Last week I presented at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention on how real estate professionals can leverage LinkedIn to generate more sales leads and expand awareness of their employer’s brand.
The reality is that most appraisers only have their job title on LinkedIn, nothing more. They do not realize that people are increasingly searching for local professional services, such as appraisals, mortgages and real estate agents on LinkedIn, similar to Yelp and the Yellow Pages. They are also not aware that Wikipedia and LinkedIn profiles are frequently at the top of Google search results. With 500 million members, you cannot afford to have a vacant LinkedIn profile. Social selling is using professional social media to add value by posting thoughtful content and answering prospect questions until they are ready to purchase.
Appraisers can increase sales leads with an optimized profile that includes keywords, accomplishments, professional photos, videos, website links, email, phone number, and a call to action. It is cheaper and more effective than spending thousands for online advertising or website SEO. See a mortgage broker sample LinkedIn profile.
Adding relevant keywords to your profile is the first and most impactful step towards increasing visibility. The images below detail “mortgage” related skills preloaded into LinkedIn. All you need to do is add words like “appraising” to your profile.
Our team created the “LinkedIn Visibility Maximizer Checklist” infographic to make you aware of the new settings that can give your profile a boost in Google and LinkedIn search result rankings.
Highlights:
- Complete profiles, known as All-Star, are 27x more likely to be found in recruiter searchers and 3x more likely to appear in other LinkedIn searches.
- Insert hard skill keywords such as valuation, appraiser, real estate appraiser thereby increasing your chances when people are searching for those talents.
- Select yes to the “Open to New Opportunities” setting and make all your profile visibility settings “Public.”
- Allow everyone on LinkedIn to see your email address to motivate the viewer to contact you.
- People are visual creatures. Adding images like a headshot photo, business-oriented background or chart illustration of your work are critical to maximizing engagement and building a memorable personal brand. No matter how strong your digital resume may be, its impact is enhanced by combining it with dynamic graphics that visually tell your story.
- Highlight your quantifiable accomplishments and add a call-to-action to create excitement and interest.
After your profile is enhanced, you can enroll in LinkedIn’s free ProFinder service to receive requests for quotes from people seeking all types of professional services, including residential and commercial appraising. We hear from many organizations generating significant revenue from ProFinder.
Be sure to abide by the compliance and social media policies of your company and regulatory organizations.
Do conform to government regulations and social media policies of your organization, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other agencies. A good resource is this Social Media Compliance for Lenders presentation and the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule.
A professional digital profile that stands out and brings people to you should be part of your business development strategy. As President of Klaxos, a company that has been retained by Keller Williams Realty, Bloomberg, Gartner, Visa and others to transform the LinkedIn profiles of ALL SALES AND EXTERNAL FACING STAFF from a business card to a lead generating webpage.
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