Social Media can be an excellent addition to the marketing mix for any property or construction company.

But often, when you first start out using social media it can be difficult to generate an online community that is receptive to your messages.

Here are our 5 key tips for the first steps in creating an audience for your social media profiles;

1. Populate your profiles fully – This may sound too basic to mention but we encounter so many organisations that haven’t bothered to fully populate their online profiles.  It is definitely worthwhile spending that little extra time to add service and expertise information to your personal and company LinkedIn profile, make sure your Twitter biog is complete and appropriate, create a branded background for your Twitter and YouTube channels – it all creates a more complete online presence for your company.

2. Promote your online profiles, offline – Ensure that your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest etc profiles are referenced on all company communications.

By including links to your online profiles on your business card, letterhead or email footer you are pointing your everyday contacts to your online profiles.

3. Post regularly – Don’t be shy to post on a regular basis. You don’t need to keep to a strict timetable for posting but regular updates will keep you ‘tuned in’ and will certainly help you grow in confidence in the early days.

4. Search for relevant people to follow – On Twitter use the search.twitter.com function or services such as FollowerTwonk to search for people talking about property or construction or terms that are specifically relevant to your business. If people are talking about your industry then they may well be worth a follow.

5. Use LinkedIn…a lot – LinkedIn is Ideal for networking with industry peers, potential collaborators and prospective clients and is certainly worth exploring…join industry groups on LinkedIn to create and participate in discussions, by participating this helps you become an authoritative voice in your discipline.