In real estate, social media has become an important marketing tool. From promoting your listings and services to sharing educational and informative content with your sphere of influence, having a multichannel presence is essential for agents everywhere.

In a time where consumers mindlessly scroll through their feeds, having some fun with your marketing methods can attract and engage even the hardest-to-reach prospects. In addition to educational and promotional posts, it can be helpful for real estate professionals to mix some humor into their social strategy.

But how do you combine the professionalism of real estate marketing with the whimsy of relatable and engaging content? Real estate memes! That’s right…these playful and humorous images can help you not only attract a new audience to your page, but also keep your followers, clients and prospects engaged and entertained—especially millennials, the largest generation of homebuyers.

According to Forbes, there are more than 3 billion social media users, and at least 60% are looking for funny and entertaining content. Millennials, on average, look at an estimated 20-30 memes every day, which can ultimately lead to a 60% increase in engagement with 10x the reach. But no matter the generation or demographic, these images use positive emotions and humor to break the ice, engage with your audience and even increase your brand exposure.

Here are some tips for agent, brokers and brands who are looking into using real estate memes in their social strategy:

Develop Your Meme Library
Before you dive into posting real estate memes, it’s important to curate a library of memes that you can reference for the right purposes, whether it be leveraging existing memes or creating your own. Memes, especially those that are trending, have a short lifespan; be sure to collect enough so you don’t have to reuse the same one twice. Giphy, for example, has thousands of free, shareable memes and gifs that you can share across social media, blogs or even in emails and newsletters. Imgflip and Canva are two free platforms you can use to create and develop your own unique memes. They both offer different templates, fonts and even images that you can choose from. Imgflip also has a library of existing memes that you can choose from. You can search for real estate-specific memes, or simply look to see what’s trending and utilize it to fit into your post.

Match Your Brand Identity 
If you decide to use memes in your social strategy, be sure that they align with your brand identity and voice. If you are a niche or luxury brand, find memes that speak to a more specific or eloquent humor. Remember, these are still a form of marketing, so you want to be sure you are speaking to the right people. Real estate memes are often shared based on real-life concepts and situations. In real estate, many agents know those awkward moments, from a seller being present at an open house to asking for referrals, so use them! Be sure to stay away from any inappropriate language and imagery, as this can hurt your brand and potentially cause you to lose your audience, ultimately losing potential prospects and existing clients.

Understand Your Audience
Just like planning out your other posts, such as articles and resources that you intend to share, you want to study your audience and the demographics of your clients and prospects to ensure you are reaching the right people with the right content. If they don’t like your content, they may not share it within your network or they may simply unfollow you and move on to another agent. For example, if you’re trying to reach millennials or Gen-Z buyers, memes can be a trendy and engaging form of content that will draw attention to your page. However, if your audience is an older demographic, and that is who you are targeting, there is a chance that memes can make you unrelatable. Relatability is important for real estate agents, especially on social media. Look into your insights, get to know the people who frequent your pages and share your content, making sure you remain genuine and authentic in your posts.

Avoid Politics 
Memes are also a fun way to make lighthearted jokes on social media. However, you never want to take a joke too far, or even touch on a subject that can create hostility and invite uncomfortable or unnecessary conversation. Politics is a topic that all brands and agents should stay far away from, both in the memes you share and the rest of the content you post. By diving into too many divisive topics, you can split or alienate your audience, which may ultimately lead them elsewhere. Avoid using images of political figures, as well as any topics that focus on politics, such as highlighting a specific political party or weighing in on a local or national election.

Here are some examples of how you can use memes in your real estate social media marketing plan below!

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Check out the latest ACESocial Blog for more memes you can share today!

Paige Brown is RISMedia’s content editor. Email her your real estate news ideas to pbrown@rismedia.com.