Are you ready to shun conventional marketing methods like door knocking in favour of trendy glow ups and DIY clips on TikTok? In this post, we’ll show you how to promote real estate on TikTok. We’ll also show you how some successful Realtors use the app and what they are posting on the platform.

TikTok real estate hashtags have received millions of views. As of December 2021, the hashtag #homesforsale has received over 24.4 million views and the hashtag #luxuryrealestate got over 566 million views. It is no wonder many Realtors are seeing success with TikTok.

Do Realtors use TikTok?

TikTok was the fastest growing app in 2020, spurred by COVID-19 lockdowns and the fact that people needed a fun, convenient way to connect with their peers. TikTok currently has over 1 billion active users. One argument against using TikTok for real estate marketing is that the platform is made up of 60 per cent Gen Z users. However, this isn’t entirely a negative thing as it encourages marketers to think creatively on the platform, allowing them to showcase the fun, personal sides of their brand. Over time, experts predict there will be a fairer distribution of users across age groups as Gen Zs grow up and as the app ages.

Los Angeles real estate agent Dylan Brush started sharing luxury properties on TikTok in January 2020. Over time, one of his posts became viral. Showing a $40-million bathroom brought him 1.3 million views and raised his number of followers to 12.5k.

“I can get my properties across more eyes and more people by posting it on TikTok and going viral than I can with traditional marketing,” Brush says.

The reason why TikTok works so well as a real estate social media marketing tool is because it shows users what they want to see. Every user’s “For You” page (home page feed) consists of a mix of videos similar to what they have watched in the past. Like YouTube, the length of time a user spends watching a certain video and the terms a user types into the search bar will be used to create their “For You” page. So people who are interested in real estate will see real estate content.

Tat Londono

Montreal investor and real estate coach Tat Londono has 2.4 million followers on TikTok. Odds are you’ve seen one or two of her real estate investing videos, which sometimes get controversial. She focuses on educating would-be real estate investors through her page.

But it’s not just real estate investing with her. She covers real estate buying and selling, real estate agent advice and luxury fashion.

Instead of conventional tips and tricks videos, Londono has amassed lots of likes and followers by showing case studies and real-life examples of how she invests in real estate. For example, this video, which has been viewed 2.2 million times, shows how she plans to build generational wealth using the house hacking real estate strategy.

Takeaways:

1. Having short captions helps to keep people’s attention on the video.

2. Pick matching songs for your video. Note how she uses the right songs to match the “badass mom” vibe she wanted to convey in the video.

3. Include relevant, trending hashtags but don’t overdo it.

Madison Ray Sutton

While still a fairly fledgling agent in New York City in the wake of the pandemic, Madison joined TikTok like many other people – out of curiosity. She had “no expectations whatsoever” from her TikTok real estate account, which she branded TheNYCagent. But things changed when she started putting up apartment tours on the app. She received more than 200 requests for one particular property.

Now she has grown her follower base on TikTok to over 100,000 and amassed 1.3 million likes on her videos. Her videos include property listing descriptions, safety tips, dating advice, funny videos and fun facts. Her videos are primarily about New York City. This might mean she gets fewer views, but she gets more inquiries.

Takeaways:

1. If you want to generate high-quality leads, stick to a niche. For example, what do you want to be known for? Condos? It could also be based on your service area. Madison uses lots of NYC-focused hashtags to increase her views.

2. Madison’s videos often borrow concepts from the dating world and apply them to her real estate client parody clips. These make her videos more relatable and engaging.

Victor Chan

Victor Chan is a real estate agent and investor with Re/Max Realtron in Markham, Ont. who has amassed a 100,000 follower base on TikTok. His videos have generated close to 179,000 likes on the platform. Yet, there is no big creative slant. Rather, he concentrates on educating real estate buyers and sellers about real estate processes and the current market. He also occasionally puts out some “when my client says-type” droll videos. The goal of his videos is to simplify real estate for the average Millennial or Gen Z buyer.

Takeaways

1. Know a lot about your market. Millennial and Gen Z home buyers want to hire Realtors who are market experts.

2. Create videos consistently. Chan creates videos daily.

Get personal

While there is room for planning and using high-quality gears when you want to level up your TikTok game, users on TikTok don’t want perfection. They want to see the authentic side of your brand. This is why most TikTok videos are shot on iPhones. TikTok is miles apart from LinkedIn. It’s a playful platform and users primarily want to see entertaining and fun content. So if you can be spontaneous, fun, show vulnerability sometimes and aren’t camera-shy, TikTok is for you.

Post consistently

Like most other social media platforms, the more content you create on TikTok, the more exposure you’ll likely get. However, if you can’t stick to a daily TikTok posting routine, don’t put out fluff. Try to put out three videos weekly. Tat Londono, for example, posts four times each week. She blocks out time each morning from Monday to Friday to plan out and create one fun TikTok video and three educational videos.

Understand the algorithm

One of the main pros of marketing your real estate business on TikTok is that it’s one of the best places to be if you’re a newbie Realtor. As long as your content is targeted to a specific audience, you have the chance to create brand awareness on TikTok. Here are some things you should know about the TikTok algorithm:

1. TikTok favours localized content. So it’s easy to reach users in a particular city by adding specific hashtags.

2. The algorithm curates content for users on the “For You” page. When you create a video, your video gets shown to 300 to 500 people. If 70 per cent of these people watch the video to completion, your video could go viral.

3. It has a strict policy about fake views. People who use bots to increase video views will likely have their view count lowered to zero.

Use the duet feature

You’re not always able to get bursts of ideas for original TikTok videos but you can leverage on other people’s content. TikTok duets allow you to create replicas of an already existing video. This could be one of your past videos or that of an influencer. However, you can’t duet with every type of video. The video you want to build on has to have duets enabled.

Jump on trending hashtags and challenges

On TikTok, the keyword is interest. Just like on Instagram, users can search for hashtags based on their interests. TikTok’s algorithm populates videos that match a user’s search query in the “discovery feed.” But that’s not all. When brand-new videos feature these hashtags, the videos are shown to people who have interacted with the hashtag before. This means that creators can get lots of eyeballs on their content quickly. While there is no limit to the number of hashtags you can use on TikTok, experts recommend using between one to five hashtags.

TikTok hashtags can also be used to jump on trends. It’s a bit similar to Twitter in that you can hop on a viral challenge, for example, a trending dance style. You can create your own version, then add the right hashtags to increase your views and following.