How to Maximize LinkedIn for Networking

As a real estate agent, you will find that LinkedIn provides you with unique opportunities for professional networking and lead generation. Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are useful, of course, as are TikTok and Twitter, but as primarily entertainment platforms, they may be less advantageous for you in your professional networking pursuits.

LinkedIn narrowly targets professionals who are seeking to expand their work-related networks. Additionally, newcomers to Middle Tennessee can search LinkedIn specifically for realtors, making the platform helpful as a supplemental lead-generation tool with a favorable content to noise ratio.

LinkedIn’s Unique Demographics

As of mid-2023, LinkedIn has 930 million users. Compared to Meta’s 3.59 billion users, this number may seem wholly insignificant. However, because 75% of LinkedIn’s users are over age 30, and 50% of them earn more than $75,000 per year, they are the prime demographic to buy or sell a home.

What this means to you as a realtor is clear: LinkedIn is where you will find professional connections as well as a large pool of mostly young professionals who are in the position to buy or sell a home in the coming year.

In view of these facts, let’s discuss how to maximize Linked In for networking as a real estate agent.

1.) Use Your Profile to Promote Your Brand

Your presence on LinkedIn should represent your professional brand. Your profile picture must be the headshot you have chosen to represent yourself, your name should include your professional title, and your banner should include your contact information as well as a call to action.

LinkedIn is not a platform for casual chit-chat. Instead, treat communication within the platform as you would treat emails with a potential new client. In other words, maintain the utmost professionalism at all times.

2.) Personalize Your Invitations (and Include Your Ask)

On LinkedIn, it’s essential that your networking requests contain a personalized message as well as a clear reason for your desire to connect. If you want to network with a fellow realtor, a potential client, or an HR professional at a company that regularly moves people to your area, be direct and polite about how you believe your connection will benefit each of you.

Requests that are sent with no details and no indication that you aren’t spamming everyone in your region are almost certainly going to be ignored.

3.) Build, Grow, and Utilize Your Network

Now that you’re comfortable sending out personalized networking requests, it’s time to get busy building your network. Ideally, this process will happen at an exponential rate, which means getting started will be the most challenging part.

As your network grows, make the time to reach out to your contacts. Check back in with potential clients, make time to meet up with other realtors, and message HR professionals who may recommend your services to new employees.

4.) Spend Your Networking Time Strategically

Over time, your network will become so large that you will have to make strategic decisions about which contacts are worth pursuing. Identify real estate leaders in our region, hot leads, and HR personnel who have sent business your way.

Spend the bulk of your networking time on LinkedIn maintaining these contacts and expanding your connections within their sphere of influence. Time is money, and networking is certainly no exception to this rule.

5.) Create and Share Your Own Original Content

As a realtor, you doubtless have your own ideas, recommendations, and of course, listings to share.

Create articles, short guides, and fresh content that showcases your newest listings. Whenever possible, share this original content with your LinkedIn network rather than sharing the same recycled content that’s making the rounds elsewhere on social media.

By becoming a trusted source of fresh content, you’ll drive up engagement with your networks on all of your social media platforms, so make the most of your work by cross-posting it consistently.

6.) Create, Join, and Participate in Groups

If your ideal LinkedIn group exists, join in and actively participate. If it doesn’t, this is a prime opportunity for you! Create the group, then use your role as group host to ask people to join when you’re making connections.

As the group grows, post your original content there regularly, and encourage others to do the same. Interact with posts made by group participants and be helpful to other professionals whenever you can.

Remember, taking these steps will engender nothing but goodwill, which is a valuable currency for any realtor.

7.) Leverage LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s Advanced Search Feature

LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers users Advanced Search filters to help you narrow down results by user location, company, title, and spotlights. Use these filters to sift through thousands of users to find other real estate agents, users within certain industries, or to find HR professionals as we mentioned above.

Once you become accustomed to using the Advanced Search features, we recommend relying on this powerful tool to maximize your networking results and reduce your time spent poring over pages of tangentially related results.

8.) Get And Give Recommendations

One of LinkedIn’s proprietary tools you can use to generate new real estate leads is called “Recommendations.” Follow the link on your profile to publish a recommendation, whether you’re requesting or offering one.

You can also access Recommendations directly through the profile of someone you want to recommend: just click “More” located to the left of the “Message” button. Hit “Recommend” to create a recommendation directly for this user.

A strong LinkedIn recommendation includes an attention-grabbing line, a brief description of your relationship to the other user, the trait you want to recognize or emphasize, and culminates in your recommendation.

These recommendations serve as testimonials for anyone who visits your profile to see what your professional strengths are, what your past clients have to say about you, and what kind of contacts you have throughout Middle Tennessee.

The Takeaway

LinkedIn’s user base is a rich resource for realtors who wish to connect with other realtors and new clients. Use it for lead generation, connecting to your community, and tapping into other professions that can provide you with new customer streams.

Most importantly, create a strategy, stick to your plan, and use the platform consistently!