement wise, is better than even your Facebook business page or Facebook profile page to starting a Facebook group around a community, or hobby or something. Ryan, what are your hobbies? Besides stroking your hair to the moon every single morning?
Ryan McMillian 10:26
I do enjoy around a golf every once in awhile. Okay. And and then so I guess you could there’s and I’m a part of golf groups. There’s other people that do it and I’ve set it up. And that’s a perfect example of one that works. And you can get engagement and get ideas and content from too.
Eric Simon 10:40
Yeah, exactly. So whether you’re in that group or starting a group, the thing is, when you start a Facebook group, you basically have to be the content source of that group for the first four to five months, like people aren’t going to organically populate it, you kind of have to be the driver of that it’s the same thing with the discord community, or, you know, our referral network Facebook group. So it is kind of a time suck, but I think it’s worth it to not abandon Facebook groups. And that’s where a lot of the buyers are right, like Facebook is an aged up demographic wise, in terms of who’s going to be purchasing properties. And you’re in….people are here from everywhere, right?
Ryan McMillian 11:16
This is a spread spread out from…Kristina, how far are we spread here today?
Kristina Kendig 11:21
Um, I think we’re across the country today, because we put it out there, but we’re mostly Southern California.
Eric Simon 11:28
Okay. Well, yeah, regardless of where you, regardless of where you are, Facebook groups, great place to find buyers. So that’s what we’re doing on Facebook. And obviously running ads to running ads to our lead pages, which are kind of downloadable eBooks, which I could get into for email capture for YouTube. YouTube shorts right now. Crushing, I don’t know, you know who here raise your hand if you’re on YouTube, and you’re posting shorts, or know what shorts are? Okay, so not too many. So YouTube shorts are basically the tik tok of YouTube, the vertical video, the Instagram real of YouTube. And they have their own internal algorithm outside of YouTube algorithm. So if you don’t have a YouTube page, yet, maybe you you know, aren’t posting your listing videos you’re not doing you know, the 5 reasons you should move to OC, you should still start a YouTube channel, and at least start uploading YouTube shorts to that channel. Because the organic reach with YouTube shorts now is even better than that of Tiktok and Instagram, and YouTube, from what I’m hearing from all the agents we have on our podcast is by far the best lead generation source like it, it destroys Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, anything like that, because those are the people that are actually watching you long form. Those are the people that are digesting your content, seeing you speak for five or 10 minutes, as opposed to you know, pointing at some captions on an Instagram reel for 30 seconds. So that’s our YouTube strategy is we’re coming out with podcast consistently. And we’re cutting up two to three shorts, that could go right after those podcasts, we’ll post a podcast in the morning, then we’ll have two to three YouTube shorts. And you could actually cut up the short within the YouTube app itself. So you don’t need an editor. Like you can literally do it as if it’s an Instagram real in the YouTube app. So I would definitely download the YouTube app and sign up for premium YouTube. So you don’t have to deal with ads. And it’s just a way better user experience. Am I can do fast? Am I making any sense here? Am I speaking gibberish?
Ryan McMillian 13:25
You’re exactly right. Yeah, we have a question here from Michelle. Michelle says How long are the YouTube shorts?
Eric Simon 13:32
I don’t know. Like, I don’t know the thing about the 90 seconds maybe.
Ryan McMillian 13:38
I would say not more than 90 seconds right there anywhere from seconds to maybe 90 At the most Exactly. Pushing it for 90 seconds with the world teed up today.
Eric Simon 13:47
But the best thing about the YouTube shorts is that it feeds to your long form content. So in that YouTube short description, you’re going to want to plug the link to the video of the long form. And you’re going to title it something completely different from the long form. Because it’s all about titles like YouTube, the way you position your videos, the thumbnail, and the title has to be something that someone clicks on, you have to create that sense of urgency. You’re like this, this agent said this about tiktok. And if you don’t watch this, you’re gonna die. I mean, you can’t say that. So you can say, you know, the five best tick tock tips that if you miss your business or will fail something like that, like doing negative titles like that are click Beatty, but that’s how you actually like hook people in.
Ryan McMillian 14:29
So it’s media 101, right. Yeah.
Eric Simon 14:32
And I know like people are like, Oh, that’s just clickbait. And maybe the video isn’t exactly what’s going on. But if you don’t get people to click on it, then nobody’s watching it, then nobody cares, then you just upload something for no reason. So..
Ryan McMillian 14:43
Do you do have a way to show people all these things you’re talking about you guys have any way to show people these things that you guys do you have tutorials or anything like that?
Eric Simon 14:52
No, no. We will. We have ebooks. I mean, we’re doing it all the time I’m talking about right now.
Ryan McMillian 14:57
Right? I’m just say that because if somebody didn’t take notes like 100 miles a minute and wanted to learn a bit more about how to, how would they do that, that’s all I was getting.
Kristina Kendig 15:06
This is recorded and we’ll post it later on the website.
Eric Simon 15:08
100 miles a minute, okay. Well, you could use, you could use a tool called Tube Buddy, which, which is like a internal thing that you can plug into YouTube that actually shows you how your thumbnails performing how your SEO is performing with your title. It gives you the best practices for each video. It’s called Tube Buddy. So I would definitely check that out for YouTube.
Ryan McMillian 15:35
And then we have another question real quick here. It says, Jessica Sanchez said should I be posting all of my reels to YouTube shorts?
Eric Simon 15:43
Probably yeah. Okay, yeah, I mean, the thing is like a channel of just shorts. I think Mr. B’s has a channel just shorts, I’m not sure. But with YouTube, we made a huge mistake on for BAM broke agent media, which is now just bam, is we populated too much content to our original channel that wasn’t in relation to each other. So we had five or six different shows, we had me doing marketing Monday’s for us talking about Instagram reels and you know, social media tips. We had Byron talking about interest rates, we had the massive agent talking about motivation. So we were confusing the algorithms so much. So if you’re doing a YouTube channel, you do want the content to be very specific to what you’re talking about. Right? Like if it’s, like the best YouTube channels in the game, you could look some of these people up, Ken Bozak. He’s a Orlando real estate agent. His is all about Orlando, he does an incredible job about with his titles, he’s showing Disney showing restaurants, he’s showing different neighborhoods, Dan Parker in San Diego does a great job. But all of their content is so specific to their location. And it’s all about generating leads. And they have like an entire, you know, script that they say in their YouTube video about, you know, in the in the description, hit me up for a consultation, they’ll drop that within like five minutes of the video. And that actually like generates a lead. So YouTube, for me, is the number one focus right now email, email subscriptions and YouTube, because that’s really what gets that that brand more sticky. That’s what gets the conversions. That’s what gets the leads. Instagram is kind of the gateway drug, the short form to the long form. So if we could go on Instagram, if you want Ryan.
Ryan McMillian 17:23
We can one more quick question that. Nicole said, What is the best way to drive traffic to a Facebook business page and gain followers?
Eric Simon 17:31
It’s tough. I mean, starting a Facebook business page from scratch is tough. But I mean, the best way is if you have other platforms that are bigger you drive engagement from those platforms to that platform. So what I would do for like my email subscriptions, or something is on Instagram, I just send a post a screenshot on Instagram stories that shows a little bit of what I’m doing on our email list and then plug a link right there that says, you know, if you want this information, click the link below. So for a Facebook business page, if you have a larger following on Instagram, you should do that in your Instagram stories. And say, by the way for, you know the details of this listing, or for exclusive insights of the market or something I don’t know, you got to give them a reason to bounce from one place to another. But growing a Facebook business pages is not easy.
Ryan McMillian 18:23
Okay, so let’s talk about Instagram then.
Eric Simon 18:26
All right. What do you want to know about it?
Ryan McMillian 18:29
Well, what’s working? Obviously, we know that reels had become a huge thing. But tell us maybe content what’s working on Instagram right now? Because I’m sure uses that the most and probably feeds through that the most like you said, It’s the gateway drug of social media.
Eric Simon 18:44
Yes, I think there’s two types of posts right now that are crushing on Instagram more than anything. It’s carousel slideshow posts. So you know, the swipers. And then it’s the green screen Instagram reels. So the trending audios and everything were great from 2020 to 2022 in terms of lip syncing, using an audio that could really help you grow back then. But the the platform became so…Right when my most brilliant point was coming to my mind, Kristina hurry.
Kristina Kendig 19:22
It was all the way at the bottom sorry, I had to scroll.
Ryan McMillian 19:27
Sales green screen trending audio.
Eric Simon 19:28
Yeah, I was just seemed like the trending audio kind of content fad from 2020 to 2022 seems to be going away Instagram, when they first implemented reels. Were really helping accounts that would just post any sort of real all you have to do is put a trending audio point to some captions and your your video is probably going to pick up a little bit. That is out of fashion now. The market has shifted. People are kind of sick of Realtors doing that sort of content and during you know an economic recession or recession and kind of you know, uncertainy In the real estate market, people want more edutainment. And there was actually a Instagram trend report that mentioned this that Gen Z, millennials specifically, they want edutainment they want education, they want value, as opposed to just entertainment, which I think a lot of realtors kind of just went that route, which I was preaching non stop. So you know, I’m sorry if anybody? Well, no, it was a great way to grow the last couple of years, but now it’s shifted a little bit. So the carousel posts. Best way to do these is you treat them like an Instagram reel. The first slide is your hook. The first slide is what what people you know, you got to get them to stop on that. Then you got value, value value and three or four slides. And then your last slide is a call to action, that call to action could be a question, it could be asking them to go see more on your YouTube channel more on your blog, or to read the caption below that provides a little bit more information. The best thing about the carousel posts is when you’re scrolling through a feed, Instagram will show you the content of the posts that’s doing the best in that, you know, carousel basically. So I’m doing a lot of these on bam. And they’re performing way better, you get way more saves and shares because people actually save it and want to look back later. And anytime you can keep someone on a post for a longer amount of time. That’s a better signal to Instagram than a like a comment, a savor a share. So any sort of retention you could get through an Instagram reel, or a slideshow. That’s why slideshows are doing so well is because you have to actually scroll through a bunch. So I’m doing a lot of themed slideshows on The Broke Agent page, where if it’s the Super Bowl ads, I’ll do a bunch of Super Bowl memes in a row or Valentine’s Day. So keeping it on theme, you don’t want five random things popping up. So slideshows crushing Instagram reels, green screens also crushing. Okay.
Kristina Kendig 21:48
Hey, on that carousel, can you give an example of like, what an average agent would post? Would you do like, coming soon as new listings or like, what would you do in that carousel?
Eric Simon 21:58
Yeah, I mean, I think we could go back to the coming soons in new listings a little bit more. That used to be like the number one faux pas, or the number one problem that agents did was focus on listings. And they almost got so far away from that, that they stopped promoting the real estate business. And now that Instagram is promoting photos, and carousels, again, I think it’s okay to start doing those. But you could do you know, the five should think about it like an Instagram real, you could literally do the five best coffee shops in Brentwood, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. And then maybe the last one is like a discount code, or, you know, a call to action about you’re hosting a buyer seminar or one of these or something like that. So I would think about on like YouTube videos, I would think about them, like Instagram reels where you’re just trying to gain people’s attention, or maybe it’s market statistics. Maybe it’s, you know, here’s the current inventory we have right now, or here are the top five sales in the neighborhood, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay, that’s not bad, right?
Ryan McMillian 22:55
No, I think it’s great. It’s pretty, it’s something pretty simple that you can put together any day of the week.
Eric Simon 23:01
Yeah. And one more thing with the green screens, the green screens, doing local news articles, like the green screens are seriously the best videos right now for engagement, for hooks, and for retention. Because the article that you’re showing, or whatever you’re showing in the green screen is the hook. And you’re basically just explaining what that is. So whether it’s national news articles, or it’s an article from vam, or it’s an article about the housing market, maybe you’re debunking some doom and gloom headline, if you’re doing a local headline, and you’re just like, hey, check out this new development. It’s, it’s appearing, you know, on Manning and Wilkins, this street, and this is why this developments going up. And this is how it’s gonna affect the neighborhood. And if you’re interested in seeing it, you know, click this basically, so you can basically describe local news articles. It’s timely, it’s relevant, and they’re retention heavy. So green screens and slideshows on Instagram. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 23:53
Can I ask the question off mute? So okay. Yeah, yeah, so, um, I’ve kind of like struggle with this over the past two years. I asked Ryan this question the other day. So what would you say like four wheel to the house, like a personal page and a business page? Or should you just merge both and just have one, you know what I mean, because you want to be organic and be genuine. But at the same time, there’s a fine line of like, Hey, do I post too much of my personal or do I just focus on one business page? Specifically?
Eric Simon 24:21
Great question. And I would never ask Ryan that question. I would only focus your questions to me the expert Ryan has no idea what he’s talking about. So I would merge the two accounts into one because the personal content always seems to perform better than the real estate content half the time like you want to be posting your stories as you as your authentic self, like obviously show him you know, while you’re at open houses, inspections, show the background of real estate on your stories, but it’s those videos and those posts about you and Christmas with your family or what you’re eating that actually gets engagement. Move me to Texas Katie de does this on her stories all the time. She’s constantly posting her food. I know that’s like the most cliche thing ever, ever. But she talks about the organic engagement she gets about like, oh, what restaurant is this that looks so good, or, you know, she’s posting her husband, her new baby, like, all that sort of stuff gets engraved in your client’s head. And they actually find a deeper connection with you because they see you personally, as opposed to like a real estate robot pumping out different real estate picks and everything. So I would definitely merge those.
Unknown Speaker 25:28
So with that being said, what about the handle name? Would you change the handle name to something real estate, specific, you know, like real estates, where people can find you as such, or just be can be whatever you want it to be.
Eric Simon 25:40
The first line in your profile is super important. So you could put real estate in that line as you go on your Instagram profile. And then you could say, you know, blah, blah, blah real estate agent. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be in your handle. I certainly wouldn’t have put your brokerage in your handle. Just because I don’t know like people switch brokerages all the time you kind of pigeonhole yourself for doing that like if you know your Keller Williams Chad six, six or something like that, like Ryan’s old handle, then you switch brokerages what’s gonna happen? You knew I used to be a Keller Willia ms?
Were you actually? Nice, classic.
Ryan McMillian 26:27
Now we’re at Fiv, no joke. Nice, classic. Good guests,the Keller Williams to five pipeline. Thank you. That’s a great question to call. And thank you, Eric. Actually, I did tell her the same thing. I told her to merge him and have one.
Eric Simon 26:32
So just because you got that from me.
Ryan McMillian 26:34
So we’re at 11 o’clock. But I wanted to ask, Would you guys rather him talk about the power of email or maybe talk about podcasts? What would you guys rather hear more about? Or I could just farm questions, whatever you guys want. Well, we could do q&a At this point. If you guys just want to go ahead and q&a. What do you guys want to do?
Kristina Kendig 26:54
Let’s q&a. Throw him in there? Because I do have a question. Eric, what about people that Oh, Tess is running in with a question already? Of course she is? She wants the power of email? Of course, she is WhatsApp. She’s also covered with a bunch. Yeah, power of emails, one. But I do have another one. What about people, you see this a lot where they paid somebody to do their social media, those posts that are like, you know, you can get an Etsy that has all those posts. Does Instagram recognize that that’s not organic? Like, is that, Is it worse to post those or not do anything at all? I guess that is my question.
Eric Simon 27:31
there’s Instagram recognizes repeat content. So if everybody’s using the same, say, your brokerage has a Valentine’s Day template and 50 agents post that thing. I don’t know what that does for anybody. Right? Like, I don’t know what, and I just did a video about this, like a couple of months ago, like posting a fourth of July Happy Fourth graphic. People know it’s the fourth, that that post gets no engagement, it doesn’t really do much for you. But anytime you post, you’re still setting up those digital real estate signs in people’s heads. So it could kind of go one way or the other with those. But for like Canva graphics, if you could customize them to your own style and branding and put your branding on it your own text, your own colors your own at, I think that’s completely fine. I mean, we have a Canva template platform that we use, but it’s kind of more like guidelines for agents, or ideas. So if you have a couple of graphics like that, that’s fine. But that should not be your only content strategy. And it doesn’t hurt you if you schedule posts. A lot of people think it does, but I don’t think it does. But Instagram still likes to be used as it’s intended. So anytime you’re uploading something organically in stories, you’ll see if you if you film a video in stories, in stories that’ll perform video better than if you film it on your phone and then upload it to stories. Just like with Instagram reels. If you post a tik tok to reels as opposed to just filming it in reels. It does better. So anytime you could use these apps as intended, it’s preferred, but it’s not going to like hurt you if you do those graphics. I know that was like five different answers where I rebutted myself five different times, but there was something there.
Ryan McMillian 29:13
More questions?
Kristina Kendig 29:14
Do the email real quick because I know we’re over a little bit if you can stay in touch on the email.
Eric Simon 29:19
Yeah, I don’t really know what I was gonna say about this. I just wrote down the power of email.
Basically how to begin with emails are powerful. Yeah, emails are great. Get them now that email subscription or email subscribers, you control, Instagram, we don’t control, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, the algorithms are constantly changing. People are getting their accounts removed on Instagram, there’s copycat accounts, your engagement is up, your engagement is down, you can get your profile removed. There’s it’s way too vulnerable to just be reliant on one platform. You own the email list. The best conversions you get are emails. The best open rates obviously are emails because you can’t get open rates on Instagram, but I would focus a lot more
attention on growing emails and using these platforms to grow email. So on Instagram, maybe that means plugging your link in your stories to your email list, giving them a reason to sign up. Like I said, doing those screenshots. Maybe you have something that’s like a lead page or an ebook, obviously, you’re not gonna do like an ebook on Instagram reels, but maybe it’s a buyer’s guide, or a seller’s guide, or some sort of downloadable information, something of value, you could trade for their email, and then start building that list. Because that email list and that monthly or weekly newsletter that you could send that really gives a more in depth analysis of the market. Or maybe you’re telling like a personal story in that email, that’s gonna give you a level of connection with your clients far more than any social media platform.
Ryan McMillian 30:43
Okay, and so you recommend doing a monthly or a weekly like kind of newsletter or email to all these people?
Eric Simon 30:51
I don’t know. We do one every day, but we’re a media company. So that’s a lot if your realtor send you an email every day that that would probably be annoying as hell.
Ryan McMillian 31:00
Absolutely. I think a weekly it depending on what you’re sending a weekly, and then maybe bi monthly would be good, probably. And obviously providing value of any kind to people.
Eric Simon 31:13
Yeah, providing value. I think that there’s this guy, Shane Bergman in Florida who he had on the overpass podcast, and he has a bonkers open rate. It’s like 60 or 70%. Because his email, he’s not just sending like, Hey, new listing, check it out. It’s literally aspects of his life, he tells like three or four paragraphs and like shows pictures of his family. And then at the bottom, he talks about his listings in the real estate market, but it’s just like a constant check in. And that can be, you know, overbearing to do something like that. But I think any sort of personal touch you could put on your email would be very well received.
Ryan McMillian 31:51
Anybody have any other questions? Anything in the chat? I have one more question. So for someone that’s kind of just starting out in this whole social media world and not really big yet, like, what’s your advice? What’s what’s a piece of advice you give?
Eric Simon 32:10
Consume content, I mean, that is how I get 90% of my content is through consumption and ideas, like I mentioned earlier with the Facebook groups, but actually taking that scroll time not to mindlessly just, you know, flick your thumb around, but be like, Oh, this post style looks cool. Oh, this is a video that I could replicate. And not just, you know, following other real estate agents, but that certainly helps with your creative processes, seeing what other agents are doing. But following other accounts, in your market or following other meme accounts, other funny accounts, other creators in different industries that could kind of spark that content creation, because a lot of times when I’m trying to come up with content for The Broke Agent, I don’t have anything that day, right? I haven’t sold real estate in two years. So I don’t, I used to be able to be at an inspection and open houses show and get a call and have like 15-20, like tweet ideas that I could turn into tweets, memes, videos, and now I’m finding content from my content, or from my comment section, or I’m going on other pages and seeing Oh, consulting humor just posted this tweet, how can I flip it around for my content. So I think when you’re consuming just actively be taking notes, or saving that content, or screenshotting, that content, and then the more you’re out and about doing real estate. That’s what actually like sparks your content creation process is saving stuff in your Notes section. And you know, a question your client asked if all your clients are asking these questions. These are great hooks for a video, right? Like the more people that are asking that question, the more likely people are going to engage with that actual video. So just like actively writing down content ideas, I think is a really good place to start. And then just knowing that this is such a slow grind, like you see people with 10,000 20,000 followers, it’s not usually because they had one real or something that went viral. Like the only reason like broke agent has become something it’s for eight years, I’ve posted every single day, you know, five to 10 Instagram Stories, two to three feed posts a day for eight years. It’s insane. But it’s, you know, that’s that slow grind. It wasn’t like I just posted something I got 10 million views. And now I’m here. I mean, I’m not really anywhere yet. I’m just saying like, it’s taken such a long time to build this up and the social media really is a long game. And it’s those who continue to do it that are gonna like way outlast the people that maybe do it for two weeks or two months. They get excited about it, and then they back off. Those are the people that are going to fall. Got a little motivation there Ryan.
Ryan McMillian 34:38
Yeah, that was good. You kind of brought it home with that. So one more one more close up question. What are some of the mistakes or the no no’s that agent should not do on social media? Let’s talk about that real quick before we wrap.
Eric Simon 34:50
Yes. I think posting the same sort of content every single time is a no no. I’ve seen a lot of these kind of bulk recorded videos that agents have become obsess with or clips. And we fell into this on the banned account a little bit where we were just posting way too many clips. When you see the same style over and over and over again, you’re less likely to engage with that content because you’re not seeing a variety. So you need a variety. You need feed posts, you need carousel posts, you need Instagram reels, you just need different sort of content to keep peppering people in a different way. So they don’t get bored with how they’re consuming your stuff. So I’d say that’s a mistake, not posting consistently. And then just being afraid to evolve with different apps or different options. Like anytime a social media platform rolls out a new feature, you want to hop on that immediately, because they’re going to promote accounts using that feature. And if you don’t learn that, and you’re like, No, I just want to keep doing feed posts, then you’re going to be way behind on reels, and then you’re going to keep getting behind. And it’s just like people who didn’t adopt Snapchat were longer to adapt Instagram stories, people who didn’t adopt tick tock or longer to adopt Instagram real so you just have to get on it and kind of swallow the pain. Yeah, endure the pain, endure the pain. It’s all extremely painful. So endure it.
Ryan McMillian 36:12
Well, I think this was extremely valuable and helpful. Does anybody have any final questions? anything they’d like to ask before we kind of wrap up here?
Eric Simon 36:19
Yeah, I got another five minutes here.
Kristina Kendig 36:21
I do before you go. Can you plug all of the everything that you guys do? Like all of your stuff in there for these agents here? But I do have one question. So when you’re posting because Broke Agent does have funny things on it, like, how do you draw the line between? Oh, my gosh, my clients did this. And I’m posting because they’re probably going to follow me. Or they may be following me. How do I make it so that I’m not offending the people that I’m trying to get to do business with me? Yeah, I’m like, doing things on the lighter side. Like what is? Do you have any guidelines on that? Like he was saying the do’s and don’ts?
Eric Simon 36:58
Yeah, well, I ran into this problem for years, because all my content was basically making fun of clients in those situations. So I would have to wait, when something would come up in a deal, I would have to wait two or three or four months, until that deal was closed and that client, because all my clients followed me. So I would have to wait. I would not be making fun of your clients at all at this point. Like that sort of content is kind of out the window. It’s more edutainment educational type of stuff like you want to be providing value. They don’t want to see people being like, Oh my God, my buyer just showed up with their entire family. Like that’s funny when I post it. But what if your client sees that they’re like, Well, damn, like, my, my dad was in town, of course, he wanted to see the property, this person is clearly talking about me, I don’t want to work with an agent that’s doing this. So avoid making fun of clients completely. So I think that should be the line. You could talk about funny situations and awkward encounters, agent to agent humor is better. Because if you’re doing agent to agent humor, not only are you going to attract other agents for referral partners, but then you’re not actually insulting your clients. So you could get upset like when the other agent, you know, doesn’t call you back just like that classic one. It’s like you’re basically showing your clients that you do call people back and that you are a good communicator, and you’re just making fun of another agents. You’re not offending your clients. Yes. Confirmed, confirmed. Question answered.
Ryan McMillian 38:23
Question answered.
Kristina Kendig 38:24
Exactly how I wanted it.
Ryan McMillian 38:26
Any other any other comments? Anybody have anything to say before we let Eric get off the hot seat?
Eric Simon 38:34
Anyone got any problems with me? I want to fight.
Kristina Kendig 38:38
Oh, I just raise your hand. When can we get this cage match? Oh my gosh. Great job, brother. Great job across the board.
Ryan McMillian 38:48
Sounds like Andy Dan Carter screaming from somewhere.
Kristina Kendig 38:52
How did I not mute him?
Eric Simon 38:55
Andy, you come in to or from a secret meeting? Yeah, always? Yeah. Sure. Sure Am.
Ryan McMillian 39:04
Well, again, Eric, thank you so much for taking the time today. It was an honor and a privilege to have you. Thanks for all the content, keep doing what you’re doing. We all love it. And you definitely make real estate more fun with all the nonsense that you post and all the value that you bring to the industry. So thank you again.
Eric Simon 39:19
Thank you, everyone. Follow at now BAM on Instagram. That is the BAM Instagram channel. Check out our blog nowbam.com Subscribe to our YouTube. You know. So I got may the force be with you all. Yes. Fantastic. Tell Mac I say hello. Honor being here. Great meeting some of you at the Fiv party in Vegas. That was fun.
Ryan McMillian 39:42
Yes. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Eric. Goodbye. Goodbye.
