‘Unfiltered’: Social media that pays — and the channels to skip 

Editor's note: The Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered podcast explores the people and forces that shape the real estate industry. Check out our top takeaways and this episode from NextHome CEO James Dwiggins and Keith Robinson, NextHome's chief strategic officer.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the Real Estate Insiders podcast belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.

On this episode of Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered, marketing expert Matt Tompkins breaks down which social media platforms real estate professionals should be using (they might not be what you think), and he shares a simple strategy for producing consistent content: Know what you want your content to achieve, and meet consumers where they are. 

Start here: As the second most-visited website globally, YouTube should be "your No. 1 channel," according to Tompkins, founder and CEO of Two Brothers Creative. And an agent's Google Business Profile? "Equally important, if not more so, than your own website," Tompkins said.

But most business owners don't realize how useful these platforms can be. "It's a big missed opportunity for them."

What not to do: "The biggest mistake people make is, we try to be everything everywhere all at once," Tompkins said. "We think we have to be on every single social platform — we don't even know why."

Posting content without a clear goal in mind and hoping it goes viral won't work, he added. "You have to have some sort of plan."

Consistency is key: To break the ice on content creation, Tompkins recommends tackling an attainable task on one platform. Start by giving a tool like ChatGPT a prompt using "as many specific details as you can" to identify local consumers' top real estate questions.

Then, just "open your phone, get yourself well-lit — where you don't look like you're in a dungeon being held hostage, you don't have a window behind you so you're just a silhouette — keep the camera above eye level," Tompkins urged, and "answer that one question — do it just freeform."

And then keep the momentum going: "The commitment to the process is crucial."

Avoid getting 'punished': Your posts should match the vibe of any given channel. If the content is at odds with users' "consumption patterns" for that platform, it could backfire.

"If you're trying to do educational content, or posting something on Instagram, for example, that is not what people are looking for on Instagram, you'll get punished for it," Tompkins said. "The channels do suppress content based on a lack of engagement or a negative response."

Look beyond Facebook and Instagram: Speaking of Instagram ... despite its popularity, it's not rife with opportunity. The platform is "very oversaturated," Tompkins explained, with 87% of weekly users posting content every week and "less than a 1% engagement rate with businesses when it comes to trying to generate leads."

In contrast, Pinterest is "so overlooked," with only 5% of U.S. agents using it. "It's a 100% pure visual platform, just like Instagram is. The audience is 85% women. And guess what? 91% of women influence or make the homebuying purchasing decision," Tompkins said.

Tompkins recommends posting to Pinterest and LinkedIn — another underused channel — instead of Facebook and Instagram, which can frustrate agents "because they don't see results."

Don't sleep on AI: AI is valuable as a copilot but shouldn't be trusted to fly solo — especially for emotion-driven marketing content.

"You can't just use AI as a tool and say, 'Just do it all for me: Write this blog, post it, do this.' It's not going to perform," Tompkins said. "Use it as a tool; it's foolish not to. But don't let it do everything."