Start With A Win - Get Social Smart with Katie Lance

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Our guest on this episode of the Start With A Win podcast is Katie Lance, CEO and Owner of Katie Lance Consulting, and industry expert on integrating social media acuity into real estate. In the midst of turbulent 2020 we have all experienced, Katie observed a lot of real estate professionals trying to “set it and forget it” regarding their social media, posting things that may or may not be relevant and not engaging with followers. She said some people tend to communicate the bare minimum, such as logistical information about their hours, safety procedures, or their adherence to local ordinances. This practice creates missed opportunities for connecting with audiences on a personal level and being authentic about the state of things. For 2021, Katie’s primary tips for being social smart are to get intentional about how to connect with people and to concentrate on building up a content library that exists outside of social media and can be repurposed for multiple channels. By focusing on these two pointers, real estate professionals can transition from chasing leads to attracting business. The content you create should provide value to your audiences – which could be different depending on the platform – and it should communicate your commitment to serving your clients and prospects, so they want to keep in touch with you.Katie is an avid user of an editorial calendar, a straightforward way to plan and be intentional with your messaging. Sitting down at the end of the year and brainstorming a list of the most commonly asked questions, most engaged with topics, and most common email topics is a great way to jumpstart your editorial calendar for next year. Take a look at your calendar and plot where the topics should go. Consider your business goals and the frequency you’re aiming for, and then leave room for time-sensitive or current events related posts along the way, being conscious of how and where each piece of content can be shared or repurposed. Remember that consistency builds trust.Connect with Katie:https://katielance.com/https://www.facebook.com/KatieLanceConsulting/https://www.linkedin.com/in/katielance Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to start with a win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. Coming to you from Denver, Colorado, home of Remax World Headquarters. It's Adam Canto, CEO with Start With A Win in the virtual studio. We call it the bunker here. Got my little stay hungry, stay humble sign up here. But on the other side of the screen, I have producer Mark. How you doing, buddy?

Hey, I'm doing so good. Happy December, my friend. I know. It's December. I can hear the chestnuts roasting December, my friend. I know. It's December. I can hear the chestnuts roasting over an open fire and just anticipating that, you know. Have you decorated yet? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. After Thanksgiving, it's decoration times. So I don't listen to any Christmas music. I tell my wife, don't put any Christmas stuff out because I want to really enjoy fall and Thanksgiving. But then it's go time. Go time. Okay. All right.

Well, let's talk about go time because we have a go time person with us. All right. We have a nationally known keynote speaker specializing in social media strategy and technology trends. Our great friend, Katie Lance. How are you, Katie? I am good, Adam. Thank you so much for having me here today. It's so nice to see you. It seems like it's been a little while once, you know,

because everybody's been locked down and COVIDing and things like that. So how have you been? I know. I've been good. I've been good. You know, it's been a crazy year as it probably has for everybody. But yeah, we're doing well. We're doing a lot of virtual meetings and virtual speaking and just kind of like what we're doing right here. So knock on wood, we're staying safe, staying healthy, and things are good. I love it. I love it. So Katie, for those of you that don't know who Katie Lance is, I think we all pretty much know who she is. She's the CEO and owner of Katie Lance Consulting, a social media consulting firm specializing in working with tech startups, real estate brokerages, and mortgage companies, and just

an amazing human being all around. Author of the bestselling book, Hashtag Get Social Smart, founder of the Get Social Smart Academy. So Katie, you've been like a super influential person in social media, in real estate for quite some time. I mean, Inman News always says, hey, Katie Lance, one of the most influential people. You're a contributor to the Huffington Post, things like that. I mean, for crying out loud, you're all over the place talking about how can people be better with social media. So I want to talk to you today about 2021 social strategy. You down with that? I'm down with it. Let's go. Right on. Okay. All right. We went through this period where people either

needed to polish up their social skills or begin their social skills or something like that. So let's rewind the clock several months into 2020. Where did you see people deficient on social? Well, like I said, 2020 obviously was not the year any of us expected or planned. I think when we rang in the new year, I don't think a global pandemic was on our bingo card for the year, but it, you know, it is what it is. It's, it's, it's, there's been a lot of things that have happened, um, you know, throughout this year. That's obviously the kind of the elephant in the room. I think the biggest thing that I saw throughout this year, that was a big deficiency is a lot of the folks

who, you know, kind of set it and forget it where they, you know, had some systems set up where they were checking the boxes and they were, they were doing social media, but they weren't really there. And, you know, I often say it's kind of like the lights, the lights were on, but nobody was home. And, you know, I get it as an agent or broker, you're busy. And it's really tempting to say, you know what, I'm going to hire someone else to do it for me. I'm going to, you know, kind of automate this part of my business. And there's certainly nothing wrong with having, you know, folks on your team that help with pieces of it. And you might outsource pieces of it, things like that. But at the end of the day, social media is social. You know, it's one of the things I've always admired about you, Adam, is that you're here.

I mean, you were one of the voices early on. I saw you all the time on Facebook Live and video and your podcast and just being there. And that's how we attract business. And that's how we get business from social media is by showing up and being there, being authentic, showing your voice, showing your opinion, doing so in a respectful way, being helpful. And those are a few things that, those are timeless things, but I think even more important in this day and age. I mean, there's some great points in there. So, I mean, one of the things I noticed, and I know you noticed as well, because you and I were both like out there going,

hey, where is everybody on social media, on YouTube, on Facebook, and wherever else? It seems like a lot of people lost their identity and they tried to become something that they weren't. I mean, did you, I mean, you, you touched on that in your advice, but it seemed like people were just trying to continue to throw information or Hey, here's what's going on in the housing market or whatever at people, instead of, how are you doing, Katie? I mean, isn't that, you touched on that. That was one of the first

things you came out and said is, remember you're a human being and you care about other people. I mean, take us back to that time. What was going through your mind when you noticed and said that? Yeah. Early on, I was asked to do a lot of online classes and webinars and kind of teaching on this topic. And to be honest, I still am. I mean, it's just, it's like an evolving, you know, moving target. You know, but I think early on, especially in the very beginning, I encourage people, you know, hey, look, just reach out, reach out to people one-to-one, you know, whether it's through texting, picking, picking up the phone, shooting a quick video. I mean, there's nothing just like reaching out to somebody

and saying, Hey, I'm just, I'm just checking in with you. How are you doing? You know? Um, I think a lot of people, especially early on, weren't really sure like how to talk about business. Should we talk about business? Is that appropriate? And I just, I felt like, you know, if you just start with being a human first, you know, and, you know, reach, you know, in business, reach out to your current or past clients and just check in with them. And I'm often saying, look, right now it's at the, it's the end of the year. And if you did that back in March or April, you should definitely do that again. Cause a lot has happened between then and now, you know, back then we thought, we thought, oh, a few weeks or whatever. And a lot of stuff has happened over the years. So just checking in with people. And I think people appreciate that. And I think

the same thing goes for social media. I don't think what you talk about on social media should ever just be about business. That's not who we are. Business is an important part of our life, but we're also, we also have a family, we have passions, we have hobbies, we have interests. You know, we don't, we don't go to a party and then all of a sudden just start talking about business. Nobody wants to talk to that guy at the party, right? So I think that has to translate, you know, to, to, to real life and to and to online and to social media. And the reality is, is we're not, we're still not seeing people face to face as we were. And, you know, who knows when that'll actually kind of go back to kind of quote unquote normal. But I think now more than ever, it's a time to be real, to show up, to connect with people in an authentic way. And that goes to

that one-to-one communication. But it also goes to, I think, the content that you put out there, being thoughtful, being engaging, not just putting on content for the sake of content either. Awesome. So you talk about, I think some of this is to do with getting social smart, right? Yes, absolutely. Right place, right time. So you just laid out what people need to be doing. Tell us, how do we need to be doing this? How do we need to be leveraging social media in order to help our businesses this way? Because a lot of people backed off. They disappeared, as you very clearly pointed out before, and we continue to hear from people. So where do you see the need here?

What do people need to be working on? I think there's really two big things. As we all know, the heart of real estate and just business in general is people. It's a relationship business, as we all know. So I think there's kind of two big things. I think the first thing is getting really intentional with how you're connecting with people and getting yourself into a strategy, whether that's something as simple as Focus Five, where you focus on connecting with at least five people a day on social media.

I always say, don't be a drive-by liker. Don't just jump in and like five things and then leave, but take a few minutes to comment and engage. What happens a lot of times with social media is it becomes this bolt on. Like we just bolted onto our business whenever we have time versus actually being strategic and say, okay, I'm going to set aside 10 or 15 minutes every morning when I'm drinking my cup of coffee or tea, and I'm going to be really intentional. And I'm going to not just like a few, a bunch of things, but I'm actually going to take a few minutes to maybe, you know, send a video to Adam because it's his birthday. Or I'm going to send a message to, you know, Susie because I just, you know, I saw that

great picture she posted of her kids. Like just taking a few minutes to be intentional, that is so important because relationships are built with small, tiny interactions over the course of time. Every like, every comment, every share, it adds up, right? So that's the first piece. And then the second big piece is the content piece of it. And social media, as much as I love it, social media is rented ground. We don't own it. So as much as I love Facebook and Instagram and all the platforms that are out there, I really think it's important for agents to invest time and energy in creating content and assets that they own that will stay with them, you know, wherever they're at in their trajectory. So that's podcast content like we're doing here,

or it could be video content. It could be blog content. It could be writing a book, whatever it might be. That type of content is content that is relevant. It's helpful. It's also content that can be repurposed. I mean, we're repurposing content right now in the flesh, right? It's part of it's on the podcast, part of it's on YouTube. You know, it'll get repurposed in a number of different ways. And that goes back to what you said earlier, Adam, about just working smarter, you know, working smarter, not just harder. And when you do those two big things, you focus on the relationships and you focus on providing really valuable content that's in your voice that you own. That's the big difference between attracting business versus chasing leads.

And that makes all the difference in the world. That's good. That's really good, Katie. The attracting business versus chasing leads. I mean, we'd all love to be in that business where even if you're virtual or you're in a service industry or something like that, real estate, for instance, it's so much nicer to have virtually people walking in your front door to say, hey, I want to do business with you as opposed to chasing people going, hey, do you want to do business with me? I think you hit something there. But that's to the human attraction of people wanting to be with people because they're good people in their presence, right? So you said something that I want to unpack a little bit more, not building your business on rented ground. And I've heard that before, typically from people who are professionals in teaching others about the

industry like yourself. But we see a lot of people go, oh, I'm just going to be on Facebook, or I'm just going to be on Twitter or whatever it is. But what does that mean when you say you're building your business on rented ground? Because I have seen people totally lose their business in different ways. Yeah. I mean, I think the big thing to remember is, you know, all these social media platforms are free, even if we're paying for advertising, you know, Facebook doesn't owe us anything or, you know, we, we don't, we don't own it. It's a space that we're hanging out on and we're using it to build relationships and can keep in touch with people and connect with people and promote our listings or promote our business, but we don't own it.

And so I think when you sort of shift your mindset to social media is great and I can be there to connect with people, but when it comes to content, not putting all your eggs in one basket. I mean, I'll just give you a quick example. I've seen many times over the years where people lost access to their Facebook page for one reason or the other. Maybe it was just a mistake, something happened or someone, you know, their Instagram, you know, they'd lost access to that or whatever. And when all your business and social media is wrapped up just in social media, that can cause a lot of anxiety. And so, you know, that kind of leads me to say, like,

like I said, take a step back and think about, is there some content? Can you create a content library that you can share on your various social media networks? But again, it's content that, that you own, you know, so Facebook goes away tomorrow. I'll be, you know, sad potentially about it, uh, depending on how you feel about Facebook. But all my eggs are not in that basket, right? You've got this content library. And for us, that's why we started with our YouTube channel. I keep saying three years ago.

And now I realize, gosh, it's like four years ago, which is crazy. So we've got that. We've got our podcast. We've got a few other pieces of content that we create. We've got our email database, which is another important thing. I think really important that anyone in business build. And those go with you wherever you go. And I just think that's so valuable. Some gold here. So everybody listening, let me unpack a few of these things for you. And Katie, I think these all play into some of those, I don't care what kind of business you're running,

key strategic aspects of your 2021 social media strategy. So you mentioned a couple of things. One is your email list, a contact list of your people. And all these things are obviously separate. You don't have to log into Facebook to get to any of them. So you should have a document, a spreadsheet, or a CRM that has all your email information in it, correct? Just your customer base. And I noticed you do this. You send people someplace so that they're likely to give you their email address at some point. Is that correct? great? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we, we kind of think about it as with a lot of our content, like the goal of, of a lot of the content you see, like, if you follow me on my YouTube channel or subscribe to the podcast, the goal of it is, is for you to get to know me, you know, and I, I would love people. It's great when people say, gosh, like, I feel like I know you, you want to build that trust. And you, and ideally, you know, if you think about kind

of like the traditional sales funnel of where people kind of fall in that funnel, I don't expect someone to become a customer or a client of mine just because they watched a YouTube video, right? So the idea is people have to kind of marinate in you. People have to, they have to see you on YouTube and then maybe they see on Facebook and you know, Oh gosh, she's on Instagram too. Like they have to see you just like traditional marketing. You have to see people multiple places. And then at some point, yes, the goal is I would love for people to, to get into our database. So we offer something of value. I don't just say, Hey, you want to sign up for more email? Like who wants more email? Right. But we try to offer something of value. We'll say,

if you enjoyed this video, we have this whole, you know, 20 point guide that might be of interest to you. Here's a link for that. And so we can kind of direct them into our email list. And I would say, Adam, you know, it's one thing for someone to like you on Facebook. It's a whole nother thing for someone to opt in and say, yes, send me more email. And so we treat that really, you know, that's such a huge thing. You know, it's important not to spam people, of course, or buy lists or anything like that, but to do so in a really smart way. You mentioned using a CRM, really important. So you can manage who wants to opt in, who wants to opt out. And then the key is just giving them really good value. Even in our emails, we do very little

selling. It's continuing to provide really good value. And I have people who will say to me, gosh, I've been getting your email newsletter for years and now they're ready to become a client. And so it's a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be patient. But I think thinking about content in those forms for us has made a big difference, as well as a lot of people we work with. Okay. So let's talk about content then. You mentioned that word.

We've talked about the customer a little bit and building that relationship. The experts in this industry, and you mentioned this, so to unpack a few more layers of this whole process, the experts know what they're going to say and they plan a schedule. Can you tell us a little bit about creating a content calendar? I mean, what does that look like? Because a lot of people wake up in the morning like,

oh, I think I'll put something on Facebook. And it shouldn't be that way, right? More strategic, more planned out and more systematic throughout your social channels. Because every place needs to have different stuff, is what you've told me. And I believe you're the expert here. And I've been doing a lot of these things you're telling me to do, Katie, and it's working. But the reality is, so you've got know what you're going to say and know when you're going

to say it. What can we think about with respect to our strategy? Should we plan like a month out or a couple of weeks out? And then obviously you have, you got to have that curve ball. So let's say that a natural disaster happens and you can't go out and go, you know, a hurricane hits and you're like, hey, you headed to the beach today?

You know, that type of thing. Exactly, exactly. You have to be able to pivot. Content and calendar. What do those things look like when it comes to somebody planning out their social media program? Well, I love this conversation. I'm a little bit of a geek when it comes to this because I'm a huge believer in having a plan. I mean, I've worked with it. I call it an editorial calendar. I've worked with an editorial calendar and I have worked without one. And I can tell you from experience, it's way easier to work with them.

And then for anyone listening, if you've never, you know, used an editorial calendar or, or I've never really thought about it, it's, you know, it's a lot like if you look at any, you know, any major news show, for example, like, you know, good morning America or the today show, you know, they don't sit down, look at each other and go, what should we talk about today? Right? Like, maybe they do, right? But they've got a plan. Now, like, to your point, Adam, things come up, there might be a hurricane, so they're going to adjust and pivot. So that's kind of how we think about it, too. And one of the things that I do is at the end of the year, so this is perfect that this is coming out at the end of the year, I will sit down and I'll think about what are the

questions I get asked all the time? What are the questions? What are the topics that come up? Those things where people ask me something and I think to myself, oh my gosh, if I get asked that one more time. And I just literally do kind of a brain dump. I look back at the content I put out the previous year and what resonated with people. You know, I look into with people. I look into

my email. I look into my sent email. What emails am I sending people over and over again? And I start to really kind of brainstorm a list of topics. And those topics really kind of set the stage for what I call my editorial calendar. Because instead of thinking about what to post to Facebook here and what to post to Twitter and Instagram or whatever, I actually start with my pillar content. And for me, that pillar content is YouTube videos, also our podcast. And for anyone listening, it might be YouTube videos, it might be podcasts, it might be blog content. But we kind of start there and we think about, okay, let's, we've got this big sort of brain dump of list. Then from there, we can open up a spreadsheet. I like to use Google documents because it's simple and we'll just kind of lay them all out and lay out the 12 months, you know, January through

December. And for us, we want to publish one video a month. So one video a week, I'm sorry. So one video a week. So what does that look like? We'll have all of our topics. We'll kind of move them around, you know, and I think a great place to start is to at least think about three to six months. Now that might sound like a lot, but if you break that down, let's look at three months. Okay, three months. If you're going to publish one video for three months, that's 12 weeks. That's only 12 topics. I would imagine any of you could think of, who are listening, could think of 12 topics,

12 questions you get asked all the time. So we lay it all out, you know, in terms of like what topics we want to cover. And then what I do is I sit down and I batch create a lot of content. You know, I don't know if this is a female thing, but I, because if I'm going to sit down and do my hair and makeup and do one video, like I'm going to do four or five. And we, we do that with our videos. We do that with our podcasts. And so once you have that all laid out, it's really easy once a month to say, okay, today's my video day. I'm going to take the next hour and a half to shoot these five videos. And yes, sometimes, you know, Adam, I look at that and go, you know what? That's not relevant to talk about because this is happening in the world. So I'm going to move that to next month and I'm going to talk about this instead. And we did a lot of that this year,

it's kind of moving things around and that's okay. And then we, we batch it out. So I think those two things are a big, a big piece of it. And then of course the next layer is, okay, once they're done, where do they all go? Right? I just think it's so much easier to think about it when you've got your whole plan thought out and when you're going to create that content. And then you can figure out about the distribution. And I always tell people, look, if you're going to do like, for example, let's say you do a video a week. You're listening to this going, OK, Katie, I could do a video a week.

I would encourage you to think about what are the three or four things you could do with that video each week, right? You could upload it to Facebook. You could upload it to YouTube. You could do an Instagram story. And you could send a link to your email database about it, right? You could upload it to Facebook. You could upload it to YouTube. You could do an Instagram story and you could send a link to your email database about it, right? Or you could create a blog post about it. There's a number of different things you could do with that one piece of content. And if it's evergreen, if it's timeless, guess what? You could share it again in a few weeks or

a few months, which is one of the most beautiful parts about timeless content. So I know there was a lot there, but I just wanted to kind of give people a sneak peek into kind of how we think about it. I've been sitting here listening to this and going through my notes. I'll tell you what, this is the foundation for a social media strategy. I mean, you, you don't have a strategy if you don't have these things. So thank you for sharing that Katie.

So important. And by you for sharing that, Katie. So important. And by the way, people, if you don't follow these things, people can tell on the other end, because they're like, where did they come from with that? And when you start from there, by the way, then you can add in the stuff on the fly, right? Like, here's the thing. A lot of people say, well, I don't want to be too, too planned out because things might change, which I get that. But having a plan and a schedule, what, what happens is it, it helps integrate these habits into your, into your business. It becomes less of a bolt on, like an add on of when you have time,

it just becomes one more part of your business. And it also allows you the freedom to, when you want to post a selfie or a picture of a sunset, or you get inspired, post that. Cause that's, that's part of social media too, is, is being authentic and being true and showing up and connecting with people. But that, that consistency and, you know, look at the end of the day, consistency builds trust. Like what's the business reason for publishing a podcast every week or a video every week? Consistency builds trust. It's easy to do it one week, but be the person in your market that does it every week, right? Or every other week, that consistency, it's huge. Awesome. So much gold here. Thank you, Katie, for sharing all that with us. I have a question I ask everybody on the show,

and I know you've listened to this show before, so you've heard me ask this. I'm a big fan. Thank you. Thank you. Katie Lance, here's the question. You're such an amazing human being. First of all, you're super organized in how you do stuff, so I know you have a great answer to this. Our listeners would love to know, Katie Lance, how do you start your day with a win? Well, I knew you were going to ask me this because I am a fan of the show. So I, this might feel a little, I don't know, touchy feely or corny, but honestly, I start my day every day thinking about how grateful I am. I always wake up and go, gosh, I am happy.

It's going to be a great day. And why am I grateful? And I would also add on to that, that I don't check social media until I kiss my boys and my husband. They are first before the phone. Good for you. Good for you. I mean, a huge gratitude to you for having your gratitude. Okay. I mean, what a better way to start the day, right? I think you can always be grateful for something, whether it's, you know, whatever, whatever it is, if you can start your day with just being grateful for something, I just think it sets you off into the right, hopefully the right frame of mind, at least for me, it does. That's a win. So thank you so much, Katie Lance. Thanks for being on start with a win.

We have so much to go back and listen to this again and take a whole bunch of notes and make sure we have a great social media strategy for 2021. Katie Lance, you're a great friend, great partner in the business. Thanks for all you do. And thanks for starting with a win. Thank you so much, Adam.

I appreciate being here. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you'd like to ask Adam a question or tell us your Start With A Win story, give us a call and leave us a message at 888-581-4430. Don't forget to go onto iTunes and subscribe, write a review and rate the show. And for more great content, head over to StartWithAWin.com, follow Adam on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, start with a win.