Stop Scrolling, Start Posting: Social Media for Real Estate Investors

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 118.

Katie:
Everybody thinks that I need to be on Facebook, YouTube, everywhere. And when you’re everywhere, then it becomes all consuming. So focus in on where your ideal client or your ideal partners that you want to work with are hanging out.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr. And today, apparently, I am your host for the intro. Tony and I recorded an awesome social media episode for this week’s rookie reply with Katie Brinkley. And we learned all things, social media. But as soon as the episode ended, Tony, ran so that he could go eat before our next recording and left me to do the intro, I suppose, alone. So it’s Ashley Kehr takeover day for the intro, but really we have an awesome, awesome episode. Katie talks about why it’s important to have social media, what are the opportunities out there as a real estate investor for creating your social media accounts? So make sure guys listen all the way through. I think there’s a lot of value at the end of the episode too.
And then make sure you guys start your social media account if you haven’t already for real estate investing. And this is not for customers, even if you’re just looking to network or you’re looking to find private money or you are looking for a partner, there’s so many different social media accounts out there. And Katie also breaks down which ones are beneficial compared to what you actually want to do and what you want from social media. And then we do talk a little bit about how to avoid being a big consumer on social media and getting sucked into it and spending hours and hours of day on social media.
So let’s get to the show. Katie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. And Tony and I are super excited to get in into all things, social media. But before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe get into your real estate investing background too?

Katie:
Yeah. So it’s really fun to be on a show where I can talk a little bit of real estate, but then also talk a little bit of social media, because both things are something I’m very passionate about. I never expected to be an entrepreneur, to be a real estate investor. And now I can’t imagine my life being anything else than it is. I went to school and was going to be a sideline reporter for radio. And I landed that dream job right out of college. I was the post-game reporter for the Colorado Rockies and the Denver Broncos here or in Denver. But on the side, I was always doing this MySpace thing. So that doesn’t date me too much, but I was always in the band scene and helping a lot of bands get off of MySpace and connecting them with different radio stations to start getting opportunities for interviews and sharing their music and getting potential tour dates.
And so for me, being a social media, anything didn’t exist. For me, it was just some free concert tickets whenever they would come through town. But I quickly saw the power of social media and how fast relationships can happen. So as I was working as a sideline reporter, I was still doing this social media thing on the side just for fun. I also bought my first condo around that time. I was 20 years old and I went through a CHFA loan. So I was able to do the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority loan for first time home buyers. And I was able to get a condo right here in Denver. And that was my very first property. I had it before I could even have a drink.
So it actually was a great opportunity for me. And looking back, I’m really glad that I did go down the home ownership path so early on, because it opened my eyes to the benefits of owning real estate and owning property. So that’s me in a nutshell when I got my first property. I now have a home and an investment property up in the mountains. I’m doing social media full time. I’m not doing the radio thing anymore, I have a couple podcasts, but that’s as close as I get to the radio side of things. And that’s me in a nutshell.

Ashley:
Katie, that is so awesome, getting your first property when you are 20. My sister got hers at 21 and I thought that was great. So congratulations on getting that early start. We should have had you on one of our regular podcasts just to talk about your Airbnb and talk about investing, but we are here today to talk about social media. So you mentioned you started out with MySpace and I’m assuming that you cover all sorts of social media these days. But why don’t you just talk about how you got started into social media and how that has grown your own business?

Katie:
Yeah. So, like I said, in college, I wanted to be the next sideline reporter. Erin Andrews is the biggest example that I can give, but I wanted to do it on the radio side of things. I was never super confident on video, but I always loved radio and I loved audio. And I went to a smaller school. I played softball in college. And I went to a smaller division II school in Durango, Colorado. And I wouldn’t change it for anything, because it allowed me a lot of opportunities. I was able to work at the college radio station. And one of the jobs at the college radio station when you worked there in addition to doing your shows, was to get bands to send you their music for free, because as a college radio station you can’t really pay royalties or anything.
So I was writing all these letters out and I was like, “This seems like a giant waste of time. There has to be a more efficient way to do this.” And so I was all in on MySpace. For some reason, Fort Lewis was not on the Facebook approved universities list. Again, going way back when Facebook was just for colleges and universities. And I was all in on MySpace. And so I was like, “If I reach out to some of these bands, I can just research different types of music I like. Bands don’t have a record label yet or anything or I could probably get them to send us their music for free.” So that’s what I did.
And the station manager said, “Katie, how are you getting all this music in?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m just connecting with them on MySpace.” And so again, I saw how quickly these relationships can happen using social media, but social media wasn’t the behemoth that it is today. So I was always doing it on the side, started with MySpace. Then Facebook opened up to the world. Started going a little bit more in on Facebook. Learned Twitter when that opened up. Then comes along Instagram. And around this time, that’s when I decided to go into the marketing side of things and I left the radio business.
This thing called Sirius XM had all of us in the radio industry a little nervous about what would happen to our job. So I was like, “All right, I’m going to be on the forefront and I’m just going to go into the marketing.” And so I was on the corporate side of marketing for about five years. And I had the opportunity to really grow the television stations, social media presence. We weren’t really on Twitter, we weren’t on Facebook, we weren’t on Instagram, absolutely. But learning the corporate side of things helped me really learn how you can do ads, how you can do targeting and how fast these relationships can happen.
So I now have had my own business for almost five years now doing social media for a lot of small businesses, realtors, home organizers, pretty much anyone in the home industry contractors, I help with their social media presence and with the strategy that they have for it. So what ads are we going to target? How are we going to re-target the mailing list? And what types of photos are going to work? How are we going to promote the next grand opening? So it’s been a big push of social media that I never even thought would be a job. Back when I was in college, I was, like I said, going to be a radio reporter. And now, I absolutely am living my dream job, helping businesses with their social media.

Ashley:
Tony and I can completely relate to that, just having different ideas of what our jobs are going to be and what we went to school than where we are now too.

Tony:
And Katie, I guess my question is, is MySpace still your preferred social media platform?

Katie:
It’s so funny. I think I was like, “Man, I wonder if I could still log in.” And I did remember my login credentials for MySpace, but I went and deleted everything off of the page. I was like, “Oh, it would’ve been fun to go back in and see what it used to be like.”

Tony:
So not to go too far off the rails, but it’s so funny. This past summer, I tried to log back into my old MySpace as well, but I couldn’t remember what it was. And even there’s this website called the Wayback Machine where you can enter in a URL and try and check in. I tried to check through there, but I couldn’t find it. Probably better that I don’t, because there’s so many dumb and embarrassing things that I put on there. So it’s probably better that it’s deleted from the internet. But so obviously MySpace isn’t today’s preferred platform.
Well, I guess before we even get into the preferred platform today, let me ask you this question, if I’m a real estate investor, I’m not an agent, I’m not a contractor, I’m necessarily looking for customers, but I’m a real estate investor that’s looking for deals or maybe I’m looking for potential money partners, is it still valuable for me to use social media to build my platform or am I wasting my time since I’m not looking for actual customers?

Katie:
I think that there’s no such thing as a waste of time on social media. It depends on which social media platforms you’re on. And then it can be a giant time suck. Or it can be extremely beneficial depending on which social media platform is your platform of choice. There’s a lot of social media channel out there. We talked about MySpace, believe it or not, it is still around. But then there’s Facebook, there’s Instagram, there’s LinkedIn, there’s Twitter, there’s Clubhouse. There’s a lot of different social media platforms out there and they all exist for a reason.
So when you go all in on the platform that makes the most sense for you and your business, it really can help you grow and help you find new deals and new partners. So I think that if you are trying to find potential opportunities on Twitter as a real estate investor, you might be missing the opportunity that you could be getting on LinkedIn, let’s say, or even Clubhouse. I don’t know how familiar your listeners are with Clubhouse, but it is a social audio platform. And that is like LinkedIn on steroids. But it’s a great way again, to have these high level conversations with other people that you could potentially partner with.

Ashley:
Katie, you had mentioned that there’s never really a waste of social media, whether you have customers or you’re seeking a partner, you want to network, there’s always a way to take advantage of it. What about the other side of consuming it? How does someone stay on track that they’re using social media for their benefit and they’re not just consuming memes the whole time or watching reels of people dancing? What are some tips you can give our listeners so that if they do start to build their social media platform that they’re not consuming so much social media that they’re on their phone the whole day?

Katie:
So one of the very first things that I do when I start working with a client is we take a giant step back, because I think again, everybody thinks that I need to be on Facebook, YouTube, everywhere. And when you’re everywhere, then it becomes all consuming. So focus in on where your ideal client or your ideal partners that you want to work with are hanging out. I’m just going to go with Instagram. So let’s say you’re spending time on Instagram. This is where your ideal client and customer hangs out. Should you be posting and hanging out on there all day? No, you can be successful with your social media strategy with as little as one hour a week.
So one of the things that I do is I schedule out my clients or my posts on the first Monday of the week. And I plan what my posts are going to be for the entire week. Now, I think a lot of people struggle and they have a ton of posts they think they need to post multiple times every day. You can have a very strong strategy with as little as three posts a week as long as they are using the right hashtags, the right SEO, the right graphics. As long as everything is set up strategically, you can have a huge impact. Really where the biggest way to grow your network is by engaging in the hashtags that your ideal clients and customers are hanging out in.
So if you want to try and find somebody that is looking for an investor partner, probably hashtag investor partner would be a great one to go and see who is using that hashtags, comment on their posts. See what types of posts they’re putting out and maybe even shoot them a DM. So you can find a lot of ways to be successful on it with as little as one hour week when you are going in with a strategy and blocking it into your day of, “Okay, every Monday at noon, I’m going to sit down and do my social media for the week.”

Tony:
Yeah. You’re breaking down the strategy in a real tactical way, Katie, and I love that. But you brought up one point that you can do it maybe with three posts a week. I’ve heard varying sides of this, arguments within the world of social media marketing. Some people push high quality content, some people focus on a high quantity of content, where do you feel the balance lies? Should I be focused on getting out three pieces a day, even if they’re not the best or maybe just one really good piece a week?

Katie:
I would focus on one really good piece a week, unless you’re Gary Vaynerchuk, who is brilliant, not going to take anything away from him, but he has an entire team. And for the majority of people, they don’t have an entire team. And so that can repurpose one piece of content, eight different ways. And so I am all about having that high quality content there. You show up and give value. You show up with your face, you show up on video. All of these are different ways that take time. And for most of us, social media isn’t our full time job. So there’s other aspects of your business that you need to be focusing in on other than repurposing a blog post 20 different ways for the entire week. So I am all about less is more, show up with just a few really good posts throughout the week that have high quality captions, you’re utilizing the right hashtags and it has a video or graphics that are great for you.

Tony:
Yeah, that is solid advice. And I think what you said is very true that managing social media at a high quantity can definitely turn into a full time job. If you’re trying to post three or four times a day, every single day, that takes a lot of work. You got to spend a lot of time creating the content, you got to spend a lot of time curating the content, getting it scheduled, doing all these different things, writing the caption. So it is very time consuming. And I think that the idea of having to do that much work is sometimes what holds people back from just getting started in the first place. So if the advice can be, hey, you just need one really good piece a week, then I think that opens people’s appetite up a little more to the idea of getting their social media going so that they can become better real estate investors.
One of the things that Ashley and I talk are about all the time, Katie, is there is such a big benefit in having a platform as a real estate investor. Not even necessarily a big platform, but just having some level of platform, some level of following, whether it’s your Facebook, whether it’s your Instagram, whether it’s your LinkedIn, but being able to put something out there and getting a response from people carries so much weight, because when you are looking for a partner on that next deal, there’s a slew of people that already know you, they like you and they trust you, because they built that connection with you through social media. So there’s definitely a lot of benefits there.
So I guess my follow up question to the quantity versus quality pieces. Say that I’m starting from ground zero, I’ve got no following, how do I go about from zero followers to scaling that up to 1,000, 5,000, 10,000? What’s working in today’s social media climate?

Katie:
So Tony, you brought up a couple things that I think are really important to highlight before I answer that question. So you are saying, how are you going to be able to… Well, okay, let’s start with scaling. Let’s answer your question. So if you start with zero and you are trying to figure out, okay, I’ve got nothing here to work with, let’s start with, let’s say LinkedIn. Let’s have that be the platform that you decide to go all in on. Engagement is everything. And that’s where again, with what you’re saying like, okay, if you’re only going to be posting three times a week, if you’re trying to repurpose something 20 different ways, that’s a lot of time.
But really the biggest spot that you can grow your presence is by commenting on other people’s posts. One, it helps them in the algorithm. Comments are higher ranked in the algorithm than just a double tap, than just a like. So if you’re commenting, one, you’ve boosted them so that more people can see their stuff. But two, when you comment, you are showing up in their feed. And let’s say, Tony, great tips, thank you for sharing. I love tip number two, because blah, blah, blah. That’s what I say in my comment to you. And you’re new to me like, “Who’s Katie Brinkley? I’m going to go ahead and tap on her profile.”
All of a sudden, you come over to my page now and you see, “Well, look at this, she’s giving me all sorts of social media content ideas for real estate agents, she’s giving me tips on how to use Clubhouse to grow. I’m going to follow her. Look at all the free advice that she gives me.” So now I’ve just gained you as a follower. And that is one of the best ways to just go out and pay it forward by commenting on other people’s posts with a legit comment, none of these three hearts or three fire emoji things. Leaving somebody a thoughtful comment is going to help you grow your social media presence tremendously. And it’s also going to help you get in front of your ideal client, your ideal customers more. I can’t stress enough that this is more, almost as important if not more important than posting when you are commenting on other people’s posts.

Ashley:
I am loving this episode, because I only really pay attention to Instagram and that’s it. So I’m loving this episode so far. Let’s talk about call to action. And you brought that up as to linking to somebody else’s social media and then the person checks you out, follows you, especially I’ve seen on a lot of… What’s it called? The direct or the marketing company, the MLMs. What is that called?

Katie:
Yeah, MLS.

Tony:
The multi-level marketing.

Ashley:
Yeah, the multi-level marketers. I see a lot of them post that, oh, you have to have a call to action in your post to engage people. Is that true on any platform or all levels? And what’s your take on that?

Katie:
Always, always, always have a call to action. You always want to tell people what the next step is that you want them to take, whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s LinkedIn, whether it’s Facebook or Facebook ad, tell people what you want them to do next. So if you’re crafting a post, there’s three parts of a post caption. There’s the hook, ask them a question, what are the three biggest struggles you have with finding a new property? And that’s, okay, well, what else is she going to say? Because then you’ve already prepped them for what’s going to be in the next part of your caption, the meat of the caption. So you have the hook, then you have the meat, what’s in it for them, what are you teaching them, what value are you giving them?
And then at the very end, you’re always going to have your CTA. So what was your biggest struggle with your first investment property? Tell me in the comments below. Anything like that. Or have you ever struggled with this before? Drop a hand raising emoji. People are going to then take that action. And again, if you tell them to leave you a comment, typically they will comment. If you want them to go to your bio to listen to your latest podcast episode, you are absolutely going to want to tell them what the next step is that you want them to take.

Ashley:
Do you feel that a question that’s asking them to tell a story or something about themselves is better than asking something in the future or asking them to go and listen to your podcast? Just because people tend to like to talk about themselves and do you see a trend or correlation at all if you ask a question that’s directly about them, where it’s easy for them to answer instead of like what do you want to do in five years, tell me your goal, compared to, hey, do you have a tenet horror story that you can share with me? Is there a correlation there at all or?

Katie:
No, I think that both of those are great. Now, with the tenet horror story, well, just say, that’s what you’re going for, because you want to do an entire podcast episode all about different horror stories from your Instagram followers. I would craft the CTA to be, have you ever had a tenet situation go bad? Drop a hand raising emoji below. From there, all those people that drop the hand raising emoji, you can respond to and say, “Oh man, I’m going to shoot you a DM. I would love to hear this story.” Now, you can show up into their DMs and start a conversation with them, because that’s where the magic happens.
Everything happens in the DM. And I can’t tell you enough, again, whether it’s LinkedIn, it’s Instagram, it’s Facebook, that’s where you’re going to make your sales and that is where you’re going to grow your network. But you can’t just show up spamming people in their DMS when you’ve already started the conversation from a post of, “Hey, have you ever had a bad tenet, raise a hand below,” and then you pop in their DMs and be like, “Oh man, I saw that you had a bad tenet story, I’d love to hear your bad tenant situation, I’d love to hear your story.” And now you guys can start talking.

Ashley:
That’s awesome. Okay. So that made me think of you responding to DMs, you’re creating posts, you’re responding to comments. There’s five different social media platforms or whatever. What are some things for social media that are very simple for someone to outsource? So if your social media is growing, where do you take the next step to take some of that stuff off of your plate? Is there software people can use? Do you hire a VA? What are the first steps if you want to outsource some of your social media management?

Katie:
Yeah. So if you want to still have a hand in your social media, one of the best tools that I can recommend, and I don’t get any commissions for these from these people, I’ve asked to be an affiliate from that for them and they don’t have an affiliate program. So I’m getting nothing from this company by recommending them, but they’re called Loomly, L-O-O-M-L-Y.

Ashley:
I just looked them up today. It’s so funny that, that was the one I saved. Okay, now I’m even more interested.

Katie:
They’re my favorite. Well, the thing that I like about them is if you… So if you have a lot of clients, like I do, and you’re managing three different social media platforms for each client, it makes it very easy to keep it all in one spot. But if it’s just for you and just for your business, and you do want to go out and have a presence on TikTok and YouTube and Snapchat and Google My Business, all the different social media platforms out there, you can, and you can schedule everything and you can see exactly how it will look on each platform. You can change out the copy for each platform, you can change out the creative for each platform. It’ll give you hashtag suggestions. So it’s really a great tool for you to manage all of your different social media accounts in one spot.
That is one of the biggest things that I see a lot of mistakes making from clients is that when they’re creating content for all these different social media platforms, they’re just copying and pasting onto each platform. But really you do need to have the right sized graphic. The graphic sizes on LinkedIn are different than they are on Instagram. Hashtags, they’re utilized differently on Instagram than they are on Facebook and they’re on Twitter. So when you have a scheduler like Loomly, you can optimize your content for each of these different social media platforms.
So getting a scheduler is a huge must have, I think when you’re just getting started for your social media strategy as you’re ready to really scale it. And two, having somebody on your team be social on the platform for you. So answering comments that people leave a on your posts, reaching out in the DMs, commenting on your ideal clients and customers posts, having someone that’s all that they do, they don’t need to even create the posts, they just need to be social on the platform as your business, and that will help you tremendously.

Tony:
Katie, can we talk a little bit more about the outsourcing of the engagements piece? Ashley and I have talked about this behind closed doors about how we would love to be more interactive with a lot of the folks that follow us on various platforms, but the pure volume of messages and comments that come in, it’s difficult to keep up with. So a couple questions on outsourcing the engagement piece, because I understand the benefit of doing so. But I guess the first part of the question is A, how do you educate someone to be able to, I guess, respond to questions that are somewhat technical at times about being a real estate investor? How do you train them up to give the proper responses? And then B, is it… Maybe not moral or ethical is the right word, but are we pulling a fast one on our followers by having someone who’s not us respond and be that person that’s engaging with them?

Katie:
No. I think that one of the first things that you should do is when you are outsourcing this, you should work with a reputable company. So one of the things that, like when I am onboarding new clients, it’s not just me, I have a team of people. And you and I sit down during your onboarding strategy call, we talk about all these things. What’s your tone? Are there certain words that you say all the time? So one of my clients is a home organizer and she says right, all the time, which is fine. That’s just part of the way she talks. But I have to make sure that when we are commenting and engaging, that comes out. So we say write a lot in the comments. It’s one of those ways that when people do pick up the phone and have that first conversation with her, they already feel like they’ve been talking to her this whole time.
So make sure that when you are bringing someone on, that you sit down and have that onboarding call. You talk about all these things, you talk about some of the most common questions that you get asked. But really they shouldn’t be answering very technical questions in the DMs. That’s where if someone starts reaching out and has more questions or wants to have a higher level conversation, they absolutely need to get on the phone with you or someone on your sales team, because this is a hot lead. And there’s a lot that can happen in the DMs, but that’s just warming them up. The second that somebody wants to learn more. You need to get on the phone with them.

Tony:
Got it. So I guess as a follow up question to that, we’re talking about the scale, we’re talking about leveraging people. But in terms of the actual platform is going to help us get the most growth right now as a real estate investor, which platform are you, I guess, most keen on at the moment? If I’m starting from zero, I want to grow quickly, what is the best platform?

Katie:
Okay. So one of the biggest things, and I get it, it’s hard, there’s so much social proof out there. You have to have somewhat of a following on social media, just like you need to have a website these days. But there’s a lot wrapped up in follower account that doesn’t necessarily convert to dollars. And so you have to think about where are the majority of your conversations happening? And I think that for organic growth right now, one of the best spots or two best platforms for organic growth right now are LinkedIn and Instagram. Facebook has become a very big pay to play unless you have time to be spending in Facebook groups.
So I think that LinkedIn and Instagram are great spot to start to have those organic growth. I know I mentioned it earlier, but Clubhouse is a social audio platform. And it’s like a live podcast. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. But it’s great because you can go and have conversations with people, ask them questions, hear about their struggles and do business at lightning speed. It really is like LinkedIn on steroids, because as I said before, in the DMs, you’re just trying to get someone to pick up the phone and schedule a call with you. Well, what if you could do that by stepping onto the stage in Clubhouse and all of a sudden, all you have to say is, “I’m looking for XYZ,” and all of a sudden three people that have booked a call with you just like that? And so Clubhouse is a great way to really gain a lot of traction in the DMs and closing. But if you’re looking for followers and looking for the organic growth, I think LinkedIn and Instagram are the best routes to go.

Tony:
So we hear a lot about TikTok being a burgeoning force in the world of social media as well. What’s your stance for someone in the world of real estate investing on whether or not TikTok is worth, I guess, the investment of time, because we know that Instagram and TikTok are in this death battle right now, where if you post something on Instagram that’s got the TikTok watermark, it gets really pushed down the algorithm and all these other things. So someone may not have the time to be able to go after both.
But from what I’ve heard from other folks is that TikTok today, it’s a little bit easier to get picked up in their algorithm than it is for Instagram. Well, Instagram’s algorithm is very mature, it’s really catered to you. And what I see when I log into Instagram is very different than what Ashley sees or what Katie sees, but on TikTok, we could potentially log in and see a lot of the same content. So where does TikTok fit into your game plan, Katie? And do you feel it’s valuable for someone that’s starting from scratch?

Katie:
My first question is, are you comfortable with video, because not everyone is.

Ashley:
That’s a good question.

Katie:
I’m just going to go back to the organizer again. She’s very comfortable on video, but what she does is she shows before and afters and time lapse of the in between. So that works for TikTok. And that also works for Instagram reels. But if you don’t have a ton of video content, if you’re not comfortable pointing, dancing, doing fun little dances and stuff, or if you have the before and after capabilities, what are you going to share? And there, you have to be comfortable showing up on video if you want to have TikTok as a part of your strategy. Or somebody on your team who’s going to be the face of your business that’s comfortable on video to show up and speak to the knowledge that you guys have and the transformations that you guys can give.
TikTok is 100% entertainment. And it’s 15 to 30 seconds worth of entertainment and little bite sized nuggets. But that’s where you have to have a video strategy if you want to be present on TikTok. And you also have to think about too, it still is growing, but the primary age demographic is 18 to 26 year olds. And I don’t know how many people are your ideal client and customer that are 18 to 26 years old.

Tony:
I think that’s always been my struggle with TikTok as well is that when it first came out, it was a bunch of kids dancing. But what I’ve seen recently, and my wife runs our TikTok account, is that we’ve seen pretty explosive growth, not explosive, but we’ve seen pretty quick growth over the past couple of weeks from TikTok. And it’s starting to feed into our other channels as well. I don’t know. I think I’m in 13,000 followers on Instagram and I’ve had my Instagram for years. We just started our TikTok account and we’re already at 11,000 there. We’re four or five months in or something like that.
But I will say that the quality of follower that we have on TikTok seems to not be as high as what we get on Instagram. And I don’t mean the quality of the person, I’m not saying that these aren’t good people. But I’m saying in terms of their knowledge about real estate investing, it does seem to be a noticeably step lower than what we get from our interactions, our engagement on Instagram or on YouTube. So it seems like the reach is there, but the quality of the audience isn’t quite as on par with the other platforms.

Ashley:
And not even their knowledge of real estate, just their interest in real estate you mean.

Tony:
Exactly.

Ashley:
Yeah.

Tony:
Exactly.

Katie:
And that’s where it goes back to the whole, the vanity metric of follower accounts. And you want to make sure that you have an engaged following that wants to engage with you, they want to comment on all your posts, they want to refer you to their friends and their family, they’re familiar with your content. So, Tony, I know that one thing too, if you are spending the time on TikTok, one tool that I can highly recommend is called InShot. And it’s a third party tool. So that way you can create your videos and then publish them natively on both TikTok and on Instagram.
So that way you’re not having to worry about watermarks and stuff, that way you can still be posting that content on both platforms. And hopefully, you can 0 do some AB testing like, okay, well, all of these funny videos do better on TikTok where on Instagram, these informational ones are really just knocking it out of the park. And why recreate or have a harder time with the algorithm with watermarks and stuff if you can just create it off of the app?

Tony:
Your point about the different types of content working on different platforms is super true. Yeah. A lot of the lighter hearted, less technical information tends to do well on TikTok. And then the hardcore me breaking something down and detail tends to do well on Instagram. So definitely, some different demographics.

Katie:
Well, and I was going to say, you have to think too. If you’re creating those reels on Instagram, they’re familiar with seeing your other content that you’ve pushed out too. So those carousel posts, just the pictures, the graphics. So they’re used to learning from you. So that’s probably why the higher level content is doing better over on Instagram, where on TikTok, people are still getting familiar with you. Yeah, you have 11,000 followers, but they’re still getting used to what it is that you teach and offer.

Tony:
Yeah. So along the same line of thinking, Katie, in terms of the different content and how it works, say that I’m new, say that I’m a brand new real estate investor and I don’t maybe have a bunch of technical knowledge to share with people, how do I decide what content I should be creating that still provides value to people if I can’t be this encyclopedia of knowledge?

Katie:
So I think that one of the biggest things that will help you grow when you’re just getting started is you. What is your story? What is your journey? And why did you decide to get into this? Tell us a little bit about the struggles that you’ve had, tell us about some of the wins that you’ve had, tell us your client’s stories that you’ve worked with and how you’ve been able to transform their lives. So if you don’t have a ton of knowledge to share at the beginning, one of the biggest things that I can recommend is you, because that’s what people want to learn more about. Social media is person to person. We all want to know, like and trust who we’re doing business with. So showing up as you, telling your story and letting your audience get to know you is everything.

Ashley:
That right there, I think, is gold for everyone listening is be personable, don’t just spew out facts about real estate investing, is get the people to know you, use your stories, especially on Instagram to show a little bit of your own life and show that you’re a real person so people can connect with you. When I first started my Instagram account, I talked about my husband and I using real estate to pay off debt. And I showed real numbers as to what our debt looked like and how we paid it off and everything. So I think not even showing people what you are doing, but showing them how you did it too can be really, really valuable and the quality of content that you’re sharing too.
So, Katie, thank you so much for joining us today and coming on the podcast and talking social media. I think it’s going to be really beneficial for people who already have their social media accounts for real estate investing, but also for people who are looking to start one. I think there’s so many opportunities that can come from having a social media account, even if you don’t have customers, like we touched on in the beginning, private money lenders or partners on a deal or Tony and I probably would not be on this podcast right now if we didn’t have our social media. We didn’t have huge followings when we came on, but we still were putting out, hopefully, quality content.
And we were reached out to by BiggerPockets where if we didn’t have that social media following or social media at all, nobody would’ve known anything about us to even ask us to interview, to be on the podcast. So definitely a lot of opportunity out there having a social media account and just networking with different people. So Katie, can you tell everyone where they can get in touch with you and find out some more information about you?

Katie:
Yeah. So I’m on social media. So I’m on LinkedIn. You can find me at Katie Brinkley on LinkedIn. On Instagram, I am Katie Brinkley. And then I have a couple podcast too. So if you want some more marketing tips, it’s Rocky Mountain Marketing. And then for all the NFL fans out there, I have an NFL podcast where I talk NFL football for the full season. And that’s Across The Pond NFL Podcast.

Ashley:
I’m going to need you to help me with my NFL fantasy league this year. Yesterday I had a 1% chance of winning this week.

Katie:
Oh, well-

Ashley:
So that would be great.

Katie:
As you say, there were some injuries and a lot of upsets. So I think after week one, we all should have a little bit better of a picture.

Ashley:
Yeah.

Tony:
Well, Katie, before we wrap up, I want to give a quick shout out to this week’s Rookie rockstar. So we do this every week on the podcast. We give a shout to one of the folks in our Rookie audience. And today’s Rookie rockstar is Eric D. And Eric D is part of our Facebook group, the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group on Facebook, but they closed on their second deal earlier this month. Eric says that he put in probably about 100 hours of sweat equity, making this deal presentable. And then just placed their first tenant for that property, which is their second tenant ever on the day that he posted that.
But anyway, it was a condo that they bought off the MLS for about 87 grand. It was in really bad shape, but it came vacant. They put down 25%, spent about another 7K getting the property ready for the next tenant. And it’ll rent for $1,400 per month. And Eric will make $380 per month in pure cash flow. So congrats, Eric, sounds like a great deal.

Ashley:
That’s awesome, Eric. Thank you for sharing with us. If anybody isn’t, make you join our BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie Facebook group, but also sign up to be a member of the BiggerPockets forums on biggerpockets.com because we are going to start highlighting rookie investors from the forums too. And you can share your deals with us and connect with a ton of other investors onto the forums. So if you’re not signed up for a free BiggerPockets account, make sure you guys go and do that now.
Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us. Everybody, I’m Ashley @wealthfromrentals and he’s Tony @tonyjrobinson on Instagram. And maybe next week after listening to this episode, we’ll have five other social media platforms to mention. Thank you, guys. And we’ll be back on Wednesday with another guest.