When you begin crafting your social media strategy your first instinct may be

to start with the sale...How do you drive a potential home buyer to buy your

home on the market? Focusing on the sale (first) is typically the wrong

answer.

The brand cycle doesn't typically start with purchase. It starts with

Awareness and ends with Loyalty. Your social media strategy needs to focus

the relevant portions of the consumer experience and create a strong

connection (also know as brand equity).

The brand purchase cycle starts with awareness (I know about your company)

then Consideration (I am considering purchasing with your company) then

Preference (I actually prefer your company over the alternatives) then

Experience (I worked with your company and what was my experience like) then

Loyalty (will I do it again or recommend to others?).

Your instinct may be to focus on the purchase - how are we driving sales.

It is important to remember that the actual sale may not be the best part of

the sales cycle to focus on.

In my experiences speaking about social media, this concept is described in

much more depth but here is an overview of some key strategies to implement

the branding cycle for your agency.

Awareness Strategies - Consider a social media strategy where you post

content that is generally of interest to your target audience. Grab their

attention by posting relevant things related to your services that they

actually care about. Trying to sell in a specific area of town? Talk about

special events that go on there. Trying to sell office space? Talk about the

convenience to downtown or local restaurants. Listen to your audience, learn

what they are interested in and start to talk about the things that they are

interested in.

Consideration - They know who you are, but are they really considering you?

Look for people who mention your brand and answer their questions. Actively

seek out people referencing your category or buyers - they know who you are

but do they seriously consider you? Provide information to make sure that

your brand is in the consideration set. Focus on search rankings and make

sure that your site is optimized to answer questions.

Preference - Using social media to build preference can work well when done

correctly. You can build preference by showing that you truly care about

your audience and are committed to serving them. Brands that effectively

build preference using social media focus on building real relationships. Be

nice. Show potential homebuyers that you care. Have flexible policies.

Build preference by focusing on building positive feelings about your brand.

After a social media interaction they should "like you" or "think that

you are cool/hip", etc, based on your brand equity.

Experience - Social media strategies focused on the experience portion can

focus on things like customer service or support and feedback. When focusing

on experience, you should leverage social media to increase the value of the

customer's experience. Customer service via social media can be a great

tool in this.

Loyalty - The final stage is loyalty. Social media is a great tool to

build loyalty. You can use fan pages and twitter to provide specific

offers/incentives/discounts to drive loyalty among existing customers. Focus

on showing your customers that you REALLY care (this can also drive word of

mouth and build new customers). Find ways to use social media to really

give your customers something special. It doesn't have to be a financial

incentive either - it can be insider information or access to a members

club.

Your strategy doesn't have to focus on just one - it can focus on more

than one. They key is to use social media to build a great brand experience

(and this will drive sales over time). This strategy takes great content and

can take longer, but in the end, this is where the real payout will be in

social media. The key is to focus your social media strategy on the right

part of the brand building cycle vs. blindly trying to drive sales for your

agency.