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Agents who cultivate an authentic online presence and truly understand the value of social media will stand out, attract more leads and listings, and grow a stronger client base, said Robert Roper.
Roper sat down with editor Liam Garman for an episode of the REB podcast to discuss the importance of building a personal brand through social media, as well as his top tips to be successful online, ahead of his talk at the REB Innovation Summit.
Roper said that to win more listings and grow their business, real estate professionals should build their personal brand and earn their audience’s trust, with social media as the ideal platform.
Roper has been a social media guru since 2021, growing his personal brand “Robbo, the Aussie Mortgage Guy” across Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok to reach over 1.6 million followers.
“Robbo” is now the face of the most followed platform in the real estate, finance and mortgage broking space.
According to Roper, building a personal brand is not only about selling a business; industry professionals should target educational content that brings value to their audience rather than just selling a product or service.
“How do you stand out in a crowd of thousands of agents in your city? Well, you need to provide the most value,” Roper said.
“If you can let go of the desire to pitch yourself in every piece of content, and instead provide educational value, it’s amazing how far that will go in terms of building trust with your potential customers in the future.
“If you provide the most value, you will get the most attention.”
Roper said that the need for a distinctive personal brand has been increasing, as society leans more towards AI as its primary source of search.
According to Roper, AI search will spotlight the agent with the strongest personal brand, giving a decisive edge to those who’ve built a strong social media presence.
Where to start
Roper said that volume, consistency, and trialling content are the most important factors for agents looking to grow their presence on social media platforms.
When he first started making content, Roper said that he set out to create one piece a day for 14 days.
“In those 14 days, 13 pieces of content crashed and burned and went absolutely nowhere, and one piece of content did OK.
“But I took the one piece of content that did OK and used it as a baseline and foundation for the next 60 pieces of content.”
Roper said that building a substantial base of content would allow agents to see which videos received more engagement and to shift focus towards what was working for them.
“It’s that trial and error which allows you to build up the type of content and confidence that you should be creating.
“But it’s like going to the gym – you aren’t going to see results unless you are consistent.”
He recommended that agents create one post per day to learn the ropes and figure out their path through social media.
“It doesn’t have to be this magically curated and edited piece of content. It can literally be you holding a phone up to your face, looking at the camera and giving a piece of advice.”
He said that agents need to focus their content on the three pillars of creation: educational, entertaining, and inspirational.
“It is important to create content that leans on all three pillars to best reach the intended audience and send the right message.”
Roper said that creating only educational content can cause agents to miss out on the virality aspect of entertaining and inspirational content.
Pitfalls to avoid
According to Roper, there has been a disconnect between agents and their social media, with agents missing the mark on the difference between selling a home and marketing themselves.
He said that agents focusing on entertaining content may drive engagement but not trust, while overly inspirational content risks undermining credibility and positioning the agent as less serious.
“Agents are so good at selling a property, which is a product. But product marketing is completely different to service marketing.
“You don’t need to create a flashy, magazine style, beautiful piece of content about yourself.
“You just need to show that you’re genuine and trustworthy.”
While engagement statistics are an important metric for social media growth, Roper said that metrics don’t mean anything if it isn’t converted into leads.
He said that by building trust, lead follows through and ultimately business grows.
Through his digital marketing persona, Roper’s content generated over 50,000 leads, which were subsequently converted into more than $1.2 billion in settled mortgages for their referral partners.
Additionally, Roper said his digital brand has been a powerful marketing tool and he hasn’t had to spend “a single dollar” on advertising his business.
“Everything is purely organic just by creating content that provides value on those social media platforms.
“Then, those customers have filtered down my sales funnel and gotten to the point where they’ve clicked the link.”
“I am as committed as anyone in saying that organic content creation can literally blow up your bottom line,” Roper concluded.
You can listen to the whole podcast here.
Robbo will be a speaker at the REB Innovation Summit on 25 September.
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