Finding new leads can be challenging as a real estate agent, especially in a competitive market.
Traditional methods like cold calling and door-to-door prospecting are time-consuming and often yield little results. It’s easy to feel like you’re hitting a wall and not making progress.
But what if there was a smarter way to find leads? What if you could connect with potential clients more efficiently and effectively?
In this blog post, I’ll share 11 smart ways to find real estate leads on LinkedIn in 2023. From optimizing your profile to leveraging LinkedIn’s advertising tools, we’ll show you how to use this powerful platform to grow your business and find new leads.
So if you’re tired of hitting a wall with traditional lead generation methods, read on to learn how to find real estate leads on LinkedIn in 2023.
Key Takeaways
– LinkedIn is a powerful real estate lead generation platform due to its high engagement rates, ideal demographics, and high conversion ratio.
– This article outlines 11 ways to generate real estate leads on LinkedIn, including using your profile banner as a call to action, optimizing your headline with popular keywords, creating content, utilizing customization options, engaging with influencers and audience content, using LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s advanced search, getting and giving recommendations, running LinkedIn ads, and joining groups.
– These strategies can help real estate agents maximize their profile and time on the platform, ultimately generating more leads and growing their business.
Why You Should Use LinkedIn For Real Estate
Higher Rates of Engagement
As a strictly business-related social media platform, LinkedIn provides some unique advantages for lead generation compared to popular sites like Facebook and Instagram.
While sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for real estate agents can all be used to generate real estate leads successfully, users of these platforms tend to be in a different state of mind than those on LinkedIn. Typically, people go on these platforms when they want to relax, watch entertaining content, and connect with family and friends.
On the other hand, users on LinkedIn are in a more business-oriented state of mind. For this reason, your content and paid ads will be more effective here than on other platforms. People will be more receptive to your lead generation strategies and more likely to reach out to you to ask about your services.
When you advertise or post content on Facebook, Instagram, or another popular social media site, you directly compete with this more lighthearted, entertaining content.
Especially when it comes to content creation, there is a higher likelihood that your content will get drowned out among the photos of peoples’ pets, updates from family and friends, and funny videos. It takes time to create content, so when it gets no engagement, it can feel like you went through all that effort for nothing.
On LinkedIn, there is a much higher chance that content creation as a lead generation strategy will pay off for you due to the site’s lower signal-to-noise ratio.
Demographics
Another reason you should use LinkedIn for real estate is that the platforms’ demographics are ideal for discovering potential clients for your real estate business.
LinkedIn’s total number of users as of early 2021 is 738 million. Of this amount, 63% check their account monthly, and 22% check it weekly. While this is a fraction of Facebook’s 2.7 billion monthly active users, LinkedIn’s B2B-focused audience is ideal for real estate lead generation.
Over 75% of the audience is 30 or older, and half earn over $75,000 annually. This demographic is in the perfect position for home buying or selling and will likely be receptive to you as a real estate agent.
Conversion Ratio
LinkedIn has a high conversion rate, making it perfect for lead generation. The platform has a 2.74% visitor-to-lead conversion rate. While this doesn’t sound like much, it is substantially more than Facebook’s 0.77% conversion rate.
HubSpot found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter, which only had a 0.69% conversion rate.
11 Ways to Generate Leads with LinkedIn For Real Estate
1. Use Your Banner as a Call to Action
An underutilized way to generate LinkedIn leads is to use your profile banner. Many real estate agents leave this as a plain color background or use a similar photo as they would for their Facebook cover photo.
Your profile banner is a valuable space that you could use to draw in leads. You could include text, a call to action, a brief statement highlighting your achievements, or a positive review or testimonial you’ve received.
For example, you could include a call to action question, “Looking to buy or sell in San Antonio?”
Alternatively, depending on your space, you can include brief statements highlighting your real estate career, like, “Top 1% of Agents in San Antonio.”
Above all, your banner should look professional and be high-quality. If you’re uncomfortable using graphic design tools or don’t have any design experience, consider hiring a professional to create your banner for you.
You can find freelance professionals on sites like UpWork and Fiver who can help you create an eye-catching banner at a great cost.
If you want to design your profile banner, use simple graphic design tools like Canva and free stock photo sites like Pixabay and Unsplash.
Ideally, your banner should be the same across all your social media channels and website. Having a cohesive look across all your social media accounts is key to a successful personal branding strategy. So if you already use a banner on your YouTube channel or Facebook business page, you can use the same one on your LinkedIn profile.
2. Include a Title in Your Name
LinkedIn’s first and last name fields on your profile present a valuable opportunity for you to rank above the competition both within the platform itself and on Google.
While most of the site’s users fill in their names like normal, those who wish to rank higher can include a title and their last name.
This helps you rank on LinkedIn and Google because the LinkedIn algorithm looks at these fields when presenting the most relevant results in response to someone’s search query.
Google also picks up on these same fields when displaying relevant search results pages for queries made on its platform.
For this reason, you must optimize the first and last name fields to increase the chances of being discovered by potential buyers.
This means using the last name field to include extensions to your name. These extensions should be relevant keywords that a prospective client might be searching for in your field.
For example, enter your first name in the box as usual, and then in the last name box, say something like “Handy – San Antonio Real Estate Professional” or “Handy – Realtor with eXp Realty.”
Alternatively, you can include any special designations or titles in this field. For example, if you are an official Realtor.
3. Create Content
As mentioned above, content creation is far more effective for LinkedIn lead generation than other social media platforms.
When you post real estate content on Facebook or Instagram, and it doesn’t get much engagement, the platforms’ algorithms will learn that your content is unpopular. This will create a cycle that is difficult to break out of if you ever want to increase the engagement rates on your content.
On the other hand, it’s much easier to get your target audience to notice your content on LinkedIn.
According to LinkedIn, content receives 15 times more impressions than job postings, with nine billion impressions across the site.
This doesn’t just apply to blog posts that you write. Any type of post you make is likely to have higher engagement. Use this to your advantage when posting announcements for events like open houses.
However, don’t use LinkedIn to post advertisements for your latest listings. This type of LinkedIn post can come across as spammy rather than the helpful, informative content your audience on LinkedIn is primarily looking for.
In addition, you can also repost content from other users or post links to the interesting content you find on other sites. But while reposting is good on occasion, you will see the most benefit to posting your original content.
Be sure to post your content consistently. Come up with a schedule that you can stick to regularly. Ideally, you should create at least three pieces of content per week.
4. Optimize Your Headline
Your headline, or LinkedIn bio, is the first thing someone will read on your profile. And if they aren’t impressed or don’t find you relevant to their needs, it could be enough for them to click away from your profile.
For this reason, you should optimize your headline to contain popular keywords that your potential leads might be searching for. This will ensure that you appear in the results pages and your lead finds you relevant to their needs.
For example, many real estate agents will have terms such as “Realtor” or “home sales” in their LinkedIn headlines. While these terms are real estate-related, they aren’t as popularly searched for as “real estate.”
Even though “home sales” might be a more accurate description of what you do, a lead may not know how to work with you unless you have the words “real estate” in your headline. This will clarify to them that you are in the real estate industry and can provide the services they seek.
5. Use a Professional Headshot
Another of the first elements people will notice on your LinkedIn profile is your photo. To gain the most leads, you need to use a professional-quality headshot.
All too often, many real estate agents on LinkedIn will use a more casual photo, like a cropped version of their Facebook profile photo.
While LinkedIn is a social media platform, it is a professional network above all else. For this reason, you should make the effort to make sure your real estate headshot stands out.
This will increase credibility, demonstrate authority and confidence, and boost your brand’s reputation. Consider hiring a professional photographer to take it for you.
6. Utilize Customization Options
LinkedIn provides several customization options that you should take advantage of to create a more optimized profile.
First, you can customize your profile’s URL. This will make you more easily discoverable for people not signed in to LinkedIn who come across your profile on Google or other search engines. In addition, it will also boost the credibility of your brand.
Another customization option is to add a LinkedIn social sharing plug-in to your main real estate agent website. You can also include it in your emails. Promoting your content will drive traffic to your LinkedIn profile and website.
7. Engage With Influencer & Audience Content
Agents should also engage with local influencers and audience content on LinkedIn. By consistently being active on the platform and joining industry discussions, agents can network with important professionals in their field and build brand authority.
Following industry influencers and key members of their target audience and engaging with their posts can also increase their reach and show up on the feeds of potential clients who don’t yet follow them. Agents can also create a quick blog explaining their opinion and drop the link in the comments to increase their reach.
However, it’s important to focus on providing value and not sounding too self-promotional to establish themselves as a brand that provides value.
8. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s Advanced Search
Real estate agents can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s advanced search filters to generate buyer and seller leads. The core filters to focus on are Geography, Company, Title, and Spotlights. Using these filters, agents can narrow their search to specific locations, industries, and job titles.
For example, agents can use the Postal Code filter to connect with their community’s most active LinkedIn members. They can also use the Company filter to get better results than the Industry filter, which can be unreliable. Additionally, the Title filter is a powerful tool that allows Boolean Search to find the most ideal prospects possible.
The Spotlights filter is also important to ensure that agents target active prospects. Agents can use auxiliary filters such as Past Lead Activity, Years of Experience, and First and Last Names for more precise targeting.
Using these filters, real estate agents can make the most of LinkedIn Sales Navigator to generate new leads and build business relationships.
9. Get And Give Recommendations
Another great way to generate real estate leads on LinkedIn is to get and give recommendations. Agents can go to their profile to publish a LinkedIn recommendation, scroll down to the “Recommendations” section, and hit the “+” sign. They can then select whether they want to ask for or give a recommendation.
Alternatively, they can head to the profile of the person they’d like to recommend and click the “More” button to the left of the “Message” button and then hit “Recommend.”
To write the perfect LinkedIn recommendation, agents can follow five simple steps, starting with a knockout line, describing their relationship, sharing a standout trait, adding a touch of personality, and ending with a solid recommendation.
A well-written recommendation can showcase an agent’s expertise and attract potential clients.
10. Run LinkedIn Ads
If you have an advertising budget, you should consider running ads on LinkedIn. It’s widely underutilized for ads. Therefore, your money goes further than on places like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
One paid tactic to reach influencers and decision-makers is to use LinkedIn lead gen forms. To set up a LinkedIn Lead Gen campaign, agents should start by writing down their campaign objective, target audience, and information about the leads they want to obtain. They should also write down their daily/weekly/monthly budget.
The next step is to create the content they want to sponsor and then create a Lead Gen Form template.
Agents should choose their targeting option, define their budget, bid, schedule, and hit publish.
11. Join Groups
Lastly, a great way to use LinkedIn for real estate leads is to join real estate-related groups on the platform. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn has groups for different interests and industries.
Ideally, you should join at least three groups and be active in them. However, you won’t find leads by joining groups with your fellow real estate agents.
Instead, join groups where you think your target audience might be. Specifically, try to find a LinkedIn group with members of your local area or community. Then, try to answer any real estate questions they might have or share some real estate advice.
Participate in discussions regularly, and even start your own. You can also private message users to offer services or answer their questions. Private messaging is highly effective because it has a higher response rate than email. Because of this, you will likely get more connections and potential leads on the platform.
Contacting LinkedIn groups will get your name and profile in front of thousands of potential leads. It will also establish you as an authority in the industry and increase your brand awareness.
Regularly active in groups will also make you appear warm to cold leads. This is because it will get them used to seeing your name. This way, you can easily introduce yourself and your services to them when the time comes.
Final Thoughts on LinkedIn For Real Estate
LinkedIn for real estate should be part of your lead generation strategy. Follow these seven tips to maximize your profile and time on the platform. As a dedicated professional network, you can find many qualified leads on the site who need a real estate agent.
Do you currently use LinkedIn to generate leads for your real estate business? What has your experience been? Let me know in the comments below!
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