KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Bulletproof Real Estate Social Media Strategy with Conor Murnane

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright. Welcome, everybody to Chris Raddock. We're here with another episode of the Un-Fourning. Common Real Estate Podcast. So today, straight from the West Coast, you're actually in that San Diego. Is that right? That's right. Man, I'll tell you what. Some people love you because they're like, man, that's awesome. Some people are going to hate you because they're just jealous. That's just the way in. Yeah, truly, truly spoiled out here between the weather, the real estate, and the tacos.

Oh, man. So good. Actually, my brother-in-law is in L.A. and yeah, we bring us to Taka stands every time I visit him. man, I'll tell you, definitely get a little fat there. But with that said, I'm so excited today. We're going to talk about how to dominate as far as social media goes, how to win on that front. So with that said, Connor, tell us about yourself. Tell us where you come from, where you are now, where you're headed. And then we'll dive into the meat of the conversation here.

Sure. Thanks, Chris. And just really grateful to be here. I was excited to catch up with you in Connect, Man. So really, I'd say it kind of started a little over a decade ago, even though I'm originally from San Diego, I moved up to the Bay Area in San Francisco. So it's where I went to school. It's where I first got into real estate tech and through a couple of startups found my way at truly pretty early there before going public and actually being acquired by Zillow.

And so a lot of my background has always been working directly with some of the biggest real estate teams on the West Coast and across the country. And I'd always consider myself kind of a student of the game still very much am in terms of trying to learn from badasses like you. in terms of how they're running successful businesses. And I kept coming back to and hearing this thing around brand and this idea of building relationship equity, this idea of our sphere of influence, our database, repeat referral, whatever we want to kind of call it, that really creates opportunities for people who can do it well. And I had always felt grateful to have a lot of these relationships, but it was really actually

just a year and a half ago beginning of January 2020 when I decided to start clicking and record myself. So I started what I like to call docu-making the journey and I still kind of enjoy the idea of collaborating with, learning from top real estate post. That's awesome. I'll tell you, one of the documentary, that's a great, great phrase. I'm going to steal it. Originalities forgetting who you stole it from, right? Yeah. So, yeah, one of my really good friends who runs a pretty big coaching business and actually just sold it recently for a gazillion of dollars, I used to say he would always say this to me is Chris, don't create document, document, don't create. I mean, he also creates, but the whole thing is we see so much stuff. We're doing so much stuff. Just

documented, document it, get it out there. It's so much easier than spending tons and tons of time creating. So I find it interesting, success leads clues and what you're talking about falls right in line with what my buddy was saying all the time. Yeah, that one really resonates with me. I'll say real quick because two years ago, I would in no way have described myself as creative. I really actually had always looked at it as this talent that people sort of had or didn't have. You were either good at painting, writing, scene, or whatever it is, or you weren't. And that definition, however true it may not be like, it just wasn't serving or helping me as much as, as kind of reframing it as if I just create, sort of learn by doing. If you create anything,

even if it's a shitty pottery clay thing, like you still created, you're still a creative in some way. So I feel like over time through sheer quantity by like it's kind of unlocking, just sort of documenting the journey, all of a sudden you find yourself creating as you go and you obviously get better over time. So what I love about this and we're going to dive in in just a second. So what I love about this is for me, I am not naturally an organized person. So when I when I talk to organized people, I can learn from them. But the people that literally organize their sock in their underwear drawer by color is just. then just almost a different species from me, right? So it's so hard because I don't think like they think. And so what I love about what we're about to dive into is the fact that you said

just naturally you're not the person that's doing this, that you had to learn that this was stuff that you had to learn and that you learned over time. And so hopefully this will help other people that may not be natural on this spring. And those that are like you're going to learn from it, but we'll be able to go through it. So one of the big people, for me. I really think there's a lot of education out there, but I think instruction is better than education, just in so many ways, because a lot of times education teaches us how to think, but like a lot of times we need to know, like, what the next steps are, and we need to color by numbers. And again, to get to be great, one of the other keys that I love to throw out there is imitate than innovate.

And so I'd love to learn from you. If somebody were to start from, let's just put somebody in the, in the boat like I've got a Facebook account. I've got an instant account. Maybe I have TikTok, but I don't really do much with it. I've got 100 followers, 100 people. Like, how would you say these are from like zero to being awesome? What would you say like the first couple steps would be? Perfect. I actually love this one. I was just on Chelsea Pites's podcast and we came up with this exact formula like you're describing how to go from zero to 100. I think it's even the titles of that episode. but I would there's a couple of things that come to mind let's say three and so the first one is is a commitment and so like as weird as that sounds I want I'm going to get into a tactics of it because I think

that's where the juice of the answer is but you really do find how much this is a psychology game and sometimes a barrier to actually executing and so I do think the most single most important part is the commitment sometimes you talk to people and they're like well I'll try posting on LinkedIn and if I don't sell a home in a week, then I'll probably stop. Or I'll try, it's similar to working out, right? Like, you could work out 10 days in a row and quite literally see zero difference, but it's going to have to be that commitment of the long-term consistency. Try to have a six-pack, even though I've been like, way of a weight my whole eyes.

Yeah, yeah. I ran three times this last week. I know. I might overly use a workout analogy today. Like, I'm about it. But, and to get even more clear about a commitment, for me, what it was, you know, I go to such a specific date of January 1, 2020, because I mean, I was that person. I was non-existent on social.

I had no pictures or videos or anything that had to do with my face, my voice, my vibe. I had maybe two or three photos of my kids being born over the years. And so I can still vividly remember it was like this hardcore decision to say, okay, I'm committed to this new form of communication. And that's the way I like to describe it because I actually remember being in the industry over a decade ago, sending, using fax machines to communicate with guys like you. I mean, we were, whether it was contracts or just regular communication, we were legitimately sending fax machines. I mean, I'm still categorically a millennial. And to me, that's kind of insane

that within how much has changed since then. But if you look at the evolution of communication from fax machines to emails, to landlines, to text messages, and so on, I mean, really now video and the six or seven apps that are on this phone. You can count text message, you can count email, and then a few of those socials that we're just kind of alluding to. But that is, to me, the next sort of wave of communication. It's how we might communicate with our grandmothers, stay in touch, how we might communicate with a buyer agent and transaction.

There's just, it's just a new way of communication. And so if you do believe that and you do agree, then it starts, I think, with this commitment to, like, and one of my favorite authors here behind me, Simon Sank for Infinite Game. This is just a forever thing. This isn't learn video for a year or try it for two years. It's just a commitment to going through the messy learning curve of good to great. So beyond the commitment, getting more a little bit into the tactics,

I like to, what I did as an exercise right before I really was going all in, is that I wrote down two or three what I like to call pillars of our personal brand. And so I'll use mine as an example, maybe I'll ask you as a question just for my own curiosity, but one of them absolutely was family. So taking photos, throwback photos of when I was young, photos of my kids, videos of what we did this weekend. It could really have anything to do with family. I've got three and a half kids, one on the way next month.

But that to me is a whole pillar. And what I mean by pillar is there are infinite ideas in that category. It's not willing to post this one picture and then I'll never, I'll have to creatively come up with another idea to post. And when it's a pillar that it really defines or identifies with you, then there should in theory be infinite amounts of things you could talk about, post about or show. So family was one pillar. Other personal interests from things like there's an in and out burger chain out here that I've interviewed like employees there. I've written endless posts about Tesla. I'm obsessed with the company.

But another pillar was real estate pros and sort of the conversations that I was having with them. And there wasn't necessarily an easy way to just click record for that. So what I started doing was I started an interview pillar. Like I to this day, I don't have a podcast show. I don't even have it. It's a big mistake. I'm leaving a lot of the energy on the table. But I don't even store these episodes on some audio platform.

I literally will just do an Instagram live with someone, which is a post in of itself. And then I'll even clip like the 30 seconds that you and I had some fire moment, which will also be a post in itself. And I'll kind of one thing to digress for a second to say that, I feel like when, have you heard of this flywheel concept before? Yeah, from good to great, right? Yeah. So it's just like this, you do A to equal to B, you do B and at least a C.

And so for me, it was like if I did one interview like this, one collaboration. At the very least, it led to Chris and I have a better relationship than we did yesterday. We got some one-on-one time, even if there were zero people attending, zero people listening. But I'd also found if I did that interview, it led to me clipping a piece and posting that on Instagram and LinkedIn and TikTok. And then if I did that, it led to another conversation with another person. And so that was kind of my flywheel of doing that leading to more. But zooming back out, those are my three pillars. So got family, got personal sort of nerdy interests that are exclusive to me and then got real estate conversations. And so between these three pillars,

like I just dropped my Instagram in the chat for anybody, but you'll pretty much see within my page very quickly, like those are the categories of my life. But in terms of to the original question, creating content, now that I have that clarity, I can I can really run and I can create a thousand pieces. I can interview a hundred real estate pros and I'm still scratching the surface. I could still do a thousand next year. So I think find those pillars for you that will remove as much friction as possible and allow you to sort of document, document photos, written paragraphs and articles, videos along the way. And then maybe the last thing I'll maybe I'll have to see where you want to go with it is just the consistency of a cadence. So I mentioned like a commitment to the

the actual doing, I mentioned some of the tactics of the creative and the content to focus on, but just like that workout analogy, I promise, you know, you start with some cadence, whether it's once a week or once a day, whatever it is, you just have to just like a snowball, start with that, build on that and hold yourself to that cadence. So hopefully that helps the commitment, the pillars and the kids. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was something that was so interesting to me, the commitment to keep doing it. There's a book that I really enjoy. Have you heard the book of The Messy Middle? I have heard of that. I have not read it. I mean, I'll sum up the whole thing for you. But the whole idea behind it is starting is easy because you're so excited about it.

The end is great because you see the finish line right there. But it's that middle where it gets messy, where you get lost where the fog and the malaise happens. And so a lot of times we start, but we feel like we're so far away from the goals. So like we start doing social media stuff. And like you said, we don't get the win right away. The dopamine hits don't hit like physiologically because we're not feeling that win immediately. And then we're just like, I'll quit because we want that quick hit. But that's also when you look across the board, right?

Like one of the things people look at people and say, oh, looking for a get rich quick scheme. But it's the same thing with social media. You're looking for a big great quick scheme, right? And when it's like you just got to put in the work. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right. And but everybody and the last thing I'll say on that piece is, I'm going to sell out my son here for a second. Because my son, he loves video games, especially Minecraft, right?

He loves it. even though now I'm being told Minecraft's like played out, but whatever. But one of the things he kept saying to me, he said, dad, I want to start my own YouTube channel. And I'm like, okay, cool. I was like, did you bring me your business plan all? Because he said he needed, it was like $500 worth of stuff is what he needed to be able to project and everything. I said, son, you bring me your business plan. You tell me exactly how you're going to win.

I will buy you everything to need for it. And he's like, dad, that's not how it works. And he's like, you just put stuff out there and then you get lucky if people like your stuff. And I was like, son, that is not how it's ever been. That's not how it'll ever be ever. And any area of life, there is a little bit of luck at times. Jim Collins talks about that. But that is not how it works.

And so I think so many of us, like we can laugh at that because he thinks he says that. But the reality is, I've got so many friends that are in real estate. And that is kind of what they're hoping for. for is, man, I'll try it a little bit. And if I get lucky and people like me, cool, instead of, hey, I need to put in the work and make it happen. Yeah. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, multiple good points. I love that you hit on there. The messy middle reminds me a little bit of like that. There's kind of this j-curve. I was actually just talking to someone at this event this last week and he was selling a thousand homes a year.

And people were asking, how do you even get to that kind of a level? And describe that messy middle, basically, where there's this no man's land of someone might be doing well, things that are rocking and rolling, but you are sort of committing to this learning curve. You're committing to taking a step back. We're investing time, managing resources, which essentially does take you lower before you go higher. And so I think that is, it's so important to recognize. But the second part you brought up, like in the story with your son, I agree. Sometimes people, like social, I almost sometimes have a certain reaction around like categorizing this whole conversation as like a social media play. Because to me, it really is.

is just a relationship communication play. And so whether we're talking about real estate or your son, it's kind of like, how do we take the more thoughtful approach of building one by one by one relationships? And certainly on social, some of it you won't see because they'll be maybe viewing, but not necessarily telling you they're viewing.

But it's just the real game is, yeah, not accumulating 100,000 views or 1,000 views. I mean, it was just plenty of examples where a video or people, of content is not going viral, but it leads to one really, really meaningful connection or relationship that maybe translates to five, six or seven figures in value to someone's business. So I do think a thoughtful approach, a genuine approach around relationships, not some social media.

I want to go viral and just get a thousand views as if that's supposed to then translate to something. So I think it's easy to get lost in that game. And one thing that's kind of reminded me of that someone also brought up in this last weekend who stuck selling a thousand plus homes, a really big influencer who was describing parisocial relationships. And that one was pretty new for me over this last year. But it's this idea that we can build a relationship, especially through digital or through a distance, without the other person even knowing. So a quick example, you know, growing up, was being out in Southern California,

a huge Kobe Bryant fan. And when he'd actually passed, it was this kind of weird emotional connection as if I had knew him or some friend of a friend or family member who we lost. And obviously, he'd never met me. He never knew me. He was never anything close to that. But because of the accumulation of me seeing, watching, and building sort of familiarity and trust, I built a parasycial relationship with him.

And so I think that's something that is really intriguing. And when it comes to this space, because there are plenty of stories where someone will send me a message. And this is how I'm going to connect you back to your messy middle is someone just recently who's a CEO at a company I would love to get coffee with, had sent me a message on LinkedIn. They had been watching your videos for the last year. And keep in mind, this person never showed a single like, a single message, a single comment or indicator that they were paying attention. But said, I've been watching your videos, really like what you're doing. we'd love to buy you coffee and talk about X, Y, MZ. And so you just, you really do have to commit

to go beyond the messy middle. And then once you do see a moment like that or you do get a message like that, it's very energizing and sort of shows you the light or the value or the ROI. But one last thing I'll say, as I think about even your son is like the to me, the strongest to unlock in this whole process is truly detaching it from any sort of business outcome or or financial result. You might even consider, I don't know if you and your son already went through with some of the plans, but you might even consider saying, hey, start the YouTube channel on zero budget. That's what I did. To this day, I've barely spent anything on like a $40 ring length, what I've spent on. But I think it's this idea that once we do that, as far as to, you know,

you invest 500, it puts pressure on covering those expenses. It starts to go down this path of making money, which we're all here to do. But weirdly, the more we can kind of detach from that, then I think the easier it is to be consistent, well, the easier it is to have fun in the process. And if you're not enjoying Minecraft, when you're up at midnight editing videos or responding to people, like, you're just not going to, it's not going to be sustainable. So finding the thing that we would, this is kind of a good way to summarize everything else saying for the end here, finding the thing that if you had zero views, if you had zero people watching, if zero people knew that you were going to be doing that thing, then what would you be focusing on? And maybe that's

a series about craft beer or maybe that's about video games, but kind of doc you make about the thing selfishly for you. Yeah. So let's spend the last five minutes that we have here on on this. So you gave kind of the formula on it. Now, can you walk us through like a day to day, like just give us the last five days or so, or starting Monday. What are things that you have posted on social? And how have you thought about it? Yeah. So video has very much been on my mind because everything that we are talking about, so maybe backing up for part of your question, like definitely starting with this self-awareness, where are you getting energy from, versus losing it. I recently just hosted this event with 80 real estate pros and the whole theme was

about videos. And because it's this, you know, I just in my experience have felt like videos are creating the deepest relationship and the most impactful connection. So I'm always trying to think about how can I show up on these, call it the top three or four apps. So for me, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and then really maybe even at an text message. So let me kind of walk you through that. If I've got a photo of me and the family that I want to post, I'll literally, if I write a long caption or shorter one, I'll literally take the same thing, post it on Instagram, posted on Facebook, posted on LinkedIn, and try and kind of get the most reach from those. And then even if I did that from a video with a real estate pro, same idea.

Another route that I really think is sort of underutilized, especially in our space, that's a very, very easy place to get started is actually one-to-one video. So it happens. I had kind of fallen away from is is every single morning. And this like legitimately takes three or four minutes. But like right here in my office, I'll just have the phone held up, pick three or four people. And if it's, if it's Chris, if it's Ricky, if it's Susie from months ago, from days ago, just shooting them a 30 second video and just be like, hey, Chris, really enjoyed that conversation on the podcast last week. Hope you're having a good one and looking forward to catching up soon. And so that one-to-one video is just really, really impactful for maintaining the relationship.

So to your question, I'm trying to think about how am I, this is kind of an intense way of describing it. We either exist on this device or we don't exist. So we're either like in the world or we're not. And so every day I'm trying to think about how am I existing. And so that's sending some of those text message videos, posting on some of these platforms, sending an email blast and making sure I'm actually showing up, but also certainly giving ourselves the space to take a rest day or whatever it is. Yeah, no, no, no, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, very cool. So at this point, so if somebody's going to start, what would you say,

would you say need to be on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook? Is that the kind of bottom line? What are the ones where you say these are like the minimos? Yeah. I would, it's tough. So like I'm not, I don't want to dodge the answer. So I'm going to give two parts to this. Definitely, I think for the real estate community and just our, our demographics and what we're, a lot of us are trying to do that those are kind of the big, let's call it four, five.

So text message and email, that might sound weird, but learn, make sure we're showing up every day on those in a proactive way, not a reactive way. But definitely then Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Those three, by the way, are just incredibly similar. actually much easier than it might sound to take the same exact piece of content and copy paste it across. But don't get so overwhelmed with the shiny thing of I got to be on TikTok because it sounds like it's the hottest thing. And now you're you're making dance videos when you don't know how to dance or whatever it is. Like all that stuff's fine. But I think it definitely

start with the self-awareness of where can you consistently show up five, six, seven days a week? and through what categories, what pillars can you show up five, six, seven days a week, and then layer in the extra platforms, the extra apps, take your video and post it on TikTok. You kind of learn over time how to do more or take on more, but start with that cadence, that commitment to a cadence, even if it's, again, like one post on Instagram twice a week. Like you just have to pick somewhere that you can actually legitimately commit to and stay there. and build on that. And really just zooming out for these last couple of minutes, I, I hope it no one does get overly obsessed with any one platform or anyone tactic. It is just this belief

that we need to show up and we need to do it consistently and the power of one-to-one relationships. So there are endless ideas on how to do that, whether it's in like a local show where you're collaborating with people or just one-to-one text messages and DMs. But I hope people do look at this as there are five or six apps on. our phones that matter the most and learning how to be a real black belt, a real ninja on each of those to me is the biggest opportunity for all of us. It's something that to this day I see it's leading to more open doors, more conversations, more opportunities. I don't even sell real estate and I've had multiple people come to me that I ended up referring out that said they wanted to buy a home.

So it truly is something that, you know, it builds over time and there's exponential opportunity, but you have to go through that mess email that you talked about. That's awesome. So, Connor, people want to reach out to you or check you out online. I posted Instagram. Can you just tell us, or anybody listening, maybe not seeing this? What's the best way to reach out to you or check out some of the stuff you're doing online? Yeah, absolutely.

I think I'm on every platform. So if you are on or searching just my name on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, how I try to get back to everybody everywhere. It might not always be an Insta response, but yeah, I'd love to connect with anyone that listened to this or found it helpful, whether it's them having a question or an idea or even just want to connect on Zoom. I'm in that relationship game. So love to always meet new people and learn new things.

And Chris, man, I just want to double up with a thank you and ending with. I really appreciate you having me. I mean, this is a conversation I like to get nerdy about. And I'm really just excited because I know this is the first couple of many more conversations than you and I are going to have. I'm looking forward to continue to learn from there. Yeah, I know this is a bit awesome. And for everybody here, I just want to say if my give to everybody here is this,

if you are out there and would like a free coaching session, like literally I promise you no screws attached, T-A-T, if you give us a five-star review on our podcast and go to Google and give us a five-star review there as well for the Redux group. So uncommon real estate on wherever you listen and then go to the, just Google the Redux group and give us a five-star review there. I will give a, I'm giving a five, like a half hour free coaching session. Promise no upscale, no strings attached. I know everybody's always selling something.

I'm not. I promise I won't. This is like my give back on that. So if you guys be willing to do that, I would love to do that for you. Just reach out to me on Instagram. If you do this at Crad Rock, old cheesy nickname, so it's not my last name. D-D-R-O-C-K and just reach out, DM me and I will set it up. I've done it with a bunch of people so far and I would love to do it with anybody else listening.

So, Conor, this has been awesome. Thank you, brother. This is awesome. Look forward to hanging with you more. And guys, reach out to Connor. He's really good on what he does. Talk to you soon. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate.

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