Decoding Real Estate
Decoding Real Estate
Build Confidence, Captivate Viewers and Convert Them Into Leads With Chelsea Peitz
In this episode of Decoding Real Estate, we welcome real estate’s go-to guide for social media marketing, Chelsea Peitz. As a consultant and coach, Chelsea specializes in camera-first branding and social media strategies. She frequently speaks to real estate agents, teams and companies on topics ranging from disruptive innovation, social media trends and video-friendly platforms such Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
Join hosts Reggie Nicolay and Genie Willett as they chat with Chelsea about her unique journey from REALTOR® to social media maven, combining her background in clinical psychology and passion for neuroscience to create a powerful marketing approach.
You’ll hear all about Chelsea's "Three Cs" strategy for creating videos that connect: Confidence, Conversions, and Captivate. These “Cs” focus on building camera confidence, creating content that leads to conversions and captivating new audiences. Get tips on how to boost your on-camera presence by practicing regularly, embracing authenticity and finding joy in connecting with others online.
After listening, you’ll boost your camera confidence with the one-to-one video technique, which involves sending personalized video messages to potential clients. You’ll also understand how direct messaging can benefit your social media algorithms and create an omnipresent feeling without constant content creation.
Don't miss this episode of Decoding Real Estate with guest Chelsea Peitz!
Decoding Real Estate is hosted by Reggie Nicolay and Genie Willett.
Hello and welcome to decoding real estate, a podcast from Realtors Property Resource. I'm your host, Reggie Nicolay, and I'm joined by my co host, Genie Willett.
Genie Willett:I've been looking forward to this topic for a long time, and we have such a fabulous guest to take a deep dive into the world of social media marketing in real estate. Chelsea pipes is a social media marketing Maestro that 10 times fast. She's so knowledgeable, relatable and just honestly fun.
Reggie Nicolay:Absolutely. Chelsea is a trailblazer on a mission to make sure real estate and mortgage pros realize online marketing can be both simple and enjoyable. Her focus lies in creating genuine content, making data driven moves without experiencing burnout, and naturally having a good time while you're doing it.
Genie Willett:I loved hearing Chelsea's journey into the world of social media. She started off as a realtor before social media was really even a thing. apps like Snapchat came onto the scene and she found herself connecting through video with others in her industry in ways she really never saw coming. Which then led her to research how technology can actually help forge authentic relationships and build trust.
Reggie Nicolay:Yes, I mean, that experience combined with her background in clinical psychology, and her love for neuroscience became key components in her approach to social media marketing. With her unique insights into human connections and camera confidence. She wrote a book called talking in pictures, which focuses on building trust through technology.
Genie Willett:So today, we get to explore Chelsea's three C's strategy for helping camera shy people confidently create content that leads to conversions and captivates new audiences. We'll delve deep into how these tactics can transform your social media presence.
Reggie Nicolay:So fasten your seat belts and get ready as Chelsea takes us on a deep dive into the nuances of engaging marketing tactics crafted specifically for the real estate industry. Let's level up our social media game with the amazing Chelsea Peitz Hey, Chelsea, a big warm welcome to the decoding real estate podcast. We're beyond thrilled to have you on the show.
Chelsea Peitz:Yeah, I'm excited to be here to we're all going to be talking about our favorite things, real estate, humans and content. So I'm ready to go ready to dive in. Thanks for having me.
Reggie Nicolay:That's right. And you know, Jeannie, and I can't wait to get into the nitty gritty of your three C's of social media. But first, I want to hear more about your journey. And the magical aha moment when you realized the game changing potential a video in real estate marketing.
Chelsea Peitz:Yes, it was a very interesting story that literally changed the trajectory of my personal life, my career. And it's it's something that I love to share with people because I grew up without the Internet. I grew up without social media. I was a realtor 23 years ago, and social media had not been invented yet. And I was a full time realtor pretty much for the entirety of my career. And social media kind of was a thing. But it certainly wasn't where it's at now. So I never envisioned that I would be teaching anyone about how to utilize social media. Because I didn't grow up with the Internet of Things and not a digital native. And so if that related to resonates with anyone that listening, it absolutely is something that you can learn to embrace. And you can learn to embrace it on your own terms, which is something that not a lot of other coaches talk about. So I'm really happy to kind of throw that disruption in there. But my story started on with an app called Snapchat Believe it or not, of course, I was using all the things like Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat came on the scene. And this was probably about eight or so years ago, maybe a little bit longer. And people forget that before Snapchat, there was really no video there was like YouTube. But there wasn't these short little snippets where you were just talking to people like they were your friends, you are creating content, probably long form that you were putting on YouTube. And it was most likely tutorial based content, and people would go there and search for it. And they would find your content, which is great. And Snapchat when you opened it, there was no feed. There was literally nothing to scroll through. And people were like, well, what the heck is this? And so it opened to a camera. And the camera really forced people to create content and nine times out of 10 it was people actually face to camera. And so what was happening is we were creating content with our face in it and we were talking and we were talking to other people sometimes you didn't even know who you were talking to. And what happened is after a while I started connecting with other real State humans on that app and I started feel like I knew them, which was really wild to me. Because you know, I am a responsible parent who does not meet strangers on the internet. And I found myself really feeling like a connection and a friendship. And I remember telling my husband one day when he walked in for work, and I said, Oh, my gosh, you're never gonna believe what happened to Shannon and her kids. And he's like, Oh, my gosh, what happen? He's like, but wait, who Shannon? And like, Oh, my friend from Snapchat, and he's laughing. He's like babies, like, those are real people. Those are just people on the internet. And I'm like, no, no, these are people that I know that they are friends. And so we kind of all felt that way in this group. And so we decided one day, to have this wild idea, we were gonna get on a plane, and all of us were gonna go meet each other in Utah. So we ended up going to Park City, and we met each other. And the wildest thing happened, we sat down in Starbucks, and we just started talking, like, we picked up on a conversation because we literally just had within Snapchat. And so all of that got me thinking it got me back to my roots, because I was actually going to be a therapist. And so my degree is in clinical psychology, I love neuroscience and how people interact and connections. And so I said, There's got to be something here. And so I went down this rabbit hole of a year's worth of research. And I found that truly, our brain has no idea if you're talking to somebody on a screen mean, or if they're sitting right in front of you. And in fact, my theory is that because people are able to consume your content on their own terms, sometimes not even letting you know that they are consuming, it absolutely accelerates this feeling of I already know you. And it creates trust, and you can be human through technology and create real relationships. And so I wrote a book about that called talking and pictures. And the keynote was a little bit hard to sell for a while until the pandemic happened. And everybody was actually talking through technology. And so yes, my my thesis, my passion has been, you know, creating content that can make a stranger feel like they already know you and how we build trust through technology, and how our brain works and all the science behind it. So that is how I got started in it. I did not plan to it changed my life. And you know, what's really cool, I still talk to those people every single day.
Genie Willett:Oh, my God, I love that. That's so fascinating, the, like trajectory behind it. And you're right, we do feel like, as we're listening to people on stories and videos that we know them, right, like, we start to feel like they're friends, I feel like there are people that I follow that I absolutely reference in real life that do not know me, I'm not talking to them, right? This sort of led to your three C's framework that we're really excited to talk about, that you've developed for growing businesses using video. So why do you think what are the three C's? And why do you think these are essential for real estate agents.
Chelsea Peitz:So I talk a lot about the ideas of, you know, showing up on on camera and being authentic. And I'll just be honest with you my two least favorite words, because they're overused and under explained our authenticity and value, because everyone's like, Yeah, gotta be authentic in your content, you got to show up and be you on camera. And I'm like, that's really difficult. And I hope that we have some time to kind of get into why it's so challenging for us as human beings to be on camera. Because you know, it's not our fault. It's actually a scientific reason for it. And I would love to share some tips on how anyone who is listening can actually start creating a little bit more camera confidence in order to create those human connections, because it really does start with being more comfortable on camera. And, and that authenticity. Because the number one reason that people are frustrated with social media, and when I say people, I mean, our real estate, humans and that are listening to this. You're frustrated with social media, you're seeing other people do it, you're seeing your colleagues doing it and something is just not clicking. And you're like, but Chelsea, you just said if I was consistent, and I showed up that eventually the leads would come, the business would come. But I've been posting for two years, and nothing is happening. But it's happening for my colleague and what is going on. And so by and large, over the 10s of 1000s of real estate humans that I've been able to help in the last year alone, I find that no matter how long, they're in the industry, if they're brand new, if they've been in for 30 years, if they've had zero deals, or 3 million. The challenge is the human one. And it's about the biological need, that as human beings we need to be accepted and affirmed and validated and be experiencing belonging and love in order to thrive. And the fear the vulnerability of putting ourselves out into a world on display for people to potentially disagree with us to think that perhaps we don't know what we're talking about, or even worse, what if they just don't like us? Right? What if they, what if they don't like agree with our opinion? What are they gonna like me, right? So it's these fears and these limiting beliefs around how we're showing up in a digital world. And the number one reason that we're frustrated is because we're showing up very differently online than we are offline and A lot of people who would say for many years Well, that's not real life. Social media is not real life. And yeah, so that kind of got us by for a while until, like I said, the pandemic happen. And you like the many people, if not everybody listening here, we all did happy hours and holidays and birthdays and everything else in between, with family and friends online, whether it was FaceTime or zoom, and none of you, none of you listening would ever tell me that when I told my parents, I missed them, and I loved them. And I couldn't wait for us to see each other in person again, nobody would say that's not real. It's different. But it's not real life. And so let me give you a couple of examples of how we show up differently in an online environment than an offline environment. And the listeners gonna be like, Oh, I do that. I say that. And I'm giving you my list of limiting beliefs. I want you to know very transparently, I am you I am a flawed, overthink or perfectionistic can't get out of my own head. I don't have anything to say, because I'm too close to my own story. I literally just lifeline my friend today and said, I need you to help me because I, I feel like I've gotten nothing to say and I'm just going to put it out here and you helped me extract it. So I'm letting you know, I also undergo and go through those very human experiences. But this limiting belief, the number one, you've heard it a million times, oh, cringe. I hate how I look on video, I hate how I sound on video. And gosh, I just don't want to do that. You know what I'm just gonna write, I'm just gonna post a little graphic up, right? Okay, here's, here's my, here's my challenge for you. If you are meeting that client today, in person, maybe it's at your local coffee shop. And they say, Chelsea, I just I'm not sure like I'm reading all these headlines. It's so confusing right now on the market, like, Is now a good time for me to actually be doing this. What do you think? And instead of you opening your mouth and sharing your expertise and your authenticity and your humanity and your opinion and your personality and your perspective, your cut take, if you will, you dive under the table. And that person is left with both of those lattes sitting up at the top of the table. And they're like, is everything okay? under there? And you're like, oh, my gosh, absolutely. You're just shouting from under the table, you're like, here's the thing. Everything is totally fine. But I just can't have anyone look at me while I'm talking. So I'm just gonna hang out underneath the table. And if that's cool with you, then you just go ahead and keep talking. And I'll just talk from down here. So we all see how laughable that is, right? When we have these ideas of Oh, because it's online, I can get away with x. And the reason that you are frustrated with social media is because we're letting that idea of it's not in real life. Yes, it's different. It's not as good. It is real life, but different. And so I came up with this sort of three C's strategy, to help, camera shy, camera phobic, vulnerable human beings, get on camera and be comfortable, because you can't make content on camera, if you're not comfortable. And if you're not perceived as comfortable, you won't be perceived as confident. And if you're not perceived as competent, you will not be thought of as competent. as wild as that sounds, right. So the three C's, if anybody is able to take notes, not while you're driving, but maybe you're you're know, you're somewhere where you can take notes, and maybe you can come back and you can play it at point five speed or two times the speed. I do that, admittedly, I love it. I love it fast. Two times 5x, whatever. So three things and then we can get into questions from there. So the first thing is we've got to build our camera confidence. And so I write down the word confidence, right? Confidence is where we want to start. And that's probably the hardest thing, because we have these limiting beliefs. And you're like, but wait, how do I go live on Instagram and build my confidence? And people say, Oh, you just have to white knuckle it for a good 50 times. And then eventually you'll you'll have exposure therapy, and you'll get over it. Well, that doesn't sound very fun. Been there, done that, Hey, did not watch my videos back for five years. don't recommend that. And then my second step is great. Now you're feeling a little bit more comfortable and confident? Well, how do we get some conversions? Because what's the point of being here and creating relationships if we're not going to get new business from it? And then the last step is All right now we're feeling good. We're feeling confident, we're being consistent. We're getting some conversions. And which just purely just means people are starting to trust you and they're starting to talk to you. They're starting to come to you and say, Hey, I have a question. Can you help me and that's exactly where we want people to be. The last piece is we'll shoot now we have to captivate some new people. Because we want our message to get out. We want our brand to be to be seen by new potential perfect clients. And so that's sort of that A three C video strategy that I talk about is how do we build confidence so we can get to conversions so that we can eventually start captivating new human beings, and share creating our story at scale, which 23 years ago, I didn't have access to you would actually call you and you had to answer. Imagine that I had to mail you something, you had to actually go out to your mailbox, open it, look at it, do something, right. So it's amazing how much access we have to be able to connect with other human beings at scale, in a very short amount of time, and truly with humanity, and I'm really passionate about that part of it. That's why I always say I teach real estate humans to build their brand with out hustle and hacks but with heart and humanity, because at the end of the day, don't we want a little bit of joy while we're doing this, too? So yeah, that's, that's sort of like my ethos of those, those three C's.
Reggie Nicolay:All right, I absolutely love the visualization of, you know, an agent talking under the desk or under a table.
Genie Willett:Like just pushing the flyer, like
Reggie Nicolay:confidence is tough for some folks, even though it's so crucial. So, and you started to get into this, but do you have any additional tips that will help agents that are trying to build that unshakable confidence in their camera presence?
Chelsea Peitz:Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned it earlier, before authenticity and value. Well, yeah, I want to be authentic. I want to be my real self, right? Because the person that's going to meet me on the other side, and I want it to be a completely different person, but it's really awkward staring into the lens of a phone or a camera and being authentic, right, like, what do I talk about? And then the value piece where it's like, Well, you gotta show up with value. Well, yes. I wasn't planning on not showing up with value. But how do I do that? Like, what exactly is value? And so maybe we'll get into that discussion after this one. But yes, okay. So here's the first thing I love to define the why. If I can understand why something is happening, maybe it's the scientist in me, then I'm like, Okay, you're making sense, right? So we just gave you that example of being under the table. And you're like, Aha, yes, no, that doesn't make sense. Okay, now I can kind of understand why I've got to change this. Same thing happens with why are we feeling the IQ, the IQ of seeing ourselves on a recording, okay, that we know we just made. And knowing that we have the answers, we have expertise, we have authority. And we don't need a script when we go to Target and run into someone and they're like, Hey, how are you? But why do we feel like oh, my goodness, I don't know what to say. And I need a script when I get into this video world, right? True. The reason that we have this IQ is it's it's a mismatch in the mismatch is happening when you see the you on the recording and the comparing you to the person you know, you are in real life. And this is everybody's worst nightmare. Because like when I'm, you know, speaking at conferences, I kind of joke and I'm like, so I've done some research, I've picked out a few of your videos, and unbeknownst to you, we're gonna play them and then everyone's gonna give you feedback. And people are horrified like the faces are like, I'm like, I'm just kidding. Because that is everybody's literal, worst fear, can you imagine? And so the reason we have mismatches or misalignments often is caused by the following things. Usually, number one, it's memorizing, or memorizing a script. And I will tell you, I love scripting, I do a lot of scripting and a lot of my content because I know I have a short amount of time to say it, I don't want to repeat myself, I need a kind of a track to run on. So I like to have something to go back and look at. And what happens when we're memorizing something like three reasons to move to blah, blah, blah, or three stats you need to know about the market, your brain is on stat number three, and your mouth is on the introduction. And you're using a different part of your brain. And all of a sudden, you're thinking so hard about not forgetting what to say, because oh my gosh, I just made it through bullet point number two, and I gotta get to three because I do not want to record this whole darn thing all over again. Your face changes your eyes contact change your warmth, cues, meaning the smiles and the natural way that you're using your eyes and your face and your your voice and your tone changes. You know, you're probably sitting in some sort of quote unquote set, whether it's your office or an actual set, and you're not moving your hands like you normally would. So you see this image of yourself that doesn't quite connect and you're like, you can't quite figure out what's wrong. Because your brain knows well, that's me, but it doesn't quite feel like me. And so then you think it's just me. I should not be doing this. This is uncomfortable. I don't want to do this anymore. So sometimes, memorization scripting can be a challenge. Also, if you're reading teleprompters are amazing tools. And also can be challenging if you haven't kind of gotten that competence and skill set and practice because we don't talk like we write. And so writing like we talk is really challenging. And our brains are so smart, we can kind of know when someone seems like they're reading something. And so your brain knows that too. It also always happens when you're trying to copy and paste the personality or perspective of another real estate human you're following in your feed. It's never going to land feeling like this is me. And a lot of times, we see somebody that we deem successful. And we are inspired by them, which is amazing. And we think, gosh, I have to show up like they are in order to also be successful and do the thing, like they're doing the thing. And so those are some some of the challenges that kind of keep us in that doesn't quite look like the real meat. And so my my simple tip, the simple tip will literally change your your video camera confidence. And it's going to be such a positive feedback loop, you're going to want to keep doing it again. And again. It's the one to one video. It's literally just making one short video on your phone for one human being. And its message is something nice, like Happy Birthday, have a great day, I'm thankful for you. I was just thinking about you, whatever you could possibly think of that might be found on a Hallmark card, right? So like a visual Hallmark card. And what happens when you make that little video and you're sending it to someone that you know, like and trust. You know exactly what to say when you know who you're talking to. And if I'm doing something nice for someone, dopamine in my brain is like going off and blinking and like this feels great. And then guess what? They feel good, because you just said something nice to them. And so you start to also this is the key part of it. When I watch back that little video that I'm like, Hey, happy birthday, I'm thinking of you. You have a great day, right? Okay. You can't say happy birthday without smiling. I'm sorry, I dare you to try to say something nice to someone a compliment. And not smile. You're not thinking about how you look and sound, you're not thinking about the next words, you're literally talking to that person. And you're thinking about that person. And then you're like, Okay, well, that wasn't horrible. That actually kind of sounds like me, right? And maybe you even said, um, or, or whatever you would normally say in a regular conversation. Because if I say I'm when I'm at Starbucks with you, I'm not going to say, Hold on, I gotta walk outside and come back in. We got to restart this conversation, because I just said, so give me just one second. Let's just do take number two. So it's like all these things that we are telling ourselves about content when simply I just want you to remember this one thing, just ask yourself, what would I do in real life? What would I do if this person was across? If I said the wrong word? Would I stop the car drive back home and then restart? No, we wouldn't, we would just keep going. So that one to one video trick is super easy. Yes.
Genie Willett:So I do all of our video content RPR. And I script out a lot of things in energy. And I will sometimes script out things together. And I'm like, Oh, I would never say that. Reg, like, I don't speak like that. That's something you would say not me, you know, so you really have to lean into, like, how do I talk? How do I portray things? If I'm writing something for an article, or you know, blog post, that's going to be very different than what I would say to someone in person. And just the little moments that you have when you talk, you know, and then you know, you almost have to like, say it out loud and then write it Yes. For the scripted instead of thinking like, I'm going to record what I want to tell them like, almost like to talk about.
Chelsea Peitz:And I think throwing in like your personality is so key. Like to weird things that I say and have said for years. I say I don't say hi or bye, I say hi. And I say bye. And I have forever and I always do it. And that's just like how I do and so like that would be a thing. Like honestly, like I would include, or I say amazing, so good. Like for ease instead of amazing. Like that was amazing. And I would say that like that is why people are connecting to your relatable brand and your relatable personality. And I probably wouldn't start there. I guarantee you I did not start like that. But as I got more comfortable and realized you sort of need those wind moments where somebody actually responds something completely unrelated to what you do and you're like, oh, wow, I totally didn't expect that people were going to want to talk about got that and well, that's kind of a win or somebody will run into you at the pickup line at school. They'll be like, Oh my gosh, when you showed that funny video of, you know, when you were making your, your cupcakes and they came out and they were horrible. Oh my gosh, it was so funny. And then you're thinking, well, that person never commented on that. Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. They're connecting while consuming friends. Yeah. You gotta love your lurkers or lurkers?
Genie Willett:I've never comment on any bar. Yeah. I love the one to one videos, too, I'd never before I listen to your podcasts, I've never heard kind of talk about the one to one video and how I love how it just even builds into your confidence getting you comfortable? I'm not talking to everybody. I don't have to pull the world yet. I'm just talking to you to talk about how that boosts your algorithm, which, what does that even mean? And how does it how to go about doing that. So I
Chelsea Peitz:just love talking about the algorithm. And it's just a fancy word for a bunch of data points, you know, it's data points in and they make a mathematical prediction, and they give you data points out. And so every single platform has its own magic algorithm, secret sauce, that nobody will ever know exactly what's inside of it. But we know enough to give you a general. And essentially what this algorithm is doing is it's, it's all out to benefit itself. But to be honest, the goal of these social platforms or any platform for that matter, Netflix, Amazon, you name it, is to get you to spend more time in it and to spend more money, right. So it would behoove any platform to serve you content that you actually want to see. And one of the major determinants is who you talk to. And if I send a direct message to someone, that is a huge data point, that the algorithm or the software says, Oh, well, this is interesting. Okay, so Chelsea just sent a direct message to this person. And that person, you know, commented back, or maybe like put like a heart emoji or something. And so now we have this two way communication. So now we have data points that are pretty strongly letting us know to predict they want to see more of each other. And so what happens is the algorithm decides to reach restore and reshuffle both people's feeds, so that we don't miss each other's content. Because it's thinking, Well, how do I keep this person happy, and use the platform? Well, if they're interested in talking to this person, then if I show them more of that person's content, they're probably going to be happy with that. So here's the key to the one to one video, when you're sending videos to people, you want to send it in a direct message. And the cool thing is, every platform has direct message. And every platform has video option built into direct message. And you can just record those quick little videos right then and there. And so now the algorithm is absolutely on alert. And it's like, wow, okay, you are talking to this person. And, and we're going to make sure that they see your content in the future. If I send that video, say in a text message, same nice, both of you guys have the dopamine, it's a positive thing. And that's where it ends, because your phone's not gonna ring next week when that person posts in the main feed on Facebook, or LinkedIn. But when you're sending in a direct message, it's making notice of that and it will start showing your content more to those people now that what's the benefit, the benefit is people feel like you're everywhere on their terms, which is pretty awesome. So when people say, Gosh, I feel like I open up my feet, and you're there all the time. And if you are sending something in the mail, they're having that experience. And also they're seeing your posts in the feed. And also you're sending these messages directly to them. So it feels like you're omnipresent. But you don't have to be everywhere all the time. Because let's do that we're actually out there helping people buy and sell houses, right? So we're not full time content creators within the entire staff that's following us around every day making a documentary. And so it's important to make it feel like you're there without having to burn out and be everywhere all the time and all places, the 24/7.
Reggie Nicolay:You know, I love that you said omnipresent because since I've been following you, it's something that I've felt like I see you kind of around all the time. And I think it's it's inspiring. It's it's definitely something that we want to incorporate into our PR is marketing outreach. And one thing I've been noticing is your stories. So we've started to lean in more to stories. You obviously do. I mean, can you talk a little bit about how agents can use stories to build more conversions?
Chelsea Peitz:Absolutely ah, that is the conversion engines. And you know not to get like super techie. But, you know, these socials are really that's like kind of their goal is to become sort of like a funnel, where you've got like people, even if you don't know what a funnel is, you've probably heard about one, it's like, you've got this, you know, wide open sort of net, that's going to attract people in it, and then it's going to nurture people through. And then eventually, the idea is that they convert into clients, right. And so if you look at something like an Instagram, you have your feed posts, and you have Instagram reels, and those are going to be found by people that don't yet follow you, which is awesome, and sort of the top of the funnel, and then they decide they want to follow you. And then you're gonna nurture them through sort of those, you know, kind of more unedited personal stories, that's when they really get to know you. So you're deepening that relationship and building like no trust. So for me stories is my favorite, I am totally biased, I will admit that. I love stories, because I don't have to think about creating a caption, I don't have to use hashtags. I don't have to edit anything, I don't even have to have a beginning, a middle and an end, I literally just pick up my phone and talk to people. And I love that sense of feeling like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm your friend. Like I love following Mel Robbins, who I mean, my goodness is Mel Robbins has like the number one podcast in the world. Okay. Um, I feel like I know her we're sitting in her closet, she's chatting about, you know, her dogs or whatever. Like, oh, my gosh, I feel like we know each other. And the reason we feel like we know each other is truly because of that format. And the reason that that makes us feel like we know someone is one because it's unedited. And when we see something that's unedited, we feel like it's true. That's why influencer marketing is a thing. And also think about how you're seeing people in stories, you're seeing them typically in more intimate spaces you were might be in their living room, you might be in their car park waiting to get into their office, you might see their dogs, you might see some of their other co stars, which could be family members. And you feel like you're on that journey with them. And you're kind of sharing that experience for all of my gen actors, including myself out there, you might remember a little show called the real world. And that was like, the first first time we ever had reality TV. And I remember my mom was like, why are you watching people sitting around in their apartment? Like, what's the show about and like, it's about nothing. They just sit around in the apartment, and we watch them. And it's fascinating. And so this idea that it has to be this, wow, amazing, created curated content. And it's only giving quote, educational value. Well, there's absolutely value and you sharing your humanity and sharing things that people can relate to you about. And a lot of people are like, Yeah, I just don't really see how sharing what I had for lunch is going to help me get more luxury clients. So I'm like, Okay, how about this, when you share no barrier, low barrier entry of content, your lunch, your dog, the book, you're reading your coffee, right? That is something that people can relate to, and they're going to have conversations with you about it. Because that's easy to talk about. There's no pressure, I don't have to talk about work. Like I don't have to, like ask you a question about real estate. And because we've had that conversation, and because we're relating on some of those things, now we already have an open line of communication so that when I am or do have some kind of question, or you do put in about what you're doing, then I'm more likely to talk to you because we've already been talking. And we've already been talking about something that literally has nothing to do with what you do and everything to do with who you are. And now I like you as a human being and you know, so that's why people are always thinking like, wow, I wanna I want to pose whatever like you don't have to, I don't want to post when I when I went to the gym, you don't have to, but I'm letting you know that there is a magic in the mundane and that relatable content is really going to be the entryway for for those gates to open so that people will talk to you about what you do at some point because they've already had so many conversations with you about things that have nothing to do with your life as a real estate human.
Genie Willett:Okay, so back to the top of the funnel, right? If they find you doing that, with your reels, I create all of our video content and RPR and I would love your tips and tricks on creating that bingeable library of short form vertical videos to captivate new audiences. Like, I know that's not your favorite like you've said, but how do you do it?
Chelsea Peitz:Yeah, so and again, I should also say that like, you know, depends also what platform you're on. Like, if you're on like tick tock versus YouTube, like a little bit of different strategies on all of them. And I know I keep saying Instagram because that's where I hang out the most. But just so you know, like this, this strategies work kind of across any platform. So Facebook has stories, Instagram has stories, Tik Tok has stories LinkedIn had a for a quick hot minute, and then they took it away. But But mainly, you know, if you're on Instagram, Instagram Stories is absolutely where you should be spending so much of your time. Now when we get over to feed posts, which that could be a picture, it could be multiple pictures, it could be a video, it could be a reel, that the feed, generally speaking, on the majority of platforms is going to be not only seen by your community of followers, but also is going to be searchable, is going to be discoverable through hashtags and SEO or Search Engine Optimization. And you know, the AI getting smarter and smarter and understanding what your content is all about. And it's going to be able to be discovered by by new people who don't follow you. And we all know how this goes, you go to YouTube, and you type in a word because you want to find something about that particular topic, it serves you up the results, and you're satisfied. And sometimes you decide to subscribe, and sometimes you don't. And that's exactly what's happening on every single platform. The algorithm is focused on recommending content and humans to you that it thinks you're going to be interested in based on what you've already consumed. So it definitely knows me because I love small dog videos, give me all the dogs give me all the cue animals here for that it is the way that I meditate and relax at the end of the day. And so I don't get cooking videos, because I'm not cooking, I'm interested in that. So it is it is absolutely going to serve that content or that top of funnel, meaning it's going to kind of go out to people that don't follow you yet or be found by people that don't follow you. And I think it's important to mention that there's a major difference between your story content and your feed content specifically reels or tiktoks. Because, you know, we get we get discouraged. And we're like, Oh, this one isn't a lot of comments. If it's going out to people that don't know you yet, you're not going to have the same kind of engagement that you will have on a story, right? And it's all been training us for a long time to just start consuming like TV, like I'm just clicking through. I'm just watching. And so a lot of people are getting discouraged about engagement and always kind of say is engagement down? Or has engagement changed? And are they silently consuming? And you don't know it because they loved this video and share it with a friend now you'll be able to see the share. But what if they don't share it with a friend? What if they're like, Oh, that was great, or that really uplifted me or that was really a helpful way of describing something that I didn't know, and go on about their merry way, like every single person who's listening to this did. And, you know, you can say it's like, well, if a tree falls in the woods, and no one's there, it's the same thing, right? If you're creating something, and somebody was like, Oh, that was helpful, you just provided value, you may not have a measurable metric for that. But a lot of us are getting wrapped up in these metrics and thinking, Oh, no, people don't like my content. It's not good. Because people are out there silently connecting. And your net client may be out there watching your content. And they may call you a year from now. And they're like, oh, no, we've watched all your videos, I will literally never seen you commented on number eight. So yeah, so it's tough. But that is sort of the top of funnel strategy is is those feed posts, and then you're nurturing through your stories, and of course, the direct messages and the conversations and the comments, not just the end the comments that you're having with your community as well.
Reggie Nicolay:So many good tips wrapped up in that. And so, okay, I'm imagining now we've, we're creating content, we've got our videos created our reels or stories. We're feeling confident. You mentioned in your three step guide to Instagram success, optimizing profiles with strategic keywords. Can you share a little bit about this? And some tips maybe with our listeners? How can Realtors effectively use key words to enhance the profile?
Chelsea Peitz:Yes, and this goes across every platform. When you are optimizing or you know updating or creating your profile, you want to use keywords in those areas also in your actual content. So when you're recording your video, the idea is that you're going to be using keywords that you want to be sorted and found by and also in your caption too. And I know that that sounds like whoa, that's a lot. Do I sit down and think how many times have I said the word social media? No, I don't. But I know that over time because I create content for real Let's say humans about branding and social media. And I continue to stay consistent on that. The computer is going to understand what I talked about, which is why I never get people that are in that are dentists that follow me. And that's great, because that's not my ideal audience. A couple of things. Yeah. So couple of things you want to be thinking about. Specifically, when it comes to your profiles, and this is important for LinkedIn, this is important for Instagram. And they're all search engines now, which basically means at some level, every social platform is becoming Google, where you can type in a word, and it's going to serve you up content and accounts related to those words. So just to keep it super simple. For my real estate, humans, you want to have three things in your profile, you want to have your first and last name, you definitely need that. And I know that might sound obvious, but here's the thing, there's a lot of us who have, you know, really kind of fun usernames like Jeep lover 88. And I'm not going to find you if I'm looking for your name. And you don't have that really powerful personal brand, or you just have your first name. So it is important to have your first and last name, somewhere in your username or your name fields. You also want to have a industry related term, like realtor, or real estate. And that's going to help the system obviously understand what you're all about. But it's also going to tell somebody immediately, okay, you're in this industry. And it's also going to be you know, your content genre that you're going to be creating. And last but not least, maybe that more important than that is location. Because you want people to be able to find you or be associated with locations. So for example, if I were a real estate agent, still, which I'm no longer, I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, my Instagram profile would have my first and last name Chelsea heights in it somewhere it does, okay. And then I'm also going to have either the word realtor or real estate. And then I'm also going to have Scottsdale, because I want people to know like, this is the area that I'm at and think about it what are consumers searching for on the socials, they're probably not running over to Instagram and typing in realtor, sometimes they might. But they are looking at areas that they might be interested in either living in or they might be there, or they might be thinking of moving there. And so that's going to kind of help the system also understand where you're at and who should see it and serve it appropriately. And pass that it's really about just staying consistent. It's not about having like a micro niche where you only talk about houses that are 1300 square feet only. And single story like we don't have to get that detailed. But as long as you stay in the same realm of, hey, I talk about real estate in Scottsdale and a few other things, then the over time the system is going to know what you're about. And it's also going to look at sort of your hashtags and your location tags, you don't want to get too wrapped up in it, you just want to know that, hey, as long as I'm staying consistent on the this type of theme, it's going to do the rest, you know, these things are smart look and chat GPT. Like, these things are smart, we don't have to give them too much information these days. And they're going to know what your contents about as long as you stay sort of in the in that realm. And so it, it can get very detailed. And if you're like me, I love a spreadsheet, I could spend hours or rabbit holing on words and all of this research. And you know, at the end of the day, you could spend hours doing that, and it's probably not going to make that much of a difference. So save yourself the time from somebody who's already done it and just start creating consistently. And that's that's, that's all I can say is like the number one thing
Genie Willett:you perfectly lead me into my next question for you. Nice, because I think sometimes the concern is spending so much time and effort creating this content and then not feeling like you're finding success. So I know you have your your real ar e l a state school that focuses on using video content for personal branding and trust building in the real estate industry. Can you provide some examples of how agents have seen success by incorporating video in their marketing strategy?
Chelsea Peitz:Yeah, you know, it's I'm a visual learner. And I know it's kind of hard to be visual when you're listening to a podcast but I'm gonna describe it for you. So for me, it's like when people would say, you know, gotta create the value or you have to, like, you know, to story tell, and you're like, Okay, well, like, I don't really know what stories to tell, like I hadn't really climbed Mount Everest and I don't think anybody cares about my inspection story where everything went bad last week. So you know, again, it's these words, these these marketing word, like storytelling and all that. And I just simply break it down in, there's two parts, right? The content is the actual thing. And there's part of something else that makes the thing actually mean something or be relevant to someone's head and their heart. And that that's called context. And it is a little bit of a challenging topic to think of. But the way that I describe it is visually, and I will show people examples of here is a beautiful templated graphic. And it says, maybe it's a seller tip. And it's like a really helpful tip. And then I'm like, here's how we can take your good content and make it even better by putting context which is you, your face, your voice, your personality, your opinion, your story about the client who one time acts. And that's how you can layer in or make that content thing have more meaning or relatability to the other person's head and their heart as well. So it's the easy answer is putting yourself in it, which a lot of people don't want to hear. But like, let's face it, there's no original content, there was literally no original real estate content on the planet. The only original content you have is your personality and perspective. And I understand that it's a little bit nerve wracking to have an opinion, to have a perspective. And not everybody's gonna agree with your perspective. And sometimes they might tell you, they don't agree with your perspective in the comments. And that's like, oh, some people love that. I don't, some people hate that. So you just have to remember that. You want to connect with people that have a personality that have a perspective that have an opinion. And people need to trust that you are competent. And if you're able to explain something in an easy to understand way, if you're able to give them an analogy on a complex topic, like a two one buydown or what's happening with inventory, and what does that mean for you. That's when people are going to be able to say that was helpful. That was kind of an aha moment. And you seem like you know what you're talking about. And you're building that trust and that expertise and that authority. So it's not about not posting the things that you have already been posting? It's about asking yourself, okay, does this not only teach somebody something, but does it reach them in their emotions? Is there a human in it? Am I giving my perspective? am I sharing a story about something that, you know, maybe it was like a mistake I made? Maybe it was a lesson that I learned. And I know, it's it's also kind of nerve wracking to be like, Oh, who's gonna want to hire a real estate human who's made a mistake with a client? I would argue that more people would rather know that you're an a human who's fallible and willing to stand up and say, I made a mistake. And I want to be honest about it. And here's what I learned. And here's what I did. versus you know, the very unrealistic expectation that you've never and nor ever will make a mistake. So yeah, it that was kind of a long, roundabout answer for it. But I thought there was, you know, contact versus content, and how do you make something have meaning? And that's, that's the hardest part. That is the hardest part about creating content is you can make content all day long. But how do you get it to actually connect with someone, and that's why you first have to really know who you're talking to, you got to know what their pain points are, you got to know specifically, I want somebody to feel like, I feel like you're inside my head right now. I feel like you wrote this just for me. So those are some things that take practice and take time, and you're not going to just, you know, create a bunch of content, and people are gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. You're like inside of my brain. But you start, so you can kind of learn and treat it as an experiment, see what happens?
Reggie Nicolay:Hearing you say that, it makes a lot of sense. And I think my brain goes back to what you said earlier about the algorithms, the magic algorithms. And I'm just wondering, so just by creating this content and doing these things, are you staying ahead of the algorithm itself? Do you even need to consider it this algorithm? What's your best advice for realtors trying to figure out you know,
Chelsea Peitz:you know, it is so funny that you didn't know that I was doing this, but I was making a piece of content today. And I was like, Are you making content for the algorithm or for your audience? Because, like, your, your audience doesn't need 63 pieces of content to know if they can trust you. Right? And, you know, this is controversial content advice, but you should stop building a content machine. You need to start sharing more context about who you are and why people why you are the person that can actually help me specifically and uniquely and a lot of people this literally happened to me this weekend, when I was at a conference, this person came up to me and said, Wow, you've said a lot of things differently than other people that I've heard speak before. And what do you think about this? And I'm like, Well, do you enjoy that? No, I hate it. But I thought that I had to do it, because that's what they told me. Like, okay, well, if you hate doing something, it's not gonna get any better. You're not gonna want to do it, though, can there is there another way that we can think about doing it because long term follower count is very different than your bank account. And you can do all the things and you can run yourself into the ground. Or maybe if you love to post every day, I love that for you, it does not work for me. And it's okay that you have your own way of doing things. And as long as you're gonna stay consistent, and you're thinking about, do I actually have something to say? Do I actually have a thought that if somebody watched it my ideal customer? Could they find it valuable? Not? Is it valuable? Could they find it value? And if the answer is yes, then you're gonna make it if you're drudgery. So if you're like, I hate this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to make carousel I did what we have to do couple things that we don't always love, right? And you have to try things for more than once to determine if you don't like it. The reason I know I don't like batch creating content, five videos at one time, it's because I've tried it. And I hated it. And I tried it for a long time. And I was like, You know what, I don't have to do this because it works for my friend Katie. I can find another way that works for Chelsea, and still be successful. So if you post more, are you going to get more reach and visibility and probably followers? And yeah, sure. It's gonna happen faster, because you're just putting more out. But at what cost? So ask yourself, are you posting for the algorithm? Are you posting for your audience? And that's hard? Because let me tell you, those views are intoxicating. And when you're like, oh, my gosh, this one just got 3000 views. And I posted another one I got 30 Won't mop. And you got to start asking people where they where they come from, what made you made this decision? Because that one post or that one video that didn't perform? Well? Maybe that was the one where they're like, actually, this one where you talked about X y&z And you're like, wow, see, I would have just discounted that as didn't perform? Well, you never know and tell you're, you know, really asking people. So think of it as an overall content library, that if your perfect ideal customer came across it and binge watched it, would it be valuable for them? And it's really hard not to look at the numbers, I get that not saying you should never measure anything, or you know, we've heard it all before. But views don't equal value. And you really have to know, you know, and learning your perspective is hard. It's a self awareness journey. And that is something a lot of people don't talk about is, how do you build self awareness? How do you find what your stories are? How do you what is your opinion on X, Y, and Z? If you don't have an opinion, you probably don't know enough about it.
Genie Willett:So I love this I, I and now I want to know, so now we're creating content, we like it. But how do you maintain the consistency without burning out without just being like, I can't do it anymore? I can't get on stories. I can't produce another real? Like, how do you? How do you not burn out?
Chelsea Peitz:You know what there's, I just believe that there's seasons in life and business. And yeah, sometimes I just don't feel like making content. I don't feel like making reels. But you know, what I do do is I talk to people every day. I comment, I engage I don't make content every day. And I should take that back. Because I'm a big believer that the most important content is your conversations and your comments. I always say less content and more commenting. But yeah, if you're bored, then probably someone else is bored consuming it. So I personally like to mix it up. I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna do a real. And then I might do a carousel post. But I really love stories. And I lean into stories. I am like, you can have a favorite social media, you don't have to be on all of them all the time and cross post everything everywhere. If you want to you can. I like to be in one zone. I like to be at one place because I'm self aware. And I know that if I tried to do all of those things, and I just me, I don't have a team, I am going to be spread then burnt out and then I'm going to start resenting it. And then I'm just going to post whatever to post whatever. And then I'm like, well, that's not working. See I told you social media didn't work and I should just stop this. So I know myself really well. And I know that I have tons of excuses. So you got to know yourself. And like I look at my friend Katie Lance, who everybody probably knows here too. And she's like, Yeah, just did my whole year's worth of content calendar and like I love that for you and do it. Like, everybody has their own style and you do have to test and try things out. And now if it's for you and let me give you permission that if you try something that everybody else says you should be doing, and you really give it a go Oh, and you're like, I'm just still, it's not for me, it's okay for you to change your mind. It is okay for you to be like, You know what everybody told me how to do a podcast. So I did a podcast for two years, and I made 300 episodes, you know what, I just don't love it, then stop doing it. There's so many other things you can be doing. And just because you started something, and just because somebody told you in a conference that you had to do everything. Here's a pro tip just because you go somewhere and listen to everything or listen to a podcast. You don't have to use every single tip they give you pick and choose, find what works for you. And we don't apply that to anything else in life. But we get into this world of social media and marketing. And we're like, Oh, but I have to do it this way. Because this person told me to, and I would caution you if you have somebody that says you've got to do it exactly this way, or else, I would ask why? I'd be like that. But why, but why? And so you just have to know what you like, what you don't like, I love stories, though. I story my face off. I don't care if people don't watch the whole thing. They can just skip right past it. But you know what, it brings me joy. And that's what I want to do. I don't love posting in the feed, do I still do it? Yeah, but I only do it once or twice a week. And I tried to do something in that, that brings me some joy in creating it. And there are times when I'm like, I got nothing. I got nothing. And that's when I call my friend my lifeline like I did today. And I'm like, I got nothing. Something's here, but I can't see it, can you help me. So we all need sort of those those people or things in our life where we can get up walk around, maybe it's you know, actually physically walking around and taking a break or it's, you know, figuratively doing doing that. And in some other form or fashion.
Reggie Nicolay:These, these tips apply to life a lot more than just social media. But it's amazing. It's so true. This has been a really great interview. And as we start to wrap it up, I do want to talk to you about something in our PR that we just launched. So we're super excited about this new feature we're calling shareable market trends. And basically, if I was to paint a picture for the listeners, these residential market trends, our a series of charts, for example, at the top of the page, we have this market trend indicator that tells you whether you're in a buyer seller or balanced market, and then it has months of inventory, our home selling above or below list price and some other really important metrics. Anyway, all these charts can export into graphics that can be used in video social. So we're really excited. And we're just wanting to get the word out this year to agents. And so I guess my question to you is, do you have any tips for agents that might want to integrate this type of data, you know, market trends into shareables? Or videos?
Chelsea Peitz:Yes, I love that you asked this question, because one of the number one questions I get is, but Chelsea, how do I take boring content like data and make it more interesting and personal, how you keep telling me I have to humanize stuff. But I also got to like, tell people what's going on. So this is the like, perfect thing that you could do. So we've been talking about video, we've been talking about putting you and your perspective in it. So one of the things that I've built my brand on, it is taking complex topics that somebody else has created like the algorithm, I didn't create the algorithm, right? And interpreting it, I'm being a teacher, it's like imagine I'm teaching a class of fourth graders. And I'm like, Okay, here's how this works. Let me give you an example. Let me give you an analogy. And so that's what we can do here is you can take this incredible data rich image this graphic that you have. And what I would recommend is and this might sound a little advanced, but with a quick Google search, anybody will be able to find it, you can use what's called the green screen on any of your video apps. So it could be Instagram reels, it could be Instagram stories. It could be Facebook reels. It could be tick tock, whatever, like pretty much every video kind of focused app has the ability to use what's called green screen. And so what you do is you just open up your phone, go to Instagram, I'm going to maybe make her a real or even a story. And you can swipe through the little filters. There's even a little search bar and just type in green screen. And when you type that in there, the very cool magic happens where let's say I've taken or downloaded your graphic, or even a screenshot, you just screenshot the graphic. It's gonna save into your camera roll. And then when you click on green screen, it's gonna say okay, go ahead and add your media and it goes right to your camera roll and here we go. We're gonna pop up your cool stats right here. And now you can have your face in it. So you are like basically talking to this chart that's behind you. And you can be pointing to it. You can still be there giving your take on here's what this means for you because it's sort of like the and then strategy is the really important Apart, I could just be listing off the bullet points of what's an algorithm. But if I don't give you my and then here's what it means for you and how you're using social media, you don't have the aha moment you don't you don't say, Wow, she really understands how to use that. It's the end of then that is going to be the positioner for trust and authority. So take that graphic, use it up on the green screen, talk to it and tell people, what does it mean specifically for them? What does it mean in plain English, because believe it or not, there are many terms that we utilize inside of our own industry, that the everyday person who is wanting to buy or sell a property doesn't know because they're not in our industry. So it'd be important to also remember, you know, taking those those internal industry lingo and helping them understand what it means. So it's nice because you didn't have to create the content. You're creating the content for them. They're just giving their personality perspective and hot take and here's what to do with it, though. I love that.
Reggie Nicolay:Well, there you have it, we learned we leveled up our real estate marketing game with the incredible Chelsea
Chelsea Peitz:Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun. Peitz Thank you. Thank you.
Reggie Nicolay:So as we close out this episode of decoding real estate, remember to bring your authentic selves and have fun while you're doing it. Be sure to join us on our next episode for insights, inspiration and good vibes in the world of real estate. Thank you so much.
