I get asked about social media best practices all the time. What should I post? How often should I post? Where should I be? When it comes to social media, there are tons of different answers out there. In this post, I’m going to be as concrete as possible and give you five tangible things you can implement today to help boost your social media presence.

1. Make it personal.

Post anything that feels you. I recommend posting things that you care about. If you’ve been out fishing and make a great catch, share a picture and tell the story. Show funny pictures of your dog, your kids, things that make you happy and you feel comfortable sharing. You can, of course, share your listings links, but it should never be your entire feed. Think about if you followed someone and they only posted the same exact stuff day after day, how boring that would be?! If people follow you on a social platform its because they want to see more of who you are, not just that you are a land agent. So try to mix it up by showing just a little bit of your personality. And try to mix it up when you share your listings. Instead of just sharing the link include a great picture and something unique about the property. Share it so it makes people want to click on your link and see more. If you feel uncomfortable sharing too much of your personal life, share your professional wins. Received a good review? Share it and thank the customer for being kind. Sold a property? Share how you got it done and how proud you are to work with awesome people.

2. Post quality content.

How often should you post? This all depends on the platform you are posting on. I recommend once a day on Facebook, no more than once a day on Instagram, and up to 10 tweets a day. I know those numbers can seem daunting but they are really more like caps. If you post more than once a day on facebook your latest post can cannibalize your earlier post, making it less than ideal. On Instagram, overwhelming the feed with multiple posts can cause followers to get annoyed and unfollow (especially after Instagram debuted its multiple picture post and stories options), where on Twitter things move so quickly that only tweeting once may mean your tweet is never seen by your audience. At the end of the day, I always recommend QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. One well thought out, meaningful post a week is much better than junk content just to post once a day.

3. Be strategic.

You should post where your audience is. If you are trying to reach buyers (let’s say, for example, 25-60 years old), Facebook is your best bet. A younger buyer may be better reached on Instagram or Twitter. Are you selling land that has a home with gorgeous interior decorating? Pinterest could be a great spot to share those pictures.

4. Schedule your posts.

Feeling overwhelmed by all the posting I just told you to do? Make it easy on yourself and use a scheduling tool. Free tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and even one on Facebook allow you to write your posts ahead of time and share them when it is best for your audience. I recommend setting aside one hour to plan a few posts across platforms for the upcoming month. This way you can make sure you don’t forget a holiday or share a listing and you’ll have content consistently on your pages. However, I don’t want you to rely on only scheduled posts – they can seem too caned sometimes – but it is a useful tool for maintaining a consistent posting schedule.

5. Follow brand standards.

As with anything, if you question yourself on whether to post something or not, do not post. Always follow your brand standards and social media guidelines to make sure your message is on brand.

Stay tuned for future posts where I’ll share more in-depth details about individual platforms and why you should be posting!