Matt Pattoli is the owner of Fity Social Media, a social media marketing agency that helps small & large businesses manage their social media marketing campaigns more effectively. Matt began using social media four years ago when he was a full-time internet marketer and quickly realized the power that social media holds when it comes to building brands and increasing exposure and leads. Together with his partner Grant, they have grown Fity to a global force with clients in several different countries.

First, Matt, can you tell us a bit about yourself? What led you to focus on social media?

I am the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Fity Social Media, a social media management agency helping brands grow their online presence and drive sales for their business. I started the company early in 2012 with Grant Cooper, who resides as the Chairmain and Co-founder. With our background in Internet Marketing, we saw a high demand for social media management services for business’s at all levels and decided to launch Fity. We’ve experienced lot’s of positive feedback and continue to grow at an accelerated rate.

What exactly does social media mean? And what benefits does it offer to real estate professionals?

I would say social media refers to the exchange of information among people within virtual communities and networks. Social media marketing allows real estate professionals the ability to announce their residential or commercial listings across all major social networks and become involved in the communities that their properties are in by media sharing, conversations and brand exposure. Also, social media paid advertising has become very popular over the past year and the major social networks now give people the option to pay for results. (page likes or clicks to external pages)  The ads can be built to target potential clients by specific demographics such as location, interest, age, zip code and gender. This can be very powerful information to have for a tech savvy real estate agent.

What’s the best way for an agent with a website to use social media?

Honestly I would say blog. Blog about your local community, area, company whatever you want and share it all on social media. Create a business page to share your blogs, join real estate groups to share your information. Just provide value and people will want to read your content and share it! Blog about industry tips and share with your linkedin groups etc.

Are any social networks especially good for agents to network in?

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the ideal social networks for real estate professionals to market on. Facebook is generally B2C and can be highly effective when combined with a paid social advertising campaigns. On the other hand, LinkedIn is the professional network and would be used more for agents who want to network with other realtors and interact with them in different groups, etc. Twitter serves a micro blog to keep your potential clients on edge with real estate industry news and new listings. Plus when you get a new listing you can start the process of following people in that listings area as well as other local agents in that area for networking. The bigger the following the bigger the brand the easier it will be to unload your properties.

What are some free tips you can dish out for our readers to implement immediately?

When posting to your social media pages, try to keep the posts more educational and less promotional. At Fity, we have a “70-30 rule” which means we tend to keep our content strategy 30% promotional and 70% educational. The worst thing you can do is spam people over and over all day. A mistake that a lot of people make believe it or not. Keep it fun, educational and provide value to your readers, friends and followers!

How do you stay current on social media changes, news, research and methodologies?

We subscribe to several different social media news sources & outlets and we also attend many different conferences around the world. But if you really want to learn, the best place to get started is Google!

What social media tools do you use on a regular basis? Why do you use these tools? How can agents get started with using them?

At Fity, our account managers use a social media tool called “Hootsuite” which allows us to schedule posts for Facebook, Google +, Twitter and LinkedIn. We also use this tool to monitor activity on our client’s pages. While Hootsuite is our main tool we use, we also use Tweetreach, Klout, Social Mention, Twazzup and How Sociable to name a few. We recommend if you are just getting started to go with Hootsuite first and master that before you move on to any of the others. These tools are a necessity to help you understand your brands reach and who’s out there talking about or interacting with your brand!

How do you measure success in social media?

We measure our client’s success with highly detailed monthly or bi-weekly (depending on plan) analytic’s reporting. Before we start work on any campaign we first sit down with the client and establish a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and what milestones and goals they would like to accomplish by running a social media marketing campaign. Success of a campaign depends on what goals were established before the start of it. Whether it be lead volume, traffic, clicks, impressions or even brand reach.

I’m sure you’re aware about so many companies out there are offering paid likes and paid followers. Does it make sense to get paid likes or paid followers? – Why people should stay away from paid likes or paid followers?

Many marketers have been using systems that generate fake likes and followers to social media pages. Fake likes and followers can get your business page suspended from social networks. It has become common place at places like fiverr.com where you can go and buy likes and fans. But the problem is these likes and fans never stay and Google & the big social media networks know that they are fake which can get you in trouble. At Fity, we only provide organic likes and real followers to your social networks by utilizing only white-hat social media best practices.

Could you tell our readers a few social media success stories as a bit of inspiration for agents who are just getting started?

A real estate professional that has been working with us since May of 2013 has recently shared with us that more home buyers have showed up at almost all of her open houses since June, that have found out about the listing from Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin (from a referring agent). She has closed 3 real estate transactions from leads generated from her social media campaigns.

Conclusion

Let’s say an agent gets a new listing. The agent then decides he/she wants to use social media to let people know about this new listing, where it’s located and what the property details are. Great! Now he/she knows what messages he/she wants to get across to potential home buyers & other agents. People who follow or are friends with this agent will see this listing and guess how the majority of real estate listings are found? Referrals. Someone always knows someone looking to buy or sell! Not to mention running the paid social media ads to target that location and market which will pop your ad up right in peoples news feeds. Starting to see the power that this could bring your business? If you have any questions please do not hesitate to leave them in the comments, I’d be happy to answer them! Thanks!

Powerful stuff Matt thank you, what do you guys think?