Social media in Real Estate Marketing

Posted 17 July 2024

Every year, research agency Newcom conducts extensive research on the use of social media in the Netherlands. It’s a report that the Radyologists eagerly await. How does national data combined with our own data translate into real estate marketing? Radyus has explored this for you!

Growth in User Numbers

Great news; the number of social media users continues to grow! This growth is particularly notable in the 20-39 age group. Not only has this group increased in size, but it has also become more active.

The decrease in the average age of homebuyers in recent years, coupled with the recent more favourable mortgage conditions, makes the 20-39 age group an increasingly important target audience. Therefore, it’s great news that this group is both growing and more active.

Growth of Most Used Platforms

WhatsApp remains the most used platform, more on that later. What we immediately wanted to find out is whether the platforms where we are most successful in advertising are also on the rise! And indeed, both Facebook and Instagram have gained new users over the past year, with Facebook, after WhatsApp, still having the most users. LinkedIn experienced the fastest growth.

Our data shows that on Facebook, we primarily reach the empty nesters (thanks to Susan from AM for this non-offensive name for the ‘older demographic’). On Instagram, we reach more of the growing 20-39 age group, so it’s positive news to see that daily use on this platform has increased.

TikTok

That TikTok is no longer just a channel for dances and small children was clear last year when its usage among people in their forties significantly increased. This year, TikTok continues to be one of the largest growers, both in the number of users and in daily use. But should we start advertising massively on TikTok? Yes and no. For large numbers of conversions, TikTok is not the place to be, but this platform is a better/more exciting alternative for Display advertising, especially in the pre-sale phase where there is a high demand for brand awareness.

Should We Engage with Newcomers?

Whenever there’s something new, we are quick to test, experiment, and analyse. If the outcome is interesting in relation to real estate marketing, then we implement it. For example, the rebranding of Twitter to X basically resulted in nothing significant, and we were not enthused by Meta’s similar platform Threads. According to the Newcom research, we are not alone in this. A third of the users have already dropped off, and the intention to use it in the future is remarkably low. If you are unexpectedly interested; paid advertising on Threads is not yet an option.

WhatsApp Channels

We are also monitoring the development of WhatsApp Channels. It is a feature within WhatsApp (if you haven’t discovered it yet, choose the updates button at the bottom left of the app), where you can quickly and easily share content with your followers. An advantage is that the privacy of the followers is safeguarded. You don’t see the private information of other followers. Furthermore, as a follower, you can only respond to the message with an emoticon and not to each other, which is also a disadvantage as it leads to little interaction. However, followers can easily share the content on WhatsApp. This content automatically disappears after 30 days.

It’s not very easy to gain followers, but once you have them, you can keep them well-informed about the progress of your project via your WhatsApp channel.