Real estate agents everywhere need to make sure they're producing and publishing content that's exciting, eye-catching, and engaging. However, to ensure consumers feel confident working with them, they can't skimp out on infusing their content with their personal brand. What's the best way to make this happen? With a solid content strategy. 

We're breaking down everything real estate agents like you need to know about the importance of a content strategy and taking you through each and every step to develop a strategy of your own.

What is a content strategy?

A content strategy is the plan you have in place to determine what your content should be, and how you'll create and share that content. A content strategy's purpose is to give you a clear map to regularly follow so you can attract and engage your ideal audience (or audiences), achieve the goals you set for your real estate biz, and ensure your personal brand as an agent is consistent when consumers see your content. 

Think of it as a guidebook to all the content of your business. Speaking of a guidebook, we'll have a workbook at the end of this article to help you sketch out and use your own content strategy.

If I'm a real estate agent, why do I need a content strategy?

Maybe you're already crushing the content creation and posting game, or perhaps business is just really good right now. Content creation isn't just for marketers, though. It's for any and all types of business owners. As a real estate agent, you need a content strategy to keep your content on track. A content strategy helps ensure your content messaging, visuals, and posting are consistent. Why do these three variables matter? They all support having a strong personal brand. 

How a content strategy helps keep your personal brand on track

If you choose to create, post, and share content without a clear strategy, you risk your message looking, well, a little hodgepodge — sort of like a patchwork quilt. As an agent, you must show consumers that you're the trusted real estate expert they need to partner with. You simply can't afford to have content that's unclear or misaligned to who you are and what your business does. A content strategy prevents this from happening. 

When you understand your content plan in advance, you'll have an easier time staying on track with consistent branding (like colors, logos, and themes) and messaging. It will also help you see if you need to fill any content gaps to ensure your target audience has a complete picture of you and your brand.

So, how exactly do you make a content strategy with your personal brand as an agent in mind? We're so glad you asked.

How to create a content strategy for your personal brand as a real estate agent

Here's everything real estate agents like you need to know about content strategy and how to execute and maintain it. 

Define and understand your target audience

The most important foundational step you can take for your content strategy is to get crystal clear on who it is that needs to see, engage with, and understand the content you're creating. After all, you're not creating content just to check a box; you're trying to reach consumers who need to see your message, engage with your brand, and have a clear understanding of what you can help them do.

We created a free guide to help you identify and define your target audience with a step-by-step breakdown. Give our "Workbook: Understanding (and reaching) your target audience" a read and complete the exercises to familiarize yourself with your target audience. This will allow you to orient your content strategy so you won't have to go back and overhaul it later.

Knowing who your target audience is, where they're coming from, and their unique needs, desires, and motivations will give you a clear runway to tailor your content. Isn't that so much more efficient (and effective) than a guessing game?

Identify your unique value proposition

Next, you need to take a good look at your own expertise, experience, and background and determine what it is that sets you apart from other agents. What is the ingredient in your secret sauce? We already know you're the best out there, and you definitely know you're the best out there — but how and why? Answer these questions to get clear on your own unique value proposition. A value proposition is a defining factor that sets a person, service, or business apart from the rest. So, what's yours?

Once you nail it (or a few), you can start to feel more confident in the messaging you'll infuse throughout the content you create and share. It's also an important cornerstone of your personal brand, since it's the defining factor of your work as an agent.

Build out your content pillars

At this step, you're ready to dig into the meat n' potatoes of your content strategy. You know who you are, what you do, and what sets you apart. You also know who you need to go after so they can see your brand, engage with it, and feel confident and empowered to work with you. Now, it's time to start sketching out your content pillars, which will inform and drive your actual content creation.

Start brainstorming the main topics, subjects, or themes you think or know would resonate the most with your target audience. For example: If your target audience is first-time homebuyers, you might consider 101-level homebuying topics around the process, financing, negotiations, etc. 

Then, start jotting down qualities about your own unique value prop that would resonate with each of these areas. Marrying these two together will help ensure you're telling a clear, consistent story directly to your target audience. It also helps ensure your brand's value proposition and expertise are accurately represented.

Determine the types of content you'll create

Your content pillars define how you actually execute your content strategy. With those in place, you can sketch or list out the types of content you want to create, such as static posts, video posts, Story posts, and more. (We've provided a full list of content types in the worksheet at the end of this blog to help you build your list!) 

Start by prioritizing your highest-performing content format, then stack-rank the content formats most likely to resonate with your target audience. Are there any content formats you'd like to test or try out? Jot those down, too.

This step creates a birds-eye view of the content you'll adhere to so you can have a tangible plan for content creation.

Set your goals clearly

Why create, post, and share content if you don't have a clear goal of what it's trying to accomplish? As you weave together your content strategy, you'll also want to set your goals in tandem. Yes, you want to represent your brand to the fullest and reach your target audience. But what do you want those steps to actually accomplish? Your goals might look like:

• Generate # of leads in the next quarter

• Increase my brand awareness

• Grow my [insert social media platform] followers by X% this quarter

• Successfully post content every day/week for the next [time frame]

Assigning goals to your content strategy helps firm it up and make it seem less abstract. You're not just creating content to check a box or do what all the other agents are doing; you're creating a content strategy with intention. It also gives you a North Star to follow to ensure you're adhering to your content strategy consistently — which helps strengthen your personal brand overall.

To set effective goals, make sure you get our free download guide tailored specifically to this topic, "An agent's guide to goal-setting. " It will walk you through setting effective, impactful goals step by step.

Select which channels you'll use

You're just about ready to get your content up and out into the world, which means you're on the cusp of being able to represent your brand, shine the spotlight on your business, and help it get seen by your target audience. To keep your content strategy on track, you'll also want to determine which channels you'll use. This will help you develop your content schedule and keep your efforts focused.

Next, narrow down the types of content you'll post on those channels. What works well on a blog may not work well on Instagram, and a great LinkedIn post might not translate completely to a TikTok or YouTube video. You're not limiting yourself here, you're just assigning channels to each content type.

Use a content calendar to ensure consistency

Before you start loading up content and posting, you'll need to create a content calendar and get it in order. Your content calendar allows you to plan and schedule what content you'll post, on which channels, and when. Having this line of sight also allows you to work backward and plan to actually create the content. It also helps you have a schedule to stick to, which prevents overwhelm — and also prevents content creation from feeling like a full-on side hustle.

Lastly, knowing what content pieces will go live across your channels on upcoming dates will help prevent the faux pas of double-posting or sharing content repeatedly. Hey, it happens. But with a little careful planning courtesy of your content calendar, you can reduce this risk.

Agents, get ready to start crafting your own content strategy

Okay, agents — are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of actually creating your own content strategy? This is an exciting step to take! It's what will inform your messaging, imagery, content types, posting placement, and above all else, ensure your personal brand is represented to its fullest.

Use the worksheets we've created here to build your personal brand's content strategy step by step. Get excited and get into it!