← Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Your Daily Real Estate Podcast with Tristan Ahumada
Episode 883: Nextdoor Hates You But I Can Fix That (0% Ad Spend)
00:09:12
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There are two platforms most agents either avoid completely or use exactly wrong. Which is kind of weird, right? Exactly wrong. Both of them are quietly producing business for the agents who understand them. Today we're going to talk about both. And this is part three of a seven part series. Like I said, most agents are skipping these. Or worse, they sign up for one of these posts twice and then guess what? They abandoned it. So here they are, Nextdoor and LinkedIn. These two platforms look completely different. At least on the surface they do. One is your neighbors, One is your industry. One feels a little bit small, one feels a little bigger, but they share the same DNA. Both award code contribution, both punish broadcasting, both compound slowly. I mean, that's normal in most social outlets. And both are sitting there right now waiting for an agent who's willing to play the long game on them. And sometimes it's not even that long. Let's start with Nextdoor, because most agents have it wrong from the very first day they sign up. I know I did. Nextdoor will sell you a neighborhood sponsorship program. You can claim your zip codes, you can put your face in front of verified homeowners in your exact geography fee. And it's not a bad investment. But here's the challenge. Nobody's really telling you about this sponsorship thing. Sponsorship buys placement. It doesn't buy credibility. And I think that's where there's a gap. But when you do both, I think you start seeing it work better. The culture in Nextdoor is very hostile to self promotion. I've seen it. I mean, they're hostile to a lot of things and there's a lot of complaints in there. I've seen it. You've seen it. And the algorithm punishes these promotions. Neighbors, they're also watching this and like, man, is this person just promoting themselves. And most agents are doing it there and they're falling prey to all of these other people reporting it, and then, then they show up badly. What I want you to do is I want you to think about this platform differently. The platform works fine. The play there is. You've got to think about how to be there for people. The play actually works here by being super patient. And sometimes it makes you feel a little uncomfortable. You have to be a useful neighbor. You can't be a real estate agent first here. Not a marketer, an actual neighbor. Here's where most agents quit before they even start. Because agents always want to promote themselves. They want to promote themselves and they want to say, hey, I cover that area. I'm this. I can do that, don't worry, I got you. You want to rent, you want to buy, then they give up when that doesn't work. And that's not how this plays out. Twice a week, 15 minutes, log in. Answer one, two, three, maybe four questions in the local feed about anything home related. I would love to, I'd love for you to do this daily if this is going to be your platform of choice. Go in there, answer questions daily throughout the day. Pick 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at lunch, and 10 minutes in the afternoon. Contractor recommend school questions, neighborhood history. I mean, you know this stuff. You live there. Once a month, post a piece of genuinely useful market data that's formatted for your neighbors or even yet. One of our friends and a coaching client, Kelly, she decided to post pictures, pictures of her area, pictures of the sunset, pictures of where she's walking, and then those started getting thousands of views. Yeah, pictures of the local area because it makes people want to be proud of this area. It's like, where'd you take a picture of that? Oh, I'm proud of this area. I like it. I love it. Oh, I love sitting there. Oh, I love walking by there. Post about something that you're personally doing in the community that has nothing to do with real estate. That's the whole protocol. It's crazy, I know. No call to actions, no, hey, reach out if you're thinking of selling or buying. None of that. Just pure contribution. Make people feel good about living where they live. 18 months of that. I know, 18 months, this doesn't work tomorrow. Yeah. No, 18 months of that and your name becomes the answer when someone in the local feed asks, does anyone know a realtor or a real estate agent or an agent? And that's, that's an outcome you earn. You don't buy it and you don't force your way into it. Now, LinkedIn, this one is more interesting for agents specifically because the audience isn't the buyer, it's the buyer's referrer. In some cases, it may be the buyer, it may be the seller, depending on your area. Buyers in Malibu, Beverly hills aren't on LinkedIn searching for houses, but the executives, founders, wealth advisors, estate Planning attorneys and CPAs who refer them absolutely are. And LinkedIn is where you build the kind of national visibility, I could say that flows back to a local credibility, especially if you're operating at a CEO or thought leader level in addition to selling homes. The, the cadence is simpler here. At least I think it's simpler here than in next door. One substantive Long form post a week. You know, like a think article, well thought out, real pros, no bullets please. No bullet points. I hate bullet points. Probably LinkedIn hates it too. But drawing on something you actually know that most agents don't. Market structure, brokerage economics, the realities of the post settlement landscape, the psychology of a transact action, or what it means for our real estate world when Compass and anywhere merge or when Real is acquiring ReMax. What happens when Wall street competes for residential listings? On top of that polls, they perform extremely well because you're asking questions and you're asking for your audience to get involved on something that looks it's important in your field. Look, the bar on LinkedIn is low. Most of what gets posted there is corporate filler and recycled tips that they get from X or somewhere else. When you show up with one well thought out piece writing a week and a poll, nice piece and a poll. Okay, Ask a question, have some answers. If you need help, grab a great article that has to do with real estate from the Wall Street Journal, throw it into AI and say, hey AI, make me a poll for LinkedIn here. That's how easy that one is. Now the other, well written, that's on you. Please, something local, not AI written. Maybe AI edited to help it be nice. Combine that with deliberate engagement on posts, posts from local companies or CEOs, founders and advisors in your area and it could be an expansive area. But you know, a professional network, real comments. Then you start getting replies. Six months, eight months, a year, you'll find out what happens. You're known to that exact group of people because you keep showing up there, you keep asking them questions, you keep on answering, you keep on commenting and then you start standing up. Because the next thing they do is check your profile. And I can see because on LinkedIn it says, hey, this many people checked your profile and these, these are the people who did it. And the compounding effect on LinkedIn is, I think, steeper than on Instagram. Smaller, because the audience is definitely smaller. But you don't have to out everyone, you have to out think that. And there's a real opportunity in that for any agent willing to write. And I would challenge you. If you're going to go all in on LinkedIn, it's not just doing it like once a week, challenge you to do it a little bit more. But here's what ties both of these platforms together. Neither one rewards the hustle. This isn't about hustle. This isn't about, hey guys, I want you to post 300 times in a day. It's going to be amazing, I promise. No, they both punish it because they don't like spam. They reward contribution and patience. This compounds. You watch it compound. And it works for most agents, at least. Agents that aren't abandoning this 30 days in because they're not seeing measurable returns yet. Oh, this stuff doesn't work. I'm going to go back to Instagram. The agents who play this whole game for 18 months on Nextdoor, six to eight months on LinkedIn end up dominating both. So this is the recurring theme of the entire series. Think about this visibility that you can manufacture quickly because it's about visibility. But presence, purposeful visibility. Presence takes years, sometimes a year. The platforms most agents avoid are the ones where the patient game pays the most. Here's your action today. One platform, not both. So pick. You're going to pick either LinkedIn or Nextdoor. I don't care which one you do. I would pick LinkedIn only because I gravitate to LinkedIn more. Pick the one where your ideal clients maybe will refer you or are living in the most. If your business runs on neighbors and hyperlocal recommendations, guess what? You're starting with Nextdoor. If you're operating at the luxury or referral level and your business runs on relationships with wealth advisors, attorneys and executives, well, guess where you're going? You're going to LinkedIn. Whichever one you pick, do one contribution this week. I want you to stay consistent for a very long time. On NextDoor, it's answering one question in your local feed without mentioning that you're in the real estate business. Hey, I'm a realtor. On LinkedIn, it's writing one long form post on something that you actually know most agents can't articulate well. Just one. And then a poll. Easy. Grab a real estate related article and throw it in and make it a poll and you watch. The poll gets you going. Schedule the next four weeks of contributions on your calendar so it actually happens. I know it sounds tough, but listen, LinkedIn's in the top 25 most visited websites in the world. You really need to have a plan for this. So tomorrow we're getting into events. The kind that actually convert. At least most events do if you do them well. And the kind that don't drain your bank account, but produce actually something good. I'm Tristan. This is your daily real estate. It's podcast. It's your show. Share this with somebody you think may need this. This is a seven part series. Hang on tight. This is only part three.