How Estate Agents Can Use Content to Become Their Community’s Cheerleaders

In March 2020, the Estate Agent Content Club became the pioneer of community-focused content for estate and letting agents in the UK.

We dubbed it Community Cheerleading Content or the 3C Method.

We began writing content for our members called Feelgood Fridays that had zero to do with property.

Our Feelgood Friday pieces were round-ups of positive things happening in the UK/world and/or articles on wellbeing and supporting each other, and were hugely popular in the lockdowns.

So much so that we ran them for 12 months. Then, we replaced them with our regular Friday Community Interest articles for members, covering a broad range of topics, often linked to newsworthy events.

These include events like National Walk to School week, Cyber Safety campaigns and plenty more that spring up on our awareness days calendar (Tip: It’s worth getting one of these, by the way).

Our top-performing blogs

Over the seven years we’ve been writing blogs for estate agents, our top five shared, commented on and most reacted to pieces are:

• How to keep your pets calm during fireworks season (late October)
• Ways to soothe children’s back-to-school nerves (early September)
• A thank you to the superheroes of the NHS
• How to shop locally (and ethically) this Christmas
• Ways you can be a good neighbour (linked to National Good Neighbour day)

The articles above have nothing to do with property and selling or letting homes.

But they do have everything to do with capturing the most valuable commodity an estate agency can have in this digital age of marketing – they get people’s attention.

And they are dusted down, refreshed and reshared each year – the content gift that keeps on giving.

They also position agents as caring more about helping people than just selling and renting properties.

It’s the focus on community care rather than market share that paradoxically helps you win more instructions that grow your agency’s piece of the local property market pie.

Don’t get me wrong. The articles and videos we create based on preparing your home for a viewing, finding and keeping dream tenants etc., have an important place.

They are a core part of the weekly content we provide for our members.

In addition to this, community-based content isn’t just great marketing that raises your agency’s profile. When done correctly, it boosts your positive local PR efforts by showing your community you care.

It is a long-term strategy, so this approach isn’t for you if you’re looking for fast love.

But when I think of the one thing that all elite agents I work with or have done over the years have in common, it’s this. They get involved with the communities they serve.

Five Fantastic Ideas

If you’re interested in becoming a Community Cheerleader, consider these five content-generating tips.

1. Set up a Google News alert (dead simple to do, Google it). Each day you’ll be sent news on what’s happening locally, and you can then share it with your community. It works a treat when done consistently.
2. Organise a community event – it doesn’t have to be a mini-Glastonbury. Start simple with a litter pick, Easter egg hunt or a summer ‘the ice creams are on us’ day. An Aussie agent went one further and booked a cinema for the day for local kids.
3. Create a community calendar of local events, put it on your website, and promote it across your social media platforms.
4. Run competitions to encourage local talent and interaction with your agency.

This could be for photographers to send in photos of the local area (then offer to display the winning shots in your office for a period). Or it could be for kids to design a home of the future. Or go the whole hog and organise an event celebrating local heroes – perhaps run a competition to find your area’s neighbour of the year.

• Give attention to good local businesses. And that’s the key here – never recommend a local company or service you haven’t used. Your reputation is at stake, so check them out before you give any shout-outs.

These five ideas generate plenty of great content and PR opportunities and give your agency a point of difference. They get local attention and engagement. They win hearts and minds and eventually instructions.

We have members that do some or all the above, and guess what?

Those guys are usually the leading agents in their town. The ones that local people know, like and trust.

I wonder why?

Thanks for reading.

Jerry