Remember “The Wall”?

For a long time, Facebook had its own merit, as did Instagram, Twitter and others. Now, LinkedIn adopted emojis, YouTube allows creators to share Stories…and every feature and function is seemingly universal.

So, what’s the best platform for real estate?

According to Pew Research, 73 percent of adults use YouTube, and 69 percent are on Facebook—the top two platforms for usage, and by a gigantic margin. (Instagram is the third most-utilized, at a distant 37 percent.)

Clearly, we’re hungry for video. According to HubSpot, 99 percent of us are watching videos, and 87 percent of us would like the brands we follow to give us more of them.

For YouTube’s impressive piece of the pie, however, it doesn’t have the highest rate of usage. That claim is Facebook’s, where 74 percent of adults check in daily—by far the most popular, according to Pew. (Instagram comes in second, at 63 percent, and Snapchat in third, at 61 percent.)

Despite the ad controversy, misinformation and issues pertaining to privacy, Facebook is hanging on to the majority of us, and it’s for a fundamental reason: connection. Through Facebook (or whichever platform’s your preference), we connect our experiences to those of our friends, and maintain relationships with them—and, form new ones, too.

Isn’t that what real estate’s all about?

The question, then, becomes not “What’s the best platform for real estate?”—they all have advantageous aspects—but “How should they be utilized?”

According to an RISMedia Social Media Survey, agents and brokers devote 1-4 hours to social media weekly. Depending on how you leverage that time, you could be engaging with your followers multiple times throughout the week. If, by Pew’s stats, we have a daily habit of logging onto social media, it behooves you, as a brand/business, to check in regularly, as well.

What does “checking in” entail? Your latest listing is undoubtedly valuable to you, but it’s also a disqualifier for the followers who aren’t immediately in need of your real estate services—and while engaging house-hunters is important, so is maintaining your referral relationships. According to the National Association of REALTORS®, 90 percent of buyers would call on their current REALTOR® for another transaction, or recommend them to others.

By that measure, “checking in” is necessary, and especially between transactions.

With that in mind, what matters are meaningful posts and videos—ones that not only have your branding so you can capture leads, but also impart important knowledge and takeaways, enhancing your overall value. With RISMedia’s ACESocial, you can accomplish that daily, with content automatically distributed to your social media, branded to you so you can engage leads and prompt referrals. Get started today.

Suzanne De Vita is RISMedia’s senior online editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at sdevita@rismedia.com.