Ian Grossman bought his actual property license about 10 years in the past, after his first profession as a fifth-grade instructor.
Grossman was fast to include social media into his enterprise, beginning off by posting photographs of listings on Instagram and ultimately evolving to creating tales. He additionally launched a YouTube channel for longer-form, higher-resolution property excursions.
TAKE THE INMAN INTEL SURVEY FOR AUGUST
By the late 20-teens, he had nabbed his first consumer from YouTube.
“When it occurred, I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, that is superb,’” Grossman advised Inman.
The win impressed Grossman, and he leaned into social media much more. Then, as his Austin, Texas, market went right into a growth fueled by the pandemic, his group’s social media following grew much more, and their greatest driver of enterprise grew to become YouTube.
However nothing lasts endlessly. Austin’s pandemic growth noticed a reversal, and greater than half of the leads that Grossman was getting from YouTube dried up.
It was time for him to pivot to maintain up with the market shift. Right here’s how he and his group, the Fenton Grossman Group at Douglas Elliman, responded.
Catching market highs
@realestate_atx Home-owner Tip: Each few months, spray this Storage Blaster or an identical lubricant in your storage springs to maintain them functioning correctly and lengthen the lifetime of the half as properly. You too can spray the wheels and every other a part of the door that’s squeaking or appears to be like prefer it’s in want of some TLC #homebuying #homeownertips ♬ authentic sound – Ian Grossman – Austin Realtor
That first consumer that Grossman attracted by way of YouTube actually drove him to proceed leaning into his social media channels.
“Somebody randomly reached out they usually have been like, ‘Hey, we watch your YouTube channel and we’re shifting to Austin, and we want a Realtor,’” Grossman recalled. “And I used to be like, ‘Holy moly. This can be a actual factor.’ After which I simply doubled down and began posting.”
As Austin’s market was on the rise from about 2020 to 2023, Grossman’s YouTube and Instagram follower counts took off. He in the end realized that the standard of his leads from YouTube was a lot larger than these from Instagram, however felt like Instagram was nonetheless a useful platform for staying top-of-mind and exhibiting his experience available in the market.
Throughout these years, Grossman stated, greater than half of the Fenton Grossman Group’s enterprise got here from YouTube.
The success led to him being featured in native information spots, and he was highlighted for the methods through which he tried to make mild of the then-frenzied Austin market.
Grossman additionally began attempting out a brand new sort of submit on Instagram the place he shared one thing that the typical individual may not learn about being a house owner. In a kind of posts, he explains that each few months, a house owner is meant to lubricate the springs of their storage door, in order that they’re extra sturdy and fewer prone to snapping — a lesson he realized the onerous approach after a kind of springs broke on his personal storage.
“It went loopy viral,” Grossman stated. “It bought like over six million views on it. And out of the blue, I used to be like, ‘Oh, properly, folks like these concepts.’ So I began doing increasingly more of these.”
As we speak, that very same video from 2023 has 7.4 million views on TikTok.
Inside a yr, Grossman stated his follower rely on Instagram went from round 20,000 to 40,000. Life was good — however then the Austin market started to shift.
Shifting with the market downturn
Residence costs spiked as folks flocked to Austin by way of about 2022-2023, however quickly the market was poised for a correction and costs ultimately began falling after demand peaked.
All the things slowed down for Grossman, together with his as soon as profitable YouTube leads.
“With the Austin market altering drastically, we noticed a giant slowdown there,” Grossman stated. “Now [YouTube leads are] a smaller p.c of our enterprise — in all probability about 20 p.c.”
It was time for Grossman to pivot and regulate to the brand new lay of the land. So, he determined to refocus his content material. As a substitute of manufacturing a whole lot of social movies that have been interesting to all forms of owners, like his house owner suggestions movies, he zeroed in on native content material.
“I’m giving these [tips], whether or not you reside in Texas or New York, Europe, a whole lot of the following pointers might be related to you,” Grossman stated. “So I used to be like, it’s probably not serving to my enterprise right here.”
As we speak, Grossman’s social accounts are stacked with content material that begins with hooks like, “Neighborhoods you didn’t know exist in Austin, Texas,” or “Belongings you didn’t know exist in Austin, Texas,” which permits locals — or individuals who quickly hope to be locals in Austin — some hidden perception into the place the place they stay.
However that drop off in Grossman’s social media leads additionally spurred him to refocus on his group’s database, which had at all times been a powerful supply of enterprise earlier than the social media leads began to blow up.
In 2024, the group began working with a coach and developed a advertising and marketing calendar to make sure that it constantly retains in contact with its database.
“It breaks down every month what’s going out, and it’s a mixture of emails and handwritten playing cards and telephone calls, and all of the issues that brokers must be doing that almost all don’t — that, fairly frankly, we weren’t doing constantly earlier than that.
“Doubling down on our sphere and database has been one of the best ways to guard us from leads lowering on YouTube and different social media,” he added.
The group has likewise, by way of their coach’s advice, been attempting to strengthen its alliances with different companies that may carry leads in, together with monetary planners, actual property attorneys and different professions adjoining to the business.
Grossman additionally realized that, though he had been getting extra high-quality leads from YouTube than from his different social media platforms, his YouTube channel was a little bit of a multitude. So he lately determined to close the previous account down and relaunch a brand new, extra targeted channel.
“It was painful,” Grossman admitted. “It was like, man, I’ve labored for therefore a few years to construct this up, however after I first began my channel, I used to be posting the native enterprise spotlights and stuff about actual property. However then I might leap to one thing like, ‘Oh this text got here out about Tesla coming to Austin, I’m going to speak about it.’ And, I wasn’t posting each week … For thus many causes, I felt prefer it was form of stale and I used to be like, alright, I simply want to tear the Band-Assist off and begin from scratch.”
Now he’s targeted on holding a schedule, posting at the very least as soon as every week on YouTube, and sustaining a transparent, constant message.
Being extra intentional in regards to the content material he himself consumes has additionally helped, Grossman stated, and he suggested different brokers to do the identical.
“We will simply get caught up aimlessly scrolling,” Grossman stated. “However one tip I might give brokers is to be just a little bit extra intentional with when they’re scrolling and use it extra as analysis.”
Ian Grossman takeaways
- Begin posts with a gripping hook that may pique the viewer’s curiosity.
- Select about three totally different matters to create movies about, fine-tune them and constantly submit on every of these matters at the very least as soon as per week.
- Consider your totally different posts, and in the event that they carried out properly, work out what labored. In the event that they don’t do properly, transfer on to the following concept.
- Put captions on movies and use trending music.
- Hold the video shifting by slicing out areas in dialogue.
- When posting on YouTube, use high-quality footage as a result of most individuals view YouTube movies on their TV.
- Don’t simply copycat what different brokers are doing on social media — work out what your individual aim is for posting on social and keep true to your self.
- Should you run out of concepts, strive asking ChatGPT for content material concepts.
- Don’t depend on social media alone — proceed to work your sphere and discover methods to make private connections with shoppers.
Electronic mail Lillian Dickerson
