Your next buyer probably isn't looking at the branch window for their next home, they're on their phone. Possibly on the sofa, possibly on the bus, quite possibly not even looking for a house at that exact moment.
A property listed only on the portals is waiting to be found. A property marketed on social media goes out and finds people.
Right now, that difference matters more than it has in years as there are more homes on the market than at any point in the last 12 years, with fewer buyers looking.* When there's more choice and less competition for it, how your home is marketed stops being a detail and starts being the thing that decides whether you get an offer, and what that offer looks like.
The good news is straightforward. Social marketing puts your home in front of more of the right people. The result? More viewings, more interest and greater chance of achieving a faster sale at the best possible price.
Property portals are brilliant at what they do, which is capturing active buyers who are already searching with set filters and an idea of what they want.
Social goes beyond that and speaks to passive buyers as well - the people who weren't looking this morning but who see the right home at the right moment and think, let’s book a viewing.
That matters because your eventual buyer might not be in the market yet. They might have been meaning to start looking for months. They're not on the portals, but they are on their phone.
More interested parties means more viewings. And more viewings is what creates competing offers, which is what gets you the best price.
A set of photographs tells someone what rooms a house has. Short-form video, reels and walkthroughs let them feel how it flows, how the light moves through it, what it's like to stand in the kitchen and look out at the garden.
That's the bit still images can't do. You can't photograph the feeling of a hallway opening into a bright open-plan space, but you can film it in 15 seconds and let someone experience it while they're queuing for a coffee.
None of this replaces good photography. Professional images are still doing the heavy lifting, and they always will. Social just gives that work a far bigger stage, and it does it in the format people are already scrolling through.
This is the part that most sellers don’t consider when it comes to marketing on social platforms. Social media has the capability to let an agent target a specific area, age range and interest group.
So, a family home can be shown to families living within a few miles who might be looking for more space. A first-time-buyer flat can be shown to renters in the same postcode. A smaller, more manageable home can be put in front of the people most likely to want it.
It's less like putting up a poster and hoping, and more like a quiet tap on the shoulder.
Local knowledge is what makes this work. Knowing where the demand for a particular type of home is actually coming from, this is where our local experts in branch come into their own to ensure your home is being marketed in the most efficient way possible.
Interest in a new listing is at its highest in the first couple of weeks, and social makes the most of it.
Instead of waiting for people to stumble across your home, you're pushing it out to a targeted audience from day one - building momentum while attention is at its peak, and turning that attention into viewings quickly.
Moving quickly is important as a home that's been sitting there for weeks reads as a home with something wrong with it, or at least a seller who might accept less.
Strong social marketing at launch is one of the best ways to avoid ending up in that position at all.
When you sell with us, your property is advertised on the UK's largest property websites, Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket, as well as our own, with social work running alongside it rather than as an afterthought.
That includes video content of your home, posted by your local branch and pushed out across our wider brand network. So, you get the reach of a national audience with the targeting of a team that actually knows your area.
That's really the whole point. Somewhere out there is the person who'll fall for your home, and there's a decent chance they haven't started searching.
Good marketing doesn't wait for them. It goes and finds them.
*Rightmove August HPI
MKT/UKON/280926
