Vicky  0:00  

We saw a great like a really nice increase in professional content and good photography and good videos and all that stuff. And that’s important. But also what’s equally as important is the user generated content and the things that are coming from your audience. So we’ve always been huge advocates of like homeowner photography, and like happy homeowners. Or say you have a contest as an Instagram contest, and you have a new model home open and you want your people who are visiting the model home to take pictures and share them on social and tag you and use hashtag and all those things. That is so great that user generated content is so great for showcasing that. Not only are you a huge advocate of your brand, but other people love your brand, so much that they are willing to take up prime real estate on their own social media accounts, and share your content on their social media accounts.

Intro  1:18  

Hi, and welcome to building perspective with Matt Riley and Molly Elkman.

We’re here to bring value to you and your team by exploring all things sales and marketing related, all from different perspectives.

Chelsey  1:31  

Hello, people of Building Perspective. You’ve got Chelsey Keenan here as your host. Oh my god, I can’t believe they let me do this. They’re gonna regret it. Just kidding. And I’ve got Vicky, you all know, are you all love her – Our social media specialists… drumroll please, Vicky Yay.

Vicky  1:55  

Hi, I’m so excited to be here. It’s been a long time, I think I was on one of the first episodes of season one. So this is exciting to be back in season two, talking about social media,

Chelsey  2:07  

back in season two back in action. So this episode, we’re really focusing on social media updates, so much as always happening in social media. But so much has happened over the first quarter even of this year that we thought we needed an entire episode just dedicated to social media.

So Vicky just gave us the biggest thing on everybody’s mind right now is the iOS update. It just rolled out, give us a quick update. What’s happened in there,

Vicky  2:42  

huh? The elephant in the room, we have to talk about it. It’s pretty big deal. So pretty much what happened is that Apple and Facebook are in this huge tech war. With the iOS 14 update. Apple is enacting this prompt the status tracking prompt before you enter any app. And what happens is, as a user, you can either opt in or opt out to have the app track you. And what’s interesting is that some of the early data is showing that only 4% of users in America are opting in to be tracked. Which is not. Yeah, not honestly very surprising. Because if you would enter an app, and the first thing it asks you is, hey, do you want this app to track you? It’s, it’s almost to me like going into a bar and the bouncer is like, hey, do you want this guy that’s standing by the bathroom to follow you? No, I would say no to that. But I mean, there is a benefit to being tracked by apps, it’s that your ads are more personalized to you. So that is what people are missing out on. But I know with all the documentaries and like the social network that came out the other month or so it makes sense that people are very cautious and wary and like don’t want their data to be so available to these platforms.

Chelsey  4:06  

Yeah, I totally understand that too. And I mean, obviously, from a selfish perspective on our side, we want them to opt in. But I totally understand why some people are opting out. But Vicky, why don’t why don’t you tell the good people of building perspective, what group two is doing to combat what’s happening right now?

Vicky  4:29  

Yeah, definitely. So a lot of things are being affected optimization, measurement targeting especially. Well, the nice thing is that surprisingly, Facebook is being pretty helpful. They are providing us with this whole resource centers, so they’re updating us in real time, like what’s happening, what do you need to do to make sure your ads are running at like their most optimized in their most optimized form? The biggest thing that we’ve seen so far, and it’s only been Been like two weeks. So we’re still collecting data at this point. But the biggest thing that we’ve seen is a decrease in audience size, especially retargeting audiences, just because with so many users opting out of being tracked, Facebook has less access to their behavior outside of the app. And what that means is that our retargeting audience size, audience sizes are a little bit smaller. What we’re doing to combat that is expanding the areas that we’re targeting, layering different types of retargeting audiences. So people who have engaged with your profile in Facebook, like on the app, you can target them, we can add, look alike audiences to kind of combat that and make the audience’s size a little bigger. And we can also add in CRM lists, because that’s our go to they never fail, like, that’s the data that we have, and Facebook can easily match it to their audience base. So those are some of the things that we’re doing.

Chelsey  6:03  

So we’ve got it under control, basically, watch as much as we can. And when Facebook comes out with updates, we’ll give you updates. So follow along. We’ll let you know. Exactly, we

Vicky  6:16  

had a nice intro blog, and we’re keeping it updated as the as the punches are rolling. So stay tuned for more.

Chelsey  6:24  

All right, I think it’s safe to say we’re gonna hop off the iOS train right now. And jump into our next topic, which I know is a topic you’re obsessed with, if you haven’t checked out our tic toc. I know we’ve been talking about it a lot recently. But we’ve been talking about a lot because it’s amazing because of biki space, honestly. But this topic, the next topic we wanted to talk about was short form video and how much it means to you, Vicki. So here’s Vicki’s love letter to short form video.

Vicky  7:02  

Yes, this is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. I I’m mostly because I’m just obsessed with going on TikTok and seeing all the cool things that people are doing in this platform. But also, I think that’s the way that consumers are trending. And that’s the way that content is trending. Is this easily digestible, like very quick, little commitment. Like, it’s 60 seconds long. If they’re if you’re watching a video, and you get tired of it, it’s like okay, well, 60 seconds of my life, like, it’s not gonna make or break me here. It’s just, it’s very creative. The opportunities are endless, like you can do so much within these apps. Like you don’t even need to know really how to create videos or edit videos. I mean, it definitely helps. But the tools that are offered in the app are so helpful, and so easy to use that you can easily create really cool stuff, like really cool videos. Pretty much where I see short form video going is I think it’s going to take over, for sure. I mean, I have seen Facebook doing a push for longer video content. And I think that’s them not being as successful with their reels and yeah, compete with TikTok and saying, Okay, you know what, we’re just going to take this and go the opposite direction. We’re going to make videos long again. And take

Chelsey  8:31  

time for that, honestly.

Vicky  8:33  

Absolutely not. And I think TikTok is growing really quickly. And that’s interesting to see how it’s gonna play out eventually. But short form video is the future in my opinion. I think everybody has the tools. Everybody has an iPhone. It’s so easy to make it definitely now’s the time to hop on that train and start getting, start getting good at it. And eventually, your content will be fire.

Chelsey  8:58  

Yeah, and no TikTok is not going to make or break your company. It’s not going to just because you haveTikTok now, it’s not going to combat the iOS platform advertising. It’s not going to take over the ads that you have on Facebook. But it’s it’s just one extra place to be and it’s really not that much more effort. I mean people on tik tok except that the video quality is not fantastic. It kind of makes Tiktok what it is that it doesn’t have to be the most highly overproduced video out there just as long as you’re putting out good information. Which leads us to our next point, which is the education within short born video and the education push that’s going across social media right now from Facebook trying to kind of shut down fake news articles I saw today I saw an article come out that Facebook is putting out Some blockers on people sharing articles that they haven’t read through entirely yet, which is so funny, like amazing to me, but really drives home the idea of education on social media and true education on social media. And if you are on TikTok, especially, you can see that you learn you don’t just scroll aimlessly and mindlessly there. I know Vicky and I follow this one Australian realtor who gives the best new home tips and new home buyer tips that I have ever ever seen.

Vicky  10:41  

Yes, Jared, he’s so great. I mean, I I feel like I’ve learned a lot just from watching him. And I’ve been working in the new home industry for four years now. I guess. Yeah. I’m not gonna say I’ve learned more from my TikTok videos with Jarrod, I’ve definitely learned a lot. I

Chelsey  10:57  

will link him will link him in the show notes so you can check him out. But there’s just so much opportunity for education. Right, Vicky?

Vicky  11:06  

I think that’s I think that’s part of the, like main appeal of tik tok is that you go on there and you’re not just wasting time, like you actually leave the platform and you leave with something useful that you can take away and you can apply it to your own life, whether it’s like cooking skills, or I’m on Sewing Tick tock, I see a lot of people making like masks and clothes and all these things, just different skills that people are showcasing. And I think it’s a really cool thing to see. And especially, I’m not saying that people don’t go on social social media to like just have a mindless moment and like break away from the stress of their day and all the thoughts that they’ve been having. And it’s it’s nice to have those kind of mindless breaks. But once you see that your screen time is that like five hours and it’s like, oh, wow, I really just spent five hours doing absolutely nothing. I think it’s really trending in that direction where people are going to social media and going to places like Twitter and tik tok and Facebook and looking for information and different ways that they can learn and I think there are so many opportunities, especially for home builders, especially in this market. Yeah, where the sales are just so high in the market so hot that a lot of builders are having trouble keeping up so now’s the time not to be so salesy and like not to push such a strong message of action but rather to educate your buyers and educate your followers and share different types of information whether it’s finance, the building process, the design process, all these different things that people especially first time homebuyers don’t really know about but it would really serve them and it would also serve you as the builder in return to have a more educated buyers so it really it’s just beneficial for everybody.

Chelsey  12:56  

And I know a lot of you out there maybe tik tok naysayers I was one. But just check it out. Do yourself a favor, take five minutes. Even if you just look at the homebuilding hashtag or if you just look up Jarrod the realtor, just check it out. Just give it a shot. I mean, honestly, it’s here to stay. So stop fighting it and stop acting like Gen Z. It’s not Gen Z’s main form of digestible material, because it is and they will eventually be in the home market. So just check it out. It’s not it’s not going to hurt you. If anything, you’ll learn something. Honestly, if you’ll learn something about a new True Crime podcast, you’ll learn something about housing or you’ll learn something about cooking. Just check it out.

Vicky  13:54  

We’re all the above. Yeah, literally all the above. And you can definitely reuse, if not the exact video content from tik tok. Just make sure to remove that watermark. If you’re going to share it to other places, you can use that idea like you can take the same ideas that you’re using on tik tok and adjust them for different platforms. Like it’s really I love social media, because it’s just kind of taking ideas and seeing how you can apply them to different spaces and different audiences. And I think TikTok is a great exercise on that. And it’s Yeah, it’s a really useful tool for sure.

Chelsey  14:27  

TikTok is literally the one place where it’s acceptable to plagiarize almost like it’s acceptable to take everybody else’s ideas and transform it a little bit to make it your own.

Vicky  14:43  

Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure not everybody seen this, but we did on our tic toc. Chelsey recorded her making herself making the famous fetta pasta. Great video and we kind of transformed it. We said how can we Hop on this trend and make it relevant to homebuilding. So obviously, it’s kind of a stretch, like we’re making the famous fetta. Delicious, and I’ve heard really great things. But we also wanted to spin it to be helpful to our audience, which is home builders. And we want us to kind of inspire them and give them an idea, like, Oh, you can hop on a social media trend, and you can make it your own. And you can make it relevant to your audience. Which for homebuilders would be homebuyers. So yeah, it’s um, it’s a fun time.

Chelsey  15:32  

It is fun. It’s, it’s the most fun that I’ve had on social media. It’s a it’s the most fun I’ve had on social media. Yeah, I’ll say that. I’ll say that as a blanket statement right then in there.

Vicky  15:44  

I’ll second that.

Chelsey  15:45  

I don’t think any will I don’t think Vicky would ever expect me to say that.

Vicky  15:50  

Yeah, we were both pretty. Pretty opposed at first, but now we’re fully entrenched in our fully supporting

Chelsey  15:57  

biggest fan, if anyone wants to talk to us about it separately. more than welcome to have an open conversation about all opinions and all ideas. They’re all welcome. But know that they’re your ideas are welcome. But there is one right opinion and said, tick tock is a lot of fun.

Vicky  16:17  

That’s the truth.

Chelsey  16:18  

All right. Moving on from TikTok. We wanted to talk a little bit, Vicki, I know you wanted to bring up some stuff about Instagram and some cool new things. So tell the people

Vicky  16:31  

Yep, definitely. So along with the educational aspect that we’re seeing really coming up on social media, I think one great way to drive some of your points home and you can start educating within certain platforms like Instagram. But it’s kind of hard to include all the information that you want to that you need to and also that users might find helpful. So one thing that I’ve really been loving to see lately is the Instagram, Lincoln bio. So say you post so many different kinds of content, you post blogs, you post homes that are in different locations, you post different parts of your process, and they all lead to different parts of your website. And I think on Instagram, so we all know, you cannot include an actual live link in an Instagram post. It just doesn’t go anywhere, it just shows up as text, it’s really useless. Actually, if you’re still doing that, please stop, get rid of the link, you just want to have one single link in your bio. And one really cool tool is it’s called a link tree, or one of the brands that does it. It’s called link tree. But basically, it’s a landing page that you have in your link in bio and your Instagram bio. And on that landing page, you have separate links built out to go to the different parts of your website that you’re driving traffic to on Instagram. So say you post a blog post Instagram, then you can say read more at the Lincoln bio at the end of the caption. And then that way users will visit your profile, which we we like to see that’s good engagement. When somebody visits your actual Instagram profile from a post, it means they’re interested in seeing more, and that’s great. So once they get to your profile, they’ll click in the Lincoln bio. And rather than just having one like blanket link to your website, where then users have to go and navigate your whole website and dig through the blog and try to find all these different things. They can just go to the Lincoln bio, and they can easily click on the blog, the the Houston communities like wherever you’re building, it’s really it’s a great tool, I think to have to kind of make the consumers journey or the viewers journey a lot easier and a lot more simplified. Because I know like, if I have to go find a link like I want it to be as easy as possible by your whole gigantic website like I’m probably just going to click off and keep scrolling because I’m I’m in like easy consuming, moody mode. I just want to keep scrolling and have an enjoyable time like okay, if this is easy, I’ll click to it. But if it’s gonna take a hop, skip and a jump to get there. I’m out I gotta go.

Chelsey  19:22  

And for our builders, for anyone that is listening, we are working on different hosting options because you do have to post the link tree somewhere for the Lincoln bio. So working on all of this with you for you, but wanted to just keep you up to date on the cool new things that we are working on.

Vicky  19:46  

Yeah, in the works in the works for sure.

Chelsey  19:50  

Definitely. Um, that is it’s a it’s a really, really great option and it’s been made a lot easier for Were people through link tree because a lot of times you had to pay for this, you had to pay to be able to have all of the different grids in there like e news, I know they have that. But it is so easy if you do a post about an available home to go Lincoln bio, and then all of a sudden, people don’t have to go to Lincoln bio, which leads to your homepage, and then they have to go to the available homes page and find the home you’re looking for. Now we can have an available homes link in the link tree, and people can still click the link in the bio still get to the website.

Vicky  20:36  

Yeah, it’s about making the customer’s journey as easy as possible. And it always has been that way. And this is just one more tool to really solidify that and to just make everything as simple and as little room for error as possible. So that’s our plan.

Chelsey  20:55  

Like we said, People can’t even pay attention for long form video anymore. So why do you think they’re going to pay attention through multiple clicks through your website, which they can easily navigate easily?

Vicky  21:10  

They’re not, nope. Do not give people a reason to leave. That’s the thing.

Chelsey  21:19  

All right. So we’ve been talking about the customer experience we’ve been talking about how to make them feel more at ease through going to your website and how to make it easier for them. One last topic we want to talk about also pertains to the customer. You g see. Tell me about Vicky.

Vicky  21:42  

Yes. Okay, so user generated content is not a new trend, per se. But we’ve definitely seen a rise in user generated content in recent times, people are getting very comfortable with social media, they’re using it to communicate, they’re using it to build community. They’re using it in many different ways. And for sure, we always want to see, especially our builder clients investing in high quality content and great photography, especially since especially around the beginning of the pandemic, when everything was shut down. And everything had to be digital, we saw a great like a really nice increase in professional content, and good photography and good videos and all that stuff. And that’s important. But also what’s equally as important is the user generated content and the things that are coming from your audience. So we’ve always been huge advocates of like homeowner photography, and like happy homeowners. Or say you have a contest as an Instagram contest, and you have a new model home open and you want your people who are visiting the model home to take pictures and share them on social and tag you and use hashtag and all those things. That is so great that user generated content is so great for showcasing that. Not only are you a huge advocate of your brand, but other people love your brand, so much that they are willing to take up prime real estate on their own social media accounts, and share your content on their social media accounts. And it really, it’s proof of quality of your services that you have to offer proof of your product like your homes are so beautiful that they are just compelled to share it to their or their feeds. And it really solidifies the trust that we’re all trying to build on social media with your audience. So it’s, it’s just great all around.

Chelsey  23:42  

Absolutely. And this topic is so important and so special in building brand loyalty, to make people come back and buy more homes even from you. But it’s so special that we’re having an entire episode dedicated to it in June. And our great great builder friend Mauri from Wayne Homes is going to be joining us to talk about her culture at Wayne homes and user generated content because they have more user generated content than any builder I’ve ever ever worked with. They get tagged multiple times a day and people posting stories and pictures of of their homes being built or their kids in their homes. It’s it’s amazing and it’s incredible the culture that they built within their team and how they’ve expanded that further to their buyers to make their buyers want to just continuously share about their homes on social media. And it’s not even like I said it’s not even when they buy their homes. It’s way past that point when they put new furniture in their homes or they have A new baby that they bring into the home. They still tag Wayne homes as if it’s like a friend or family member. I know it’s it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. And I’m so so excited to talk to Mari about it on the podcast. So be on the lookout for that one because she is you think I have energy? Oh my god, wait to listen to Mari she is a She’s amazing. And you’re gonna love listening to her. So be sure to tune into that one

Vicky  25:29  

cannot wait for that episode. Yeah. And that’s just like building a great relationship with your buyers is the most important thing because really building a home is so exciting and who wouldn’t be excited to share that on their on their social media so

Chelsey  25:42  

and that goes way beyond social to like it’s it’s vital. And it’s important to social and that’s where user generated content is generated. But it goes way beyond that into what you do on a daily basis for your buyers.

Vicky  26:01  

Definitely. And I can’t wait to hear what Mauri has to say about that.

Chelsey  26:05  

Me neither I’m interviewing her and I can’t wait to hear. All right, Vicky, any other social updates before we depart this podcast episode?

Vicky  26:20  

Um, I think we covered

Chelsey  26:24  

the topic a lot in 25 minutes.

Vicky  26:27  

Yeah, we got we hit the main points that needed to be discussed this time. Um, I have

Chelsey  26:32  

time keyword. Yeah, I

Vicky  26:34  

mean, you know, it’s always changing. There’s always something new. Um, I will say just, I know a lot of people are probably a little concerned that news is making the iOS 14 updates seem really terrifying. But it’s not that bad. Facebook has definitely done worse in the past, at least. There’s always an obstacle in the way of, of advertiser success, but we know how to get over them. And we always do. So definitely. Don’t worry about it. Keep focusing on the fundamentals. keep focusing on the creative, the messaging, the marketing, funnel, just all those things that are so important to a strong marketing strategy, and especially a strong social media strategy.

Chelsey  27:24  

Yeah. And for once, with this iOS update, the housing industry seems to be the ones least affected by the update. Because we don’t track as many events as e commerce or other industries that are making ads. I agree. But I still, of course, if anyone wants to talk to us about it, if you want us to calm you down, have a nice Zen conversation about it. We are more than welcome to talk to you about iOS 14. And any other topic we talked about today. Or any other topic that’s on your mind about social media. So our emails will be in the show notes. Reach out. Obviously, we always want to talk.

Vicky  28:12  

Yes, and don’t forget to follow us on TikTok Group Two advertising.

Chelsey  28:17  

Yeah, that’s your that’s your podcast homework. Go Go check out TikTok and then report back with three fun videos, fun educational videos that you saw.

Vicky  28:30  

Love that.

Chelsey  28:30  

That’s your homework. Never thought you’d get homework from building perspective. Did you?

Vicky  28:37  

Basically we’re back in school.

Chelsey  28:39  

Yeah, pretty much. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We can’t wait to see you on the next episode. I hope everybody didn’t regret making me host Oh, geez. They probably do now. All right. talk to y’all later. Bye.