LinkedIn for Real Estate: Ultimate Guide to Generate Leads

According to some, LinkedIn was and is considered the next big thing. 

Can it get as big as Facebook and other popular social networks?

When you hear those predictions, you might wonder whether it is also worthwhile for real estate.

LinkedIn is a social media network where your chances of generating high-quality real estate leads are high.

Even though the lead cost of $105.20 is higher than on Facebook, you will likely have significantly lower costs per sale since the lead quality is higher, according to various statistics. 

This longer article will analyze the platform deeply and discuss its importance, essential statistics, benefits for real estate, and tips for using it efficiently, whether the organic or the paid lead generation approach.

 

What Is LinkedIn?

In one phrase, LinkedIn is basically Facebook for professionals and another social network.

In contrast to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the other networks, its focus is helping people make business connections.

But, of course, you can also do the standard things you might be used to doing on Facebook, such as sharing, liking content, and messaging other users.

When checking a profile, you will soon realize the rather professional structure of the network.

Here, your profile is instead a resume, where you can present your work experience, accomplishments, referrals, and recommendations.

Another professional feature is a career board, where you can search and apply for jobs.

The page you land on when you click “Home” is similar to Facebook’s news feed.

There, you will find posts published by other LinkedIn users, and you can also post your posts.

Again, similar to Facebook, you can decide who can see your posts (only your connections or just everyone (the public)).

When you click “My Network,” your existing network of connections is displayed. 

Here, you can look for other users to join your network and check if you have existing invitations from other users.

If you click “Jobs,” you will get to an extensive career site to search for and apply for jobs and/or research companies you might be interested in. 

Here, you can also get notified when there are new job offerings.

“Messaging” is again similar to Facebook Messenger, where you can chat with people in your network. 

You can also send messages to people outside your network using LinkedIn Premium. This is called “InMail.”

You can find your profile by clicking on “Me.” 

And then, you can add your resume with your career history, including your accomplishments, work experience, education, current location, and more.

It should be as shiny as a resume you would send over to the human resources department of a company. 

Why? 

You can assume and expect professional connections and potential recruiters to visit your profile and, of course, potential real estate leads you want to generate.

But more about optimizing your LinkedIn profile in a later section of this article.

 

How to Generate Real Estate Leads With LinkedIn The Organic Way

Let’s start with the organic way, which will cost you rather time than money.

1) Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile (3 Tips)

As you may be well aware, your LinkedIn profile is the first point of contact with potential real estate leads, making it vitally important to nail. 

Yet, it’s also a field rife with missed opportunities and commonly overlooked elements. 

Let’s delve deeper into what you can do to optimize your LinkedIn profile…

A Professional Headshot and Banner: 

First impressions matter, right? 

A professional headshot is essential. It’s like the gleaming “For Sale” sign in the yard. 

Your banner, on the other hand, is your chance to display a bit more personality or branding. 

So you may want to ask yourself whether your picture and banner are inviting enough.

Headline and Summary: 

This is where you share your value proposition. 

Your headline should be a snappy, bite-sized encapsulation of your professional identity. 

Your summary is your opportunity to elaborate on your skills, experience, and what you bring to the table. 

However, since this is basically real estate sales copy, you want to prioritize explaining what’s in it for your potential real estate leads and talk less about you.

Sure, you want to write about your skills, experience, etc… Still, as with features in copywriting, you want to align them with benefits for your potential clients.

So, both your headline and summary will benefit if you bring copywriting skills to the table.

Recommendations and Endorsements: 

These are like your homebuyer testimonials. 

Positive feedback from colleagues, clients, or partners can make a big difference in building trust. 

So it’s a good idea to actively seek recommendations and endorsements.

It wouldn’t be an article from Hacking Real Estate Marketing without also taking a critical view of things and making you aware of some pitfalls.

Profile optimization is essential, but it can also lead to tunnel vision. 

It’s easy to obsess over perfecting your profile and forget that LinkedIn is a networking tool, not just a digital resume.

Overemphasis on Self-Promotion: 

One pitfall to avoid is turning your profile into a non-stop self-promotion tool. 

Yes, you want to highlight your skills and accomplishments but remember that building connections involve listening and engaging with others.

Failing to Update Regularly: 

Too often, people set and forget their profiles. But LinkedIn is dynamic. 

Are you updating your profile regularly to reflect recent accomplishments, new skills, or changing career goals?

Overlooking SEO: 

LinkedIn is a search engine, much like Google. 

Are you incorporating relevant keywords in your profile to ensure the right people (buyer or seller prospects) find you?

Ignoring the Value of Authenticity: 

Many people lose sight of authenticity in seeking a polished, professional profile. 

Does your profile reflect who you are, not just what you think potential leads want to see?

Profile optimization is not just about looking good; it’s about looking real, and relevant, and constantly looking for improvement.

2) Building a Powerful Network with Linkedin

Building a powerful network on LinkedIn can be compared to building a thriving, connected community in a new housing development. 

It’s about more than just the number of houses, or in this case, connections. 

It’s about fostering a sense of community and meaningful relationships. But, as we all know, every silver lining has a cloud.

First, let’s look at the sunny side and what you can do to build a robust network for your organic real estate lead generation with LinkedIn…

Making the Right Connections: 

You wouldn’t invite just anyone to your housewarming party, would you? 

Likewise, you should be strategic about who you connect with on LinkedIn. 

Do they align with your business goals (e.g., real estate lead generation)? 

Are they in your industry or a complementary one (in the case of real estate cross-marketing)?

Again as with any other lead generation method, it’s about targeting the right audience and ideal clients.

Engaging with Your Connections: 

The best neighbors aren’t the ones who just wave from their porch; they’re the ones who stop and chat. Well, as long as they are not the overly needy ones who can’t stop talking…

So you want to comment on posts, share valuable real estate content, and participate in discussions. 

Personalized Connection Requests: 

Imagine you’re at a party, and someone walks up to you and says, “Hello, person, nice to meet you.” 

Not very engaging, right? 

So, personalizing your connection requests can increase the chances of them being accepted.

It’s the same with email marketing. You will also get a better open rate when you use the recipient’s name in the subject line.

Utilize Introductions: 

LinkedIn allows you to be introduced to a 2nd or 3rd-level connection through a mutual connection. 

This is like a friend introducing you to another friend at a social gathering.

Now let’s take a critical view on networking building with LinkedIn and potential pitfalls…

Quantity Over Quality: 

In the quest for a larger network, many people fall into the trap of connecting with everyone and anyone. 

But having a thousand connections means little, if none, are relevant or engaged. 

Are your connections meaningful? 

This can easily happen when you lose track of your goal with LinkedIn, which in our case, is generating real estate leads.

So connecting with everyone would be like targeting everybody in a lead generation campaign.

One-Way Communication: 

Networking isn’t just about broadcasting your content. 

It’s a two-way street that requires active listening, interaction, and engagement with others’ content. So you also want to ask yourself whether you “listen” as much as you “talk.”

Ignoring Offline Connections: 

In the digital age, forgetting about our offline relationships is easy. 

So, are you incorporating your real-world connections into your LinkedIn network?

Inconsistent Engagement: 

Building a robust network requires consistency. 

You can’t expect to disappear for months and pick up where you left off. Are you consistently present and engaging on LinkedIn?

 

3) Using an Engaging Content Strategy

As I covered when I wrote about 254 real estate content ideas, if you already do content marketing anyways, your work is already half done since you can also use it on LinkedIn.

Why?

Because if you have already produced videos or written articles, you can repurpose them on LinkedIn.

And here are four tips on using your real estate content on LinkedIn to drive engagement for your lead generation…

Value-Driven Content: 

Your content should be like a treasure trove of knowledge for your connections. 

Are you providing valuable insights, sharing interesting industry news, and offering helpful tips?

Again, this work will be much easier if you already have a content marketing strategy.

Diversified Content Mix: 

Just as variety is the spice of life, a mix of content keeps your LinkedIn profile interesting. 

So you want to use different content types, like posts, articles, infographics, and videos.

Suppose you are more focused on writing articles for your blog. 

In that case, you can repurpose them occasionally and convert them into short videos, for instance.

Regular Posting Schedule: 

Consistency is crucial to keeping your audience engaged and coming back for more. 

This is something basically all social media platforms have in common.

Their algorithms hook you with that.

Do you have a regular posting schedule that your connections can look forward to?

User Engagement: 

It creates a two-way dialogue when you engage with your audience, respond to comments, and ask for feedback. 

It also strengthens relationships. 

Are you having conversations, or are you just talking to people?

Now what about the pitfalls?

Overly Promotional Content: 

Yes, LinkedIn is a professional platform, but that doesn’t mean your content should be constant sales pitches. 

Are you creating genuine value or just promoting your real estate services?

Lack of Authenticity: 

Are you true to yourself and your brand in your content, or are you just echoing what everyone in your industry says?

Ignoring Audience Feedback: 

Audience engagement is a two-way street. 

If you’re not listening to your audience’s feedback and adjusting your content accordingly, you’re missing a key part of the content strategy puzzle. 

So you want o be responsive to your audience’s needs and interests.

Neglecting SEO Principles: 

I mentioned it earlier when I wrote about how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Since LinkedIn, like other digital platforms, is driven by algorithms, you want to use relevant keywords, engaging titles, and other SEO principles to ensure your content is discoverable.

4) Using LinkedIn Groups for Prospecting

You could envision LinkedIn Groups like local clubs or interest groups. 

It’s where like-minded individuals gather to discuss, share insights, and connect on specific topics. 

Yet, as with any social gathering, there are rules and pitfalls to avoid.

Let’s see what you can do to use them for your real estate lead generation…

Identifying Relevant Groups (Back to Audience Targeting): 

Like choosing the right neighborhood to live in, selecting the right groups to join on LinkedIn is crucial. 

Are these groups populated by your target audience or industry peers?

Active Participation: 

Groups are like community meetings. Simply showing up isn’t enough; you need to participate. 

This means sharing valuable insights, commenting on discussions, and starting conversations. Are you an active participant or a wallflower?

Building Authority: 

Regular, valuable contributions to group discussions can help establish you as a trusted authority. 

So here, too, you want to share your expertise in a way that benefits others and boosts your reputation.

Prospect Identification: 

The right LinkedIn Group can be a goldmine for real estate prospecting, offering a concentrated pool of potential leads. 

Are you tactfully identifying prospects and fostering relationships within the group?

Now, let’s talk about the pitfalls…

A “Salesy” Approach: 

You know them. I know them.

Those social media groups, where things get out of control, and you end up in a pile of spammy product and service posts with no engagement and interaction. The same happens on LinkedIn.

So you want to remember to provide value to the group and not simply try to sell your real estate services.

Irrelevant Groups: 

Joining groups without strategic thought can lead to wasted time and resources. 

It’s like targeting Bayboomers for an electronic music festival or a cross-fit competition in the age range between 25 and 40.

So you want to make sure that the groups you think of joining align with your lead generation goals and have a high likelihood of containing your ideal real estate clients. 

Inactive or Low-Engagement Groups: 

Not all groups are buzzing with activity. Joining inactive or low-engagement groups can be like shouting into a void. 

You want to check the group engagement levels before joining so you don’t end up in one of the spammy groups.

Time Commitment: 

Active participation in LinkedIn Groups takes time and effort. Are you prepared for the commitment or spreading yourself too thin?

By the way, this is generally true for the whole organic lead generation route with LinkedIn. 

It’s time-consuming because LinkedIn is about community and value, not just lead generation. 

5) Using LinkedIn Analytics

As with all lead generation and marketing endeavors, you want to know how they perform. 

And LinkedIn Analytics provides valuable insights into your content’s performance, followers’ demographics, and more. 

So using LinkedIn Analytics give you these benefits…

Understanding Your Audience: 

LinkedIn Analytics provides demographic data about your followers and page visitors. 

It’s like a survey of your neighborhood – who are your neighbors? What do they do? How can you better serve them?

Evaluating Content Performance: 

Analytics allows you to see how your content is performing. 

This data can help you understand what resonates with your audience, much like a successful open house can tell you what buyers in the area are looking for.

This data allows you to produce more of what has already worked.

Tracking Engagement Over Time: 

By monitoring trends, likes, shares, comments, and other engagement metrics, you can understand what strategies are working and how to optimize your efforts. 

Are you steadily building a community, or are you losing traction?

Learning From Your Competitors: 

LinkedIn provides data on how you stack up against similar pages. 

This can offer insights into how you might improve your strategy. How do you compare to others in your industry?

What about the pitfalls?

Data Overload: 

LinkedIn Analytics offers a wealth of data, but not all may be relevant to your goals (e.g., lead generation). 

Are you focusing on the metrics that matter, or are you getting lost in the data?

Misinterpreting Data: 

If you don’t have a data context, it can lead to false conclusions. So you want to consider all factors when interpreting your data.

Short-Term Focus: 

Getting caught up in the weekly or monthly analytics fluctuations is easy. 

But real estate, like LinkedIn (and any other content marketing effort), is a long game. 

Are you keeping an eye on long-term trends and not just short-term changes?

Ignoring Qualitative Feedback: 

While analytics offer hard numbers, they can’t capture everything. 

Qualitative feedback from your connections can provide invaluable insights that numbers can’t. 

Are you listening to what your connections are saying?

In a nutshell, LinkedIn Analytics can be a powerful tool in guiding your LinkedIn lead generation strategy. 

Still, it’s essential to focus on the right metrics, interpret the data correctly, and balance hard numbers with qualitative insights.

  

How to Generate Real Estate Leads With LinkedIn the Paid Way

Going the paid LinkedIn route to generate real estate leads can be an attractive alternative if you don’t want to spend too much time with the organic route.

However, just a heads-up, instead of time, you will spend money.

1) LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Content

Let’s delve into the fast-paced world of LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Content.

It’s like your billboard space in LinkedIn’s bustling “city,” but with a catch: you need to know who to target and how.

By the way, as you can see, targeting is one of the evergreen principles of (real estate) lead generation and marketing.

On my site, you will come across it over and over.

Now let’s start with the positives of this approach for your lead generation…

 

2) Audience Targeting Options

LinkedIn Ads offer incredible targeting capabilities. 

You can target based on the following (source):

• Locations
• Audience attributes (company, demographics, education, job, interests, and traits)
• Matched audiences (for retargeting campaigns)
• Audience size

 

3) Variety of Ad Types

LinkedIn provides different ad formats, including Sponsored Content (reach your audience in the newsfeed), Sponsored Messaging, LeadGen Forms (forms with pre-fill LinkedIn profile information), Text, and Dynamic Ads (classic display ads in LinkedIn’s right rail). 

Nevertheless, there are also downsides and pitfalls with this approach… 

Let’s delve into it.

 

High Cost

Compared to other platforms, LinkedIn Ads can be costly. 

According to this source, from 2023, you will pay $8 to $11 per click for LinkedIn Ads, $0.5 to $1 per send (sponsored messaging), and $33.80 per 1,000 impressions (e.g., sponsored content).

Toward the end of this article, I will give you a calculation and show you which paid method is likely the best.

By the way, the high costs don’t make this platform suitable for easy campaign testing. 

What you can do to mitigate the impact on your wallet is to test an ad campaign on less expensive platforms such as Facebook first with a similar target group, of course. 

For instance, it could be that you first test a particular ad copy or content and how it works regarding lead conversion rates.

Once you have a “campaign” winner, you can move from the less expensive (but likely lower lead quality platform) to LinkedIn.

 

Learning Curve 

Navigating LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager and creating effective ad campaigns requires some technical know-how and strategic thinking. 

So you must be prepared to invest time in learning or hiring a professional.

 

Organic LinkedIn Real Estate Lead Generation v.s. Paid

Now, let’s break it down and see how organic LinkedIn lead generation compares to the paid approach for real estate.

So, organic and paid strategies have their place in a well-rounded LinkedIn marketing approach for real estate lead generation. 

Organic strategies are key for building relationships and establishing credibility. 

In contrast, the paid approach can help increase visibility and reach a targeted audience quickly. 

 

12 LinkedIn Statistics Informing Your Decision on Real Estate Lead Generation

• There are 930 million LinkedIn users, of 224 million who come from the U.S. (source).
• 31% of users are older Millennials, 24% of users between 40 and 49, and 20% of Gen Z use LinkedIn (source).
• Concerning content marketing, LinkedIn is the number one channel for B2B marketers (source).
• You can expect a 2x to 5x higher return on ad spend (ROAS) on LinkedIn than on other social media platforms (source).
• B2B marketers (40%) rated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for generating high-quality leads (source).
• The best-performing article titles have 40 to 49 characters (source).
• LinkedIn is part of the digital marketing mix of B2B marketers in 92% of the cases. 97% use it for their content marketing (source), and 79% consider it an effective lead-generation method (source).
• It is better to upload videos separately on LinkedIn (if at all) because posts without videos perform better (source).
• LinkedIn is used by 41% of millionaires (source).
• Using a professional headshot in your profile will get 21 times more profile views and nine times more connection requests (source).
• According to a study, the average conversion rate of various LinkedIn Ads is between 5-15% (source).
• The best click-through rate receives the ad type of sponsored content with single image ads. It’s 0.56% (source).

 

 

Summing Up: 9 Fact-Based Performance Tips to Use LinkedIn Efficiently as a Realtor

From all the above, I can derive ten tips on how you can use LinkedIn efficiently for real estate lead generation:

1) Use it when your primary market and target audience is in the U.S. and if you also want to target high-net-worth individuals.

2) Post professional and good quality content regularly, ideally how-to & list posts, and don’t make the title longer than 49 characters

3) Use a good headshot profile picture to get 21 times more profile views.

4) When using the LinkedIn Advertising Platform, focus on sponsored content with single image ads since they get the highest click-through rates (0.56%). 

5) Take advantage of your LinkedIn Company page, where you want to add every detail about your business. 

You can also add a well-designed banner image for your page header.

6) Another page that can be beneficial is a showcase page, where you can provide more information about your real estate business.

A showcase page resembles a landing page and the company page of the real estate website. 

You can promote content, offers, and more on the showcase page.

7) To find local community members or users, you should also create or join LinkedIn groups related to real estate.

8) To find background information on your current leads and to identify new potential clients, you want to use the advanced search.

9) Finally, to know if you are using LinkedIn efficiently, you need to also check your LinkedIn analytics.

 

Is LinkedIn for Real Estate Worthwhile? 

When asking whether LinkedIn for real estate is worthwhile, the real question is whether it is good enough to generate new leads or new business.

So, in that case, we need to compare it to the metrics of other marketing channels and do some numbers crunching.

One good metric is the cost per lead (cost per acquisition).

So we would calculate the cost, including the costs per click, click-through rates, and the conversion rate on the landing page you use for real estate lead generation.

For this calculation, let’s focus on LinkedIn Ads with the highest click-through rate: sponsored content with single-image ads.

They get a click-through rate of 0.56%.

We also know from the above statistics that LinkedIn ads get a conversion rate between 5 and 15%. 

This wide range comes about because, according to the source for some, a conversion is the click of a button. For others, a conversion is a website visitor entering contact information in a lead capture form.

Let’s assume the lower 5% conversion rate since lead capture forms cause more “friction” than clicking a button, thus reducing the conversion rate. 

However, the 5% is still significantly higher than the general website conversion rates of 2% and 5% across various industries (an average of 3.5%) (source).

The last variable we need is the LinkedIn Ad cost for the single image ad.

While you can choose between different LinkedIn Ads bid types (e.g., by impression, click, send), for an easier calculation, let’s use costs per click.

The average cost per click is (ouchie) $5.26 (source)

Since we don’t bid on impressions, the click-through rate is basically irrelevant, and we need only the following two marketing performance data for the calculation:

• Website CVR: 5%
• CPC: $5.26

For a landing page with a lead conversion rate of 5%, you need 20 visits (1 divided by 5%). 

These visits are the clicks you need to get and thus buy from the LinkedIn single image ad.

Then logic dictates that you will pay $105.20 per lead (20 visits/clicks x $5.26 CPC).

Let’s compare this to the cost per lead you pay with Google Ads and Facebook Ads, which are $44.70 and $16.52, as discussed in my article about real estate lead costs.

At first glance, Facebook Ads look like the winner, and LinkedIn is the loser.

But before you jump to premature conclusions, don’t forget the differences in lead quality.

Based on the earlier statistics, you will likely need to generate significantly fewer leads from LinkedIn than from Facebook to close one real estate transaction.

So already, if you need 20 leads from Facebook (20 x $44.70) to have one high-quality lead that you can close and four from LinkedIn (4x$105.20), in that case, Facebook would be more expensive regarding your return on investment or return on ad spend.

The number of leads you need to close one sale not only depends on the lead quality but also on your sales skills. 

Because the best quality leads won’t cut it if you can’t close them.

It also depends on how good your landing page sales copy and other conversion-increasing factors are. 

Nevertheless, after this analysis and estimation, I conclude that LinkedIn is worthwhile for real estate lead generation. 

The argument favoring my conclusion is the reported higher lead quality and, thus, a likely lower cost per sale because you need fewer leads per closing.

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This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.

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