I’ve carried out a little research on a dozen Property Portals to see what they are posting on their LinkedIn pages. My objective was to see if any of them are crushing it (doing a great job) ….and maybe I’ll learn something along the way.
The result? They aren’t. It’s underwhelming and a bit half-arsed to be honest, with a few exceptions. It seems most post to their page either as part of a might-as-well viewpoint or a when-we-remember-to basis.
Does this mean they are missing a trick, or are LinkedIn Company pages not worth the hassle as far as posting content goes if you’re in real estate?
So why is this? Is it the same for agents as portals?
My opinion: When talking about posts on LinkedIn Company pages, it’s the same issue for both, it rarely feels like it’s worth it.
I suspect this is mainly because it’s:
(a) super difficult to get any traction on Company Pages, Linkedin is a person-to-person network. When I post to my profile I see x10 engagement than on my own page. And I’m super-clear as to who my target market it is being B2B.
(b) they are unclear whom they are targeting, ie if B2C (buyers) or B2B (agents & collaborators). Buyers are tricky to target, especially for a portal where they don’t engage with the leads themselves. Agents is easier for sure as at least you know who they are. If you’re an agency, the way to hit buyers is to connect via LinkedIn with your qualified leads so you gradually build a sphere of influence, but I don’t know of anyone who does that (yet). Organically agents (and portals) content on LinkedIn will receive some degree of engagement from B2B, ie agents, collaborators and members of your own staff.
(c) as opposed to Facebook & Instagram sponsoring content on LinkedIn is much more expensive, so although Facebook pages mostly get zero engagement organically in real estate, a small boost will mean you can reach your target market easily and cheaply.
(d) there is much more traction if the team of the portal connects via the personal profile with their customers, and then shares the company content via their own profiles, and shares this in turn to their own page. Will this get traction on their page, nope. But at least the target market will see the content and are more likely to engage with it, only this will be on the personal profiles not the page.
(e) wrong objective, change from lead gen to a demand gen model. Sort of follows on from (d) above. If the focus is shifted to getting the target audience to consume the content rather (assuming it’s good) than to generate send traffic back to your website or gating any content (hiding an ebook behind a form) which is sooo 2015…
Is there hope or a role for company pages in real estate? The jury is out as far as I’m concerned.
Much like Twitter, I’m yet to see any companies crushing it, and it ends up being a question of if “I have endless resource: might as well” but if “I have limited resources and to boot I don’t use LinekdIn: don’t bother.”
I hate to admit it, but in my case (B2B agents) I post to my page as a bit of a bookmark for content I might want to refer back to, especially where I have nothing to comment on and it’s just a 3rd party share of someone else’s post.
Anyway, here is what I found during my research this morning…
Disclaimer: The following stats are approximate as of today’s date and represent my views & interpretation of their activities.
CATEGORY: International Spanish Property Portals
A Place in the Sun
- 2,354 followers
- Employees: 29
- Posts aimed at: mixed B2B, B2C
- Content: Mixed
- Posting Frequency: infrequent
- Language: English
- Last post: 1 month ago
- Crushing it? Nope ❌
ThinkSpain
- 309 followers
- Employees: 11
- No posts ❌
Kyero
- 1,492 followers
- Employees: 28
- Post aimed at: previously buyers, lately more toward agents
- Content: Mixed, inward-looking toward own product
- Posting Frequency: 1 week
- Language: English
- Last post: 6 days
- Crushing it? Nope, although when they do post it’s interesting ❌
MiMove
- 1,617 followers
- Employees: 11
- Post aimed at: Mixed, mostly agents
- Content: Mixed, very inward-looking toward own product, 3rd party shares
- Posting Frequency: Varies x2-5 a month
- Language: English
- Last post: 1 week
- Crushing it? Nope, but the CEO is very active on LinkedIn ❌
CATEGORY: Spanish Property Portals
Idealista (biggest)
- 74,837 followers
- Employees: 624
- Post aimed at: Mixed, unclear
- Content: Mixed, very inward looking toward own product
- Posting Frequency: Infrequent
- Language: Spanish
- Last post: 6 days
- Crushing it? Nope but not awful ❌
Fotocasa
- 2,478 followers
- Employees: 27
- Post aimed at: Agents mostly
- Content: Blog posts, some videos
- Posting Frequency: 4 times a week
- Language: Spanish
- Last post: 6 days
- Crushing it? Meh! ❌
CATEGORY: UK Property Portals
Rightmove
- 57,805 followers
- Employees: 629
- Post aimed at: 100% agents, B2B
- Content: Webinars, videos, stats
- Posting Frequency: 2-4 times a week
- Language: English
- Last post: 1 hour ago
- Crushing it? Nope, but at least a clearly defined audience ❌
Zoopla
- 9,831 followers
- Employees: 507
- posts aimed at: mixed
- Content: More fun and upbeat . videos, pics, partnership announcements, lots of posts linking to 3rd parties
- Posting Frequency: infrequent
- Language: English
- Last post: 2 weeks ago
- Crushing it? Not bad content, but too infrequent to mean anything, so nope. ❌
Boomin (new)
- 4,807 followers
- Employees: 140
- posts aimed at: agents
- Content: static images of viewings booked, valuations (interesting), no links
- Posting Frequency: 8-0 a DAY!
- Language: English
- Last post: 2 weeks ago
- Crushing it? Not sure yet, if the objective is purely a sales vehicle for agents to want to advertise, could be interesting approach. ❓
CATEGORY: US Portals
Zillow
- 145,154 followers
- Employees: 7,156
- Post aimed at: Mixed, agents mostly
- Content: Blog posts, videos, own products, some 3rd party shares
- Posting Frequency: daily
- Language: English
- Last post: 15 hours
- Crushing it? Nope but OK. ❓
CATEGORY: Luxury Portals
James Edition
- 1,066 followers
- Employees: 24
- Post aimed at: Agents mostly
- Content: Blog posts, some 3rd party shares
- Posting Frequency: 1-3 times a month
- Language: English
- Last post: 1 month
- Crushing it? Nope. ❌
Luxury Estate
- 419 followers
- Employees: 14
- No posts ❌
FINAL THOUGHTS: If you disagree with the above, or know OF any portals doig a great job posting content to their LinkedIn Pages please share in the comments, I desperately want to be wrong about this and see the light, it’s just all a bit dim at the moment and everything I see leaves me feeling a bit “meh”
