Mastering LinkedIn for Realtors: A Guide to Real Estate Marketing

[Dan Smokoska] (0:00 - 0:51)
When you look at the other platforms, like Instagram, there's so much competition on these platforms, like Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. And you can carve out an audience there for sure, but there's also this element, there are so many people creating content in the real estate space that you being able to kind of break through is much more difficult than LinkedIn. LinkedIn doesn't have the same competition for content that the other platforms do.

And as a result, you can go in there and you can make a splash pretty quickly. So it's a competition thing, right? It's like you can go and like have stiff competition, or you could come to a platform and carve out a name for yourself pretty dang quick.

I love competition. But if I have the choice of going to a platform that I can start winning on much quicker and build a name and a brand for myself compared to a platform that would take a lot longer and might not even work, I'm going to choose option one all day long.

[Mike Mills] (0:59 - 3:17)
Well, hello, everybody. How are you doing today? Well, welcome to Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast.

I am your real estate navigator, Mike Mills, a North Texas mortgage banker with Geneva Financial. And I come to you each week with experts in the real estate realm to help you find your way through this game of homes. And today is no different.

Now, let me ask you a question. Are you grinding away at your marketing each week and putting in the time but just not getting the results that you're looking for? Could it be that things right now are just a little bit slow?

And is that kind of to be expected? Well, maybe. Or it could be that your message is getting lost in a sea of other real estate professionals shooting house tours and rapping about real estate on Instagram.

Well, there's an old saying in baseball that says, hit them where they ain't. And I'm here to tell you that it's true for marketing as well. If you're swimming in a huge pond with a bunch of other big fish and everyone's hunting for the same thing, then maybe it might be time to look for a new body of water.

And today, I have an expert that's going to shed some light into a world that you might not have ever considered, a world that could be a huge source of business and connections if you know how to play the game right. But as always, before we get rolling, if you find today's episode helpful in any way at all, then do me a favor and hit the subscribe button or share it with a friend. You guys are the reason this little podcast keeps breaking download records each and every month and I want to keep the momentum going.

So do me a favor, subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify so you don't miss another episode. Oh, and if you have a client that needs help finding that perfect home loan, then by all means, send my way as well. I blather into this microphone twice a week but my real skill is helping you get more referrals from your clients after we close the deal together.

So if you want to know how, then give me a shout. All right, so my guest today is the founder of Wynn Social. He's a 40 under 40 top mortgage professional, a LinkedIn coach, co-author of Rethink Everything, and the creator of the fastest growing marketing newsletter in the mortgage business, the Wynn Weekly Newsletter.

He's helped countless real estate professionals stand out on a social platform that very few in our space think about when it comes to marketing activities, but might be a hidden gold mine that many of you had not fully tapped. And he's here today to share his secret sauce with us. So please welcome to the podcast, Mr. Dan Samaska. Dan, how are we doing, sir?

[Dan Smokoska] (3:18 - 3:20)
Great, man. Great, great, great.

[Mike Mills] (3:20 - 3:20)
There we go.

[Dan Smokoska] (3:20 - 3:23)
Great, great, great, great. Good to be here. Good to be here.

[Mike Mills] (3:23 - 3:49)
Thanks for joining me, dude. I really appreciate this. Nobody knows, nobody I'm sure knows this, but we know each other from a previous life.

We go way back to the beginning. Dan and I actually worked together. We kind of, we're both brand new to the industry or relatively new, coming in together and then kind of, you know, both left the company we were at, kind of went our separate ways.

And here we are back again. So small world we live in, in this real estate land. Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (3:50 - 4:12)
Full circle, full circle, man. And when we got in, I'm sure they told you the same thing. There's two things that they told me.

They said, um, welcome to the mortgage industry. You'll never get out. And then the other thing was that it's a small world.

Never burn bridges. Right. And, uh, and so those have turned out to be very, very true things.

[Mike Mills] (4:13 - 4:32)
So, yeah, you have to be careful. Um, especially, you know, I'm sure we, we remember some folks that, uh, you know, left places and, and kind of went out. Well, what we would call scorched earth.

Right. We joke. I was in the restaurant business, uh, for years and years and, you know, people would quit and then take their arm and run it down the line and knock off all the plates.

And it's like, eh, it's probably not the best way to go out.

[Dan Smokoska] (4:32 - 4:35)
Usually, man, not at all, not at all.

[Mike Mills] (4:36 - 5:10)
All right. So let's jump into it here because, um, I want to get, uh, I want to get your thoughts. So, you know, in the world of Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK, YouTube, you know, all the social platforms that are out there that everybody is beating the drum on every single day.

How in the hell did you land on LinkedIn as the one that you were going to spend your time focusing on, especially because you've been doing it for a while now and you know, it's becoming obviously a bigger and bigger platform these days. But back when you started, nobody was thinking about LinkedIn. This was the place you went to get a job.

So, so what, what drove you or, or really made you want to jump in headfirst to this platform?

[Dan Smokoska] (5:10 - 7:38)
That's a great question. Um, I, for me, it was like, I didn't really like the other platforms as far as like creating content. And, um, you know, at the time I was not active on Facebook really at all.

I just had it so that I could be connected with family. And then, you know, Instagram was what I had a private Instagram where like I would be friends with the really nobody except really good friends and family. Um, I was, I just didn't want to like utilize social media because it was just annoying.

The only good experience I really had, um, on, uh, on social media was, was LinkedIn. Like I got a few, um, I was the guy who always takes the recruiter message. Um, so they DM me and like, why would I not like just have the conversation, right.

If they're, if they seem to be real, uh, and those are what led to some really good things. So like, I knew that they're, I've kind of had this for years, like understanding that opportunity exists on it in some shape or form. Um, and I, you know, I just, I was like, I was, I was kind of at this weird juncture where I, we were entering a very difficult market in the mortgage industry.

All right. So 2022, everything started like, you know, drastically changing, coming to a halt. And I had, uh, you know, I, I knew that our company was going to the company that was at, I was running the marketing department for, um, I knew that we were going to be selling the company.

And, and so, um, it was one of those things where like the companies that we were looking at selling to, they already had their head of marketing. Right. And so, uh, so I'm going to be out of a job.

And so when I, when I first started, I was thinking I need to like have an insurance policy for myself. And in order to do that, I felt like I needed to like establish my, my brand and network better, uh, and do those things. So that's really why I got on LinkedIn at first.

And then as I started getting into it, I realized like this is way more than, than what I thought it was. And the opportunities on here are insane. So that's, that's a little bit about my journey on.

And it's been a, it's just been a ride ever since man, a great ride.

[Mike Mills] (7:39 - 9:51)
Well, you know, um, I, when I got doing, started doing this podcast a couple of years ago to kind of, you know, generally around the same time, a little, a little bit before that. But, um, I, you know, we all know I'm, I'm like you, like it was one of those things where I knew social media was important, right. If you want it to grow your business and, you know, especially in a relationship based business, like we're in, like, it's one of those things that you have to be in front of people as much as possible.

But I also just didn't like doing it. You know, I didn't, I would get on Facebook occasionally. I would get on Instagram rarely.

Like it was just something I just didn't spend a whole lot of time. I spent more time on Twitter than anything else. Cause it was like news source.

And that was stuff that I could read and find out, but I really wasn't on all the other ones, but I knew that everybody else was, it was like, all right, I got to figure out a way to do this. And you got to kind of find your lane and figure out the thing that you like to do, the thing that you'll stay active in. But, but what I found too, was that going through that process and, you know, doing this podcast and, and, and doing things like that, that, you know, when you start focusing in on one particular thing, you learn a ton of stuff.

So as you're trying to grow your brand or whatever you want to call it, as you're trying to grow yourself, there's a lot of falling down and learning and making mistakes and doing dumb stuff and going, okay, I can do this better. And, and, but going through the process of doing it is, is kind of half the battle. It's like, you can, you can learn and read about stuff, but until you actually start doing it and going through it, it's, it's real, real challenge.

And, you know, I've been paying attention to what you've been doing out there. And the thing that hits me about what you do better than anybody else that I see on, on really a lot of platforms, and this is a rarity is, and you are consistent, like you are putting stuff out every single day and, and putting thought into it. And it's not just a, a random, you know, post or something out there.

Like you're really actually putting some time and effort into putting those out there. And I think that, you know, that's a key that a lot of people that are looking at whatever platform they're going to be on, you know, the, the consistency of it is, is a big player. So, so when you were growing your business and finding your way through all this, you know, what was it, you know, specifically that you looked at LinkedIn and said, okay, I actually can form a business around this.

Like, where are the opportunities that you saw, especially in the real estate world, which a lot of people in our space don't, don't spend a lot of time here.

[Dan Smokoska] (9:52 - 10:17)
Man, I'll tell you, it's a lot easier to stay consistent when you start seeing the results, right? When you're first starting, it's the, it's the toughest part, right? Just getting started, not knowing if the things that you're doing are going to lead to the outcome you want.

You know, I would imagine that what is this episode 147 for you?

[Mike Mills] (10:17 - 10:17)
Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (10:17 - 10:26)
Uh, you know, I would imagine that episode 147 looks a lot different than, you know, episode seven. Yes.

[Mike Mills] (10:27 - 10:27)
Right.

[Dan Smokoska] (10:27 - 11:54)
You have learned a lot and you're, you know, you know how to navigate the conversation and, and the topics that you want to hit and your audience, you know, your audience even better. And so, um, there's just, but, but, but you're not doing this because you're not, I mean, you're getting something out of this. And when people really, uh, really get going and rolling on, like, for example, LinkedIn, it's, it's a lot of like, I think this is going to happen, but it takes like three to six months for the thing to happen.

Yeah. And it happens at like a, like a, like a, you know, three years down the road looks a lot different than three months. But on the three month mark is when I started really seeing some results.

And I, everyone I talked to who's like consistently engaging on platforms like LinkedIn, they've had this like light bulb moment. And when you have that light bulb moments, like, it's like a drug, man. Like you, you get that hit and you're like, holy crap, this thing works.

Yeah. And then you just double down on the things that work and it starts working better and you get some momentum and you keep rolling and rolling and rolling. And so that is the cool part is when the light bulb hits, you really do get hooked.

And, uh, and that's been the, that's kind of been the fun part, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be more consistent than most everybody on here because I've seen what the end result looks like.

[Mike Mills] (11:54 - 13:07)
Right. Well, um, I'm a huge fan of Gary V and if you're on social media at all, it's, it's a guy that you, you know, we'll see everywhere all the time because that's what he does. And, and I don't, you know, I haven't tuned in to some of his stuff in a hot minute, maybe the last six months, cause he changes his thoughts on a lot of things.

But for a long time, he has been big, big on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been his like, if you want to find a place to be, that's where you need to be. And, and part of the reason obviously is that he, he looks at, you know, he says he, he, uh, uh, works, what was he manages in attention or, or deals in attention.

And so, you know, you look at a platform like Instagram for realtors, especially and every now granted you create the world you want to see on those platforms. But like when I scroll through my Instagram, it's house tours, it's, you know, here's this class thing that they're doing or whatever, but it's just real to real to real to real to realtor on there. And, but when I come to LinkedIn and I scroll through there, I don't see very many realtors or I don't see very many people that are doing what I would consider to be something that's engaging there.

So, so when you looked at LinkedIn as a platform, you know, especially for real estate professionals, like where's the opportunity and what should people be doing in order to make sure that the time and effort that they put into it is going to, you know, bear fruit?

[Dan Smokoska] (13:08 - 14:27)
Yeah. Yeah. This, this is, this is like one of the most, I think important, uh, conversation points because when you look at the other platforms and you, and you like Instagram, there's, there's so much competition on these platforms like Facebook and Instagram and Tik TOK, and you can carve out an audience there for sure.

But there's also this, this element of like, there are so many people creating content in the real estate space that you being able to kind of break through is much more difficult than LinkedIn. Yeah. LinkedIn doesn't have the same competition for content that the other platforms do.

And as a result, you can go in there and you can make a splash pretty quickly. So it's a competition thing, right? It's like you can, you can go and like have stiff competition or you could come to a platform and carve out a name for yourself pretty dang quick.

Um, and, uh, and I'm, I'm, I love competition, but if I have the choice of going to a platform that I can, that I can start winning on much quicker, uh, and build a name and a brand for myself compared to a platform that would take a lot longer and might not even work, I'm going to, I'm going to choose option one all day long.

[Mike Mills] (14:27 - 14:52)
Yeah. Well, and speak a little bit to the fact that, you know, when you look at the people that are on LinkedIn, right, the, the actual users of the platform, it's dramatically different than what you would get on a Tik TOK or an Instagram, or even a Facebook to some extent. So why is it that for real estate professionals, when you're looking to actually want to, you know, do business, you know, why is it that LinkedIn actually gives you an advantage?

[Dan Smokoska] (14:52 - 16:37)
You know, when you look at the audience, people are ready to, to, to talk business on LinkedIn, but that's, that's the difference, right? Facebook, you know, it's, it's more about like seeing what everybody's up to. Yep.

Uh, people come to LinkedIn with like primes for, for business learning networking. And so, you know, I tell people like, if, you know, typically you're going to be trying to find somebody in your local market. All right.

You can find audiences, you can search filter within LinkedIn, or if you're into sales navigator, you can go sales navigator, but you can find people in certain industries, uh, geographic locations, and really like, really like hone in and kind of where your target market is and maybe who that target market is. And then you can just, you can create a networking plan off of that. Like, how are you going to go after this audience?

How are you going to, you know, for, for some, like, it's all right. We, we have a sort of this town that's, you know, I live in Dallas, massive, you know, city, harder to do something like this. But if you think about like the smaller communities, like within, um, there's an opportunity for you as a realtor to like become that local, you know, the, the most known person in the connector of all the other local people.

And when I say that, I mean like restaurant owners, business owners, principals at schools, you know, getting involved in the community and LinkedIn gives you an opportunity to do that, to build those relationships online, to take it offline. And so it's just, it's a huge opportunity to be able to get the right people seeing your content.

[Mike Mills] (16:38 - 17:44)
Well, and the other great thing is they have jobs usually. So they have the ability to buy a house. You don't have somebody that's sitting at their house during the middle of the day, unemployed, looking at your content on Instagram or Tik TOK, scrolling through relentlessly.

They're actually professionals. They have jobs, they have careers, they're trying to better themselves. And therefore, you know, you're going to find a lot more people that and not just buying a house for themselves, but there's a ton of investors.

I mean, when you look online, when I scroll through and the people on your feed, there are a lot of folks that are involved in purchasing homes all over the country, doing different types of transactions, whether they're located in California and they're buying homes in Texas, or they're located in Texas and they're buying homes in Georgia or whatever the case may be. You know, it is a great place to run into folks that are looking to, you know, expand their portfolio. And so, you know, that's not something that you're going to typically find at least in a great concentration on some of these other platforms.

It's kind of hit or miss. You may get some of those, but you're also going to get, like I said, the guy living in his basement at 45 years old, that is still with his parents. You know what I mean?

So it's the eyeballs tend to hold a little more value, right?

[Dan Smokoska] (17:44 - 19:23)
They do. They do. Like, I mean, can you, if you are, if you have a target, like of any kind, right.

And one of the, one of the rules like in, in marketing and sales is like, if you're, if you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one. Right. So instead of like this catch all mindset, like, do you have like a niche and it doesn't have to be like this really, really detailed niche, but like, are you working with investors?

Like, do you want to work with investors? All right. If you do the content that you're going to create for an investor is completely different than a first time home buyer.

Right. And so first time home buyers are not going to really be familiar with the process of buying a home. What goes into it?

How much money, et cetera. Investor typically has done a lot of real estate deals. And so the conversation points are just completely different.

So if you're like, I want to start, you know, tapping into the investor business that is, that is there. I want to go find it. I want to source it.

And then I want to bring like leads in for that. Then maybe you just do what you're doing with your other audience on the other platforms or within your local network of face to face. But then you take LinkedIn and you're like, I'm not really focused on these people.

Then you can nail it down to, all right, I want investors. I can kind of do this all over the country, you know, because investors are not just specific to the region. Like you said, California trying to invest in properties in Texas.

And, uh, and so then you just kind of develop a strategy based upon that audience and LinkedIn is just like built to help you scale that.

[Mike Mills] (19:24 - 21:12)
Yeah. Well, and it also has the great thing about LinkedIn again, too, is that it has built in tools. Like, like you've mentioned a couple of times, LinkedIn navigator, which if you go to Facebook, I mean, you can run Facebook ads and you can do, you know, they have similar things, but you can actually drill down to people that you're trying to connect with on a regular basis to reach out to with LinkedIn navigator.

And it's really relatively inexpensive. And it seems like at least that, you know, if you're, let's say you're a realtor in Texas, right. And you, um, want to deal with people coming in from out of state or investors.

Well, there's a big referral community within the real estate world. So if a California client or California realtor has a client that's looking to buy investment properties in Texas, they can't do that themselves because they don't have to fly here and get licensed here. So they need to find someone to refer that business to and create a relationship with here locally.

And a lot of the agents that I know that have had incredible success, and they do it in a different way. Like there's a couple of Remax agents. I know that go to all the conventions every year.

Like that's their main thing. Cause they network with other agents across the country. And therefore when they have a client moving that direction, they send them business and vice versa.

And so if you can tap these relationships on LinkedIn and actually have a good connection with somebody out of state, other realtors, then that's a great source for referral business when people are moving here. So, so if you're an agent, right, if Dan, somebody came to you as a realtor and said, okay, I want to really start getting after on LinkedIn. What would your strategy be to start with about what to post, you know, when to post, you know, what type of content.

And I actually saw recently, and this is the first time, you know, I'm maybe behind the curve on it, but I saw some version of reels on my LinkedIn feed where you can, it's just videos like they used to be embedded in the post, but now there's actually like a real feed just like you would get on Facebook or anything else. So, so what, what are you seeing or how would you start posting stuff?

[Dan Smokoska] (21:12 - 22:01)
Yeah, that's LinkedIn is rolling out some new video features like as we speak. And so I think everybody's going to start seeing more and more of that. They've been, they've been testing it out and working on it for a little bit now.

There is like a, they have said that they're going to put a little more emphasis on, on video content, which is good for everybody to know, right? It's good because traditionally LinkedIn has been more of like a written or like written content with, you know, a picture or something like that. Those tend to do well, but videos making a, making a, making a play here.

So then the question, like you said, is like, what do I do? What's my starting point? How do I create content?

What content do I create? The thing I tell people at the very beginning, like you have to step one is like, you have to know who you're talking to. So that has to be like the foundation, right?

[Mike Mills] (22:01 - 22:01)
Right.

[Dan Smokoska] (22:01 - 26:21)
So are you trying to reach real estate investors? Are you trying to help first time home buyers? Are you like, what does that, what does that ideal client look like for you?

Because again, everything you do in every piece of content that you create is going to kind of come from that, right? And maybe it's not a niche in that, like it's a, it's a certain type of borrower. Maybe the, maybe the niche or the focus is like people living in a certain area or Texas, you know, investors trying to get investment properties in Texas.

So there's, there's ways to do it, but like taking, I posted about this the other day, yesterday, I think on LinkedIn, like, if you're unsure who that target audience is, just jump on chat GPT, or whatever AI platform you're into. And, and just ask, ask, chat GPT to kind of go through this scenario with you. Like, I'm a real estate agent in this area.

I want to create like a social selling LinkedIn strategy. But I'm not sure who I should target as my audience. Can you help me, you know, ask questions so that we can figure out who, who my ideal audience would be?

And then ask it something like, you know, ask me one question at a time. So you don't, there's gonna be like 1000 questions, and you're going to be lost. But go in there, do that.

And then you can kind of like figure out and say, is this who I think it would be? And then you kind of have an idea. So you start with that foundation.

And then with LinkedIn, LinkedIn has a lot of like, a lot of sales opportunity that the other platforms really just don't have, like baked in, like we already said. And one of the main one of the main features is the profile page that you have. So that profile page, like if you look at it compared to most of the other platforms, you know, minus Facebook, Facebook has a pretty good one that but but it's, it's, it's much more like detailed than the others.

Yeah, there's a lot more you can do with it about sections where you've been where you've worked. There's something called the featured section, a lot of people don't know about, but it's a great call to action opportunity, your banner image, your headline, all of these things are just really great opportunities. And so what I tell people is you got to kind of switch your thought process.

We're not just like consuming content on social, like if you were in sales, and you want to win business with it, you got to switch your mind to like this social selling kind of mindset. And it's that platform or the the profile page is like this really, really important piece. So I say take like the traditional thought process of thinking that it's an online resume, get that out of your mind, right?

And turn it into a sales page. Not a not a like a, you know, a soft sales page, not like a like an aggressive, annoying page. But you want to do a couple things, you want to say who you help, how you help them.

And then you want to lend to like give some credibility, right? Because if they don't know you, they want to know that you know what you're doing. And so for me, it's like, I help, you know, help the mortgage industry, mortgage and real estate industry when business with LinkedIn.

So that's who I help. That's how I help them. And then I give a couple of pieces of like credibility, like 40 under 40 top mortgage professional, co author of the rethink everything book, etc.

And so once you've got that done, the foundation, kind of built, then you can go out and really start engaging, like commenting, liking, you know, your ideal customers, content, and then creating content yourself. And not to like spend all the time talking here on this point, but like, then the stage of content then becomes, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to, you know, give you stories and share experiences that I've had.

I'm going to give you a glimpse into like, me as a person. So things that I do outside of, you know, being a realtor.

[Mike Mills] (26:21 - 26:21)
Yep.

[Dan Smokoska] (26:22 - 26:53)
And, and then I'm gonna, I'm just going to like, try to solve the problems of my main customer, right? value as much as possible. Stop trying to sell every moment, and really just get in there and try to try to say, the other person on the other end of this, like social profile is a human being.

And everybody else I'm going to be, you know, we forget that on social. Like, how do I just help this person out? And how do I become the most valuable realtor they know?

[Mike Mills] (26:53 - 26:53)
Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (26:54 - 26:55)
Do it, good things will come.

[Mike Mills] (26:56 - 29:06)
You said something there, I want you to elaborate on a little bit too, because I think it's, I think people understand it, but I still feel like it, you know, in talking with folks that do this on the on the regular, you know, that help people with this, these kind of things, I think it still gets still gets glossed over some and I don't think people understand the importance. And that's the engagement side of things. So when you and you do a great job with this, of course, and I actually I found this the in a random way, or I should say, I understood the value of it in a roundabout way that was by accident, because my wife is a realtor.

And she is, you know, she's a mom, she's got kids. So we have kids, she's got kids, we got kids. So she's on Facebook constantly, you know, just liking people stuff, commenting on their trips.

And, you know, it's just the nature of her. She's from, she was born in South Louisiana, she's a, you know, southern, whatever girl manners, nice, sweet, you know, and so that's just what they do. Like, oh, that's so beautiful.

Like, we've been swimming in the first day of school photographs and everything for the last, you know, two days, because everybody around us is all, you know, going to school. And so, but she has spent time prior to all this, she would always be on there, liking and commenting, and, you know, just, just truly engaging, because that's just who she is. But that had taken her real estate business and really kind of put it on overdrive, because whenever she would post anything at all, like, and she doesn't post very often, but when she did, it would just get massive amounts of likes and comments, you know, and she knew how to respond and all these kind of things.

So her post would just stay up there. And, and I'm sitting there watching because I would give her a hard time. I'm like, you don't spend enough time marketing yourself, like you got to get out there and put yourself like, and then I sat back and I'm like, she's a she's a genius without realizing it in that she just spent all of her time engaging with other people's stuff, because she genuinely wanted to.

And that alone, you know, gave her such a big boost. And when I go on LinkedIn, and I'm there, and I see those people that are constantly engaging on different types of posts and activities, those are the ones that tend to have the most success go, can you speak a little bit to why that is such a powerful thing? And why you don't think many people do it or put an emphasis on it?

Especially because it's so easy?

[Dan Smokoska] (29:07 - 29:21)
Yeah, I don't think people realize the importance of it. And it's because of I think it's because of how we've, we've, you know, social media has evolved. But like, when we were so used to just consuming and scrolling without, you know, stopping.

[Mike Mills] (29:21 - 29:21)
Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (29:22 - 31:07)
And, and just getting those little dopamine hits. And we're so we're in it for us a lot of times just to like, check out or whatever. When we're talking about like social strategy, like social selling strategy, again, your perspective has to change.

And like, for the people who say, I don't want to create content, I'm bad at it, I don't feel comfortable, I would challenge that, like practice is one of those things that makes you better. But if you were like, you know, you can win business on social media, just with a content, or a commenting and engagement strategy. Like it's, and the reason the reason is, is because there's a person, like I said, on the other side of that comment or that post.

And if you take social media, and you kind of remove the technology, it's just like you're going into like a networking event, or like you're in person somewhere. And it's like, if you were in person, what would look different? Right, right.

Like, so with me, not much is going to look different. Like, I'm going to be talking to you, we're going to be hanging out, we're going to be chatting about business or life or whatever it is. That's the equivalent of me getting into somebody's comments, right, or sending them a DM, like we're having a conversation.

And, and any one side, one sided conversation people know is just like not a fun thing to be a part of, right. And so if you're going, and you're just posting, and then you know, leaving for, you know, a week and then jumping back on or have automated posts with your company and expect business to somehow come through the door. That's just not how it works, because that's not how people work.

[Mike Mills] (31:08 - 31:08)
Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (31:08 - 32:11)
And so the one of the things that I say quite often is, is, is that there's this psychological principle called familiarity bias. And it just means that the more that a person sees you, the more that they trust you. And that's, I mean, if you think about the, like how profound that is, right, like this proven tested principle, then the goal should be to just be seen as often as possible.

Right? So like, don't worry about annoying people with posting too much or commenting too much. Work on just trying to provide as much value as you can.

Do that as often as you can. And comments allow you to be seen consistently, consistently, daily. And it doesn't take a lot of lift.

And that trust will be built even faster. So social media gives you the ability to build trust at scale, which is pretty cool.

[Mike Mills] (32:12 - 33:23)
Well, and, and just on a technical side of things, I mean, when you engage with someone else, and they respond back and forth, the algorithm, everybody's favorite, you know, boogeyman looks at that and goes, Hey, these two people, if I put them together more often, they will spend more time on the platform. Because at the end of the day, you got to remember whatever platform it is, okay? The, the, the, the algorithm is built or designed to try to keep you on the platform as much as possible.

So if you tend to engage with someone more often, or they tend to engage back with you more often than when you're there, they're going to see your content and you're going to see theirs, because the platform goes, Hey, these two people are on at the same time, or they're, you know, they were on, I want to make sure that I show this person, you know, what this other person has posted recently, because they engage with each other. And so, you know, just from again, not even from if you want to take the, hey, just be a good human being and care about people, because that's, that's ultimately what you need to do.

But just take that out of the equation and go, if you're just going to play the technical game, that's what it's built for. That's what it's designed for. That's why they created these things.

Because our attention is their data. It's, it's so true.

[Dan Smokoska] (33:23 - 34:17)
Like, if you realize what it takes to be seen by the person you want to be seen, then I don't know that anybody would not just start commenting and DMing and engaging with, you know, their, their audience. It's incredible. Like you, you're exactly right on, on how the algorithm thinks and you know, is, is, is bad of a word is sometimes people see that.

And as many times as the algorithm is blamed for not, not getting the engagement that you want on a post, the algorithm really is there to do like one thing. And that's to like, really show the content that it thinks the person who is viewing wants to see.

[Mike Mills] (34:18 - 34:18)
Right.

[Dan Smokoska] (34:18 - 34:43)
So if you just focus on giving value and engaging with the audience you want, the algorithm is going to pick up on that. Typically, it's going to start putting you two into more and more contact. And, you know, anybody knows that the more contact and conversations you have with people, the more relationship grows, just do that over time.

And that equals friendships down the road that turn into business, right?

[Mike Mills] (34:43 - 36:44)
Yep. Yep. It's, it's relationships are the name of the game.

That's what this whole thing's about. So let's talk a little bit about, okay, let's say that I know my audience. I, I'm a, I'm a real estate professional or realtor, and I want to start getting some investor business, right?

That's what I'm looking to try to do. So if you were in that circumstance and you were like, okay, I'm going to focus on LinkedIn and I'm going to start really hammering away here. What type of content would you be posting?

Would you, you know, do you come in and up with articles? Are you reposting stuff? Are you creating your own blogs?

Are you using the LinkedIn article functions? You know, where, where are you coming up with content ideas? I, you mentioned, uh, which we can get into chat GBT.

I'm a, I'm a chat GBT dork. I spend way too much time on it. I know way more about it than maybe I should.

But, um, my favorite, one of the tools that I use personally, and, uh, I need to do more of it because, you know, it's trying to do loans and edit podcasts and stuff takes up a lot of time, but it's really simple. And I've done it a few times and it just needs to add it to my routine. But, um, is to take, I'll take this conversation that we're having right now.

I can take the transcript and download it into chat GBT. And then I'll ask it to highlight a few points that we were talking about that were specific. I'll pick one of those points.

And then I'll say, create a blog post or a LinkedIn article. Cause I can give it very specific things on what I want it to do based on this topic that we talked about. And then it'll take what we discussed and put it into a LinkedIn article format like that.

And then I can add a few graphics to it, go in and edit it, make sure it says the things that I want it to say, you know, and it's kind of in my voice cause it is in our voice cause we're talking right now. But, um, but going to make sure that it's me and then, uh, and then post that thing. And that entire process, if you do that from start to finish might take you 20 minutes.

And if that, and once you nail it down and you start getting good at it, it takes even less time. So what, what would you do if you were, you know, trying to, to find investors and trying to, you know, deal with relocations or whatever, what type of content would you start looking at posting on a regular basis?

[Dan Smokoska] (36:46 - 37:47)
Yeah. Great question. Um, and a great example of like how to use, how to use chat GPT effectively.

But if I'm, if I'm, if, if it's me, um, I am going to, I mean, I'm going to post content, but I'm also, I'm going to have a really like, and we could, maybe we're diving into this next, but like, I'm gonna have a really strong, um, engagement strategy, like a comment strategy. So I, I view content, I think a little differently than the most. I, I think obviously like the content and how we post like that is content.

Typically that's what people mean when they say content. I take it a step further because I think that comments are also content and you have an opportunity to share your thoughts, your perspective, your view, and your ability, like your knowledge, like you to show that off a little bit in the comment section.

[Mike Mills] (37:48 - 37:48)
Okay.

[Dan Smokoska] (37:48 - 38:05)
So I would do a couple things. I would identify like who the right people are, like who are the, who are the like influencer accounts in this, like this niche. So I'd go on a fact finding Mitch mission to try to figure out who those people are.

[Mike Mills] (38:05 - 38:05)
Okay.

[Dan Smokoska] (38:05 - 38:36)
And then as soon as I nail them down and find them, I'm not, I'm going to follow them. There's a, so if you go to, if as soon as you follow somebody or connect with somebody, um, there is a, a bell that shows up in the top right hand corner of their profile. You can select that bell and it's going to give you three options.

And the option that is just like generally always selected is basically let LinkedIn decide when a notification or a post, you know, matches what your interests are.

[Mike Mills] (38:36 - 38:37)
Okay.

[Dan Smokoska] (38:37 - 41:36)
So this is a, but again, we're, we want to like know this account and we want to know who's following it and engaging with it. Right. So I'm going to take this, uh, this bell and I'm going to do all notifications, right?

So anytime they post, I want to know about it. Uh, so it will actually then turn into a notification that shows up and you know, when they've posted, you can go and engage with their content. So I'm going to do a couple of things.

I want to know who is engaging with this influencer because odds are that they are going to be investors of some kind, right? So my audience will be living here. Uh, as this kind of like expands and I get to know these, these, these main accounts even more.

Um, my, my content strategy at first is to see what content of theirs is working really, really well. And then once I have that information, that knowledge, I can start creating similar content. I'm not stealing it.

I'm not copying it, but I'm just kind of going on the same topics. Um, the other thing though, is like when they post, if you go in there and add your thoughts, not just like, wow, great post, but like, you know, you give your on what's important for the investor to know and a little bit different angle. Um, you're going to get followers from that.

You're going to get engagement. You're going to get seen. You're going to become associated with that thought leader.

So again, the same thing is true over time, that thought leader, those people who are following that thought leader, they're going to trust you more. And then as your content is kind of being created, you get an opportunity to, uh, to be seen as that thought leader. So, so that's the kind of the direction I would go.

And then when I'm creating content, um, I would probably take a couple of different routes. Uh, I would do written content with a picture of some kind. Um, and I would just give like, you know, stories of, of investors that I've worked with and like some cool, uh, some cool insights or, you know, I would celebrate if, if another investor, like a, a partner, you know, that I've worked with quite a few times gets another property, you know, I'd ask that investor if I could share that and, you know, or any reviews that I get on that topic, I'm going to share those things and just start showing people that I'm in this industry, I'm in this business, this is a niche I'm really involved in. And then in order to like build that scale at trust or build that trust at scale, I'm going to jump on some video content as well.

And it doesn't need to be overproduced. It just needs to be sort of the same thing you talking. And, uh, you know, you can be doing that, like walking outside, you can be doing that in your office, but just make it like a real conversation that you're having on a topic related to, to that, um, to that industry.

That's what I would do to start.

[Mike Mills] (41:36 - 42:23)
Do you think when it comes to video specifically, do you think that people get too wrapped up in, in creating the perfect video and that, you know, really they just need to, you know, uh, our good buddy, you know, push the red button. Like is, is that, is that really what needs to happen? Because, you know, it seems like even with me personally, when I talk to agents about this stuff all the time, I do, cause you know, we do this and this is what we speak about.

But, um, you know, that's always the feedback. It's like, well, I really want to say this. And, but, you know, I had to rerecord it six times and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

And I'm like, you know, you're, you're a human and you're going to flood things and you're going to mess up and it's not going to be perfect. And, but that's what makes you human. And that's why people will engage with you because they can see you as a human being, as opposed to just some well-polished talking head that they would see on, you know, cable news.

[Dan Smokoska] (42:24 - 44:14)
Yeah. We all want to come across as, uh, looking beautiful and speaking clearly at every instant. Um, I will just tell you what, what a lot of these platforms are moving to.

They're moving to, um, to really focusing on the, uh, just natural video that would come from your phone instead of the overproduced video content. So they're giving a little bit more boost to those these days, you think? They are.

They're giving a lot more, um, they're focusing on those a lot more. And what that also does is it kind of levels the playing field, right? So it's, it's more about like, what is the content?

Not, not what is, cause you could, you put makeup right on, uh, you know, on a pig or say that, so I'll be nice. Right. And, uh, you put makeup on a pig and make the pig look beautiful.

Right. Uh, that idea, like you could, the content might not be great, but you throw in some awesome music and you throw in some like really high quality editing and, and then make it in like that, that, that might get more views, but what, what they want is like really good content that helps somebody. Right.

And so, um, so if you're doing that, your video is probably going to be successful, like creating content that's helpful. So I would say, do what you want, try it out. I'm all, I'm, I'm big on like experimenting, right?

Like, so I just, just so everybody knows, I do that all the time. I will, I will do things intentionally that I think will bomb, like do terrible. And, uh, and, and a lot of times they do.

And then like, so I'll just test things and, um, and you know, captions are cool. It helps with like people who can't hear, like to be able to read. And it looks cool too.

[Mike Mills] (44:15 - 44:35)
Um, but you don't have to, because when you say people can't hear, but a lot of times if you're scrolling through your phone, at least those of us that are considerate individuals, and there's a lot of people that aren't including my wife, is when you're scrolling through your phone, you're not playing the sound at full blast. You're probably just got it on low. So if you can watch a video and read what they're saying, it's incredibly helpful.

It really is.

[Dan Smokoska] (44:35 - 45:19)
So, you know, I think that, I think that we as, uh, as people who are not, not comfortable being on camera, which is a lot of people in our industry. Um, we make a lot of excuses on, on why not to do something. And so I think instead of making the excuses, make the content.

And, um, that, that will, when you start doing and testing yourself and seeing what works and what doesn't just get over, like what you think you look like, uh, good things happen. Just, I tell people all the time, like, just, okay, you're, you're, you're nervous. You're, you're scared to do something.

You're scared to put it out there. You don't like the way you look right. Those feelings are valid, right?

[Mike Mills] (45:19 - 45:26)
Like just, there's very few people. Well, there's a few, but not as many people out there. Like I look good every day.

[Dan Smokoska] (45:26 - 46:07)
Like who doesn't want to say, right, exactly. I hate the way I look on video. Um, you know, in most, most pictures, but I'm going to do it anyways.

Right. Gonna do it. And if social media winning business on social media, um, is built for the people who do right.

People who take action. If you don't take action, you won't have success. If you do take action, you do it over a period of time at the formula works every time.

It's like one plus one equals two. Yeah. It's always two.

And if you do the right things over a period of time, that timeline is different for every person. If you do those things, you will see success on social media.

[Mike Mills] (46:08 - 48:34)
Um, you, you said something a minute ago, which I also triggered in my head, which I think is something I've kind of experimented with a few times. Um, but it's just like anything else you get onto something and then, you know, you do it a little bit and then you move on to something else. And, you know, it's how we all nature of all of this, but, uh, the idea of narratives, because, you know, when you look at people that post stuff online and the, you know, the realtor that comes on and says, Hey, first time home buyers, you know, make sure that your credit score matches this.

And, you know, these are the three things that you want to pay attention to. Okay, great. That's helpful.

You know, thank you. But the other person comes on and says, I want to tell you something that just happened to me yesterday. I was working with a client, really good friend of mine.

You know, we've been looking for a house forever and they went out and bought a car and they didn't realize because, and it's my fault because I didn't tell them, you know, or whatever, you know, however the story goes that that message, the way that they, you know, convey it versus the, here's the three steps to this, or here's the, I mean, there's lots of ways to do it, but, but it seems like, you know, that narratives are incredibly important when it comes to getting a message across because, so I have a, I'm a, I'm a conspiracy dork, you know, in, in weird things that I just find fascinating. And there's a, there's a YouTube channel, my favorite YouTube channel.

It's called Y-Files, the Y-Files, check it out. It's talks about, you know, Bigfoot UFOs, whatever. I mean, but the way the guy does it is he starts the video out and he tells you the story as if it's true.

He tells you, this is what happened. This is what happened. And then this happened.

And I've watched the thing before, when I first started, I was like, how do I not know about this? How did I not hear about this? You know, I'm going, it's blowing my mind.

And then he goes through the whole narrative and he gets to the end and then he's like, okay, so how much of that story is bullshit and how much is real? Well, here's what I found. This is not true because of the, and so he kind of breaks it down and, you know, debunk some of it and, you know, tells you how something is true, but, but it's so captivating and it's so incredible because like I will sit there and watch a 45 minute video about something I don't really even care that much about, but because he tells the story so well, and it draws me in for that 20 minutes, like I can't turn it off. And, and I, I think that, you know, we get so bogged down in trying to give, I mean, education is a big, big, important thing, especially financial education.

But if you can take that message and you can put a story around it, I think it's so much more impactful. Are you, are you seeing that, you know, with your clients and what you guys are doing? 100%.

[Dan Smokoska] (48:34 - 50:21)
100%. It's like, I think that the example that you gave of like the story, you just like, you just told the difference. Like I felt a difference just like hearing it, you say, I mean, that, and that's, that's what happens.

We get drawn into a story. It's why we go to movies. We like, we like stories were built on stories.

And if you can become a great storyteller, you will make a lot of money. It's just, it's just the truth. And there's a, there's a saying that facts tell, but stories sell and it is so true.

So I could put two different pieces of content up and one of them could say, again, it's like me just telling you, like you, somebody can argue with your points. If you say something here are, you know, do these three things. First off, people don't like be told what to do.

Right. And then they could say, I don't know if that's true. I don't think that actually works.

But if you say, here is a story of something that worked for me, here are the three things that I did that turned into, you know, however much dollar in, in, in business, then you can't argue with it. Right. Right.

So it's your story, you experienced it. And I'm going to listen because you said that it, that you did some steps and it actually worked. So there's just like, it softens right out the gate.

It just, it just softens things. When people know you're, you're telling a story, it's kind of like, it's kind of like the once upon a time, as soon as somebody says that, you know, that a story is coming and you kind of like, you know, you're listening a little bit better.

[Mike Mills] (50:22 - 50:22)
Yeah.

[Dan Smokoska] (50:22 - 50:24)
Tell stories that makes a difference. Absolutely.

[Mike Mills] (50:25 - 51:46)
Yeah. I, I think, you know, I've, I've tried it a few times just to, and it's not, I say, try it. It's just like, Hey, here's what happened.

And here's how, how it went. And, and I think it's just, you know, it's so much more captivating in a lot of ways and gets people engaged in what, what is happening and what's going on. And that's why, like, you know, even on the podcast world, you know, some of the most successful podcasts that are out there right now are the ones that are like the serial, you know, a murder stories or whatever, you know, where it's like part one, they give you this whole long story and it's an hour and a half and you're like captivated.

And then it's like, stay tuned for part two. And you're like, Oh, I can't wait. You know?

So it's, those are the types of things that are going to get people interested and, and going to have people engage with what you're doing. Because if you can, you know, teacher, you know, it's, it's like being taught to versus being talked with, right. When, when we're sitting down, having a conversation, when we're doing a podcast, you and I are having a conversation, anybody listening, it feels like they're a part of that conversation, right?

If we sat here and did a webinar and went through about, you know, here's the mechanisms of how LinkedIn, and we did all that, that's a lot less interesting than two human beings talking to each other. And this is how I see it. And this is how I see it.

And that to me, you know, even drives the point home further that it's such an impactful thing when you can let somebody feel like they're a part of the conversation versus you're just standing in front of them in a seminar, telling them how to, you know, market their business.

[Dan Smokoska] (51:47 - 53:00)
Absolutely. And like, just go out there, just go do what this, just do what you do in person. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, like, what do we do? Like, when we get together, it's so easy to tell stories. And that's all we do.

We don't like you and I are drinking a beer at a bar. We're not like talking about like, hey, Mike, um, dude, I know you're I know you're a lender. Do these three things.

And and you're going to get more business. We'd like, I would be like, man, Mike, I don't know what you're doing right now. But I heard about this other guy.

Yeah. Or this other loan officer. Man, he went and did this thing.

And it was crazy. He told me like, all of these, you know, leads came flowing in. I was like, Have you ever tried that?

Like, and so just think, stop thinking of social media as like this weird world. It's, it's a weird world, because there's weird people on there. But when you kind of craft your audience, and it's the people you want to do business with, man, just go out there and treat them like people and just be yourself like you normally would in person, it will transform everything that you're doing, it will add a lot more business to your pipeline.

[Mike Mills] (53:01 - 53:49)
One last thing I want you to talk about before we go is focus. So you are the epitome of this in that, you know, you're on this platform on LinkedIn, every day working going away. I don't know.

You know, I don't. We just I just friended you on Facebook the other day, because I shared it, you know, the event there, but I haven't looked at your Facebook page or any of the other ones. But I would imagine because you spend so much time on LinkedIn, you're not necessarily incredibly engaged on the other ones.

So how important when it comes to especially from looking at it from a business point of view, you know, how important it is? Is it in your mind to pick a platform in this case, you know, hopefully LinkedIn, but pick a platform and just go all in on that one platform instead of trying to do a little bit of something on every single one? How do you feel?

Do you think that has value to it? Do you think it is better to be everywhere? Like, what do you think?

[Dan Smokoska] (53:49 - 54:54)
I don't know, you know, a lot of commitment, you know, to be on a platform and try to get the most out of it. I think there's, I think, I think like focus really matters in each platform has has a little bit different, you know, feel and, you know, attack plan. It's where like, where's your business at?

Where do they where do they live? And then again, we go back to the competition question. Like, am I for the for the amount of work that I'm putting into something?

Is there a platform that I can get more bang for my buck and really see the fruits of? Luckily for me, you know, I was, I was jumping in to LinkedIn before Gary V started really pushing it by chance, right? And as soon as he started pushing it, got it got a lot more traction, which I was very thankful for.

Right? Like, like it did help.

[Mike Mills] (54:55 - 55:00)
That's like buying apples are actually selling Apple stock right before Warren Buffett sold 50% of his apples.

[Dan Smokoska] (55:01 - 56:43)
Right, right. Exactly. It's just it, I timed it well.

And it was it was just complete coincidence. But, you know, there's, there's so much opportunity to understand the community that exists on each platform. And if you're spread out, it's really hard to get that nuance and understand those little like pieces of differences.

Yeah. So my, you know, LinkedIn, I would, I feel, you know, like I have really honed in and figured that platform out. And it's where I get a lot of engagement.

And it's where I've made sort of a brand and a name for myself. If I were to, to take the next step, I would look at one platform next. And then I would do a similar thing with that platform, I would still do my LinkedIn stuff.

But instead of going and spreading it out over multiple platforms, I would really just try to figure out how that platform functions, how it works, and then get really good at that one, and then maybe move to the next one. It's just a lot of work, man. It's a lot of work to keep up.

And so just do what do what's most comfortable to you in that you're most likely to keep going. If video content is tough for you, then I mean, Instagram and TikTok is going to be really, really challenging, right? So get out there and find something that you can stick to, and then just learn it really, really well.

And, you know, one of the cool things is, is that once you learn something really, really well, people want to know how to do it for themselves. And so you open up a whole nother opportunity for you to be able to be of value to people within your industry or outside of it.

[Mike Mills] (56:44 - 58:35)
Yeah. And, and when you learn something, you know, I'm a big proponent of this, but when you spend time, you know, whether it's, you know, I, like I said, I know more about chat GPT than I should, but when you spend time focusing on something and learning about it and really getting into the weeds on how it works and what it does, then it's amazing how at some point you can take that, whatever that work is off your plate a little bit and give it to somebody else who also is an expert at that thing and have them manage it for you when you start to scale. But the importance of learning it yourself is that, you know, the value of what you're paying for. So if like, you know, doing this stuff, I do, I've done my fair share of video editing.

I know how it works. I kind of can generally do it. But for me to sit down and edit a video is going to take an hour where I can pay someone that can do it in 20 minutes that has a process that does this every day, you know, and that's part of their job.

But I know in my mind what the value of that is because I spent time doing it and I know how it works, you know, versus just kind of blindly paying somebody for something that you don't understand. And I've done that too many times in this podcast world, especially too, is paying someone to do something. And then me going back and going, wait a minute, uh, I can do that.

And it takes me like 10 minutes. So why am I paying this guy 200 bucks a month? Like that doesn't make any sense.

So, so learning these things and getting into the weeds a little bit, not, it doesn't mean you perpetually have to do it yourself. It just means if you understand it and you know how it works, then when you're ready to pass that thing on to an employee, or you're ready to pass it on to, you know, an outside contractor, that's going to do that work for you. So you can focus on your business or whatever it is that you're doing.

You're going to understand the value of that service so much more. And, um, speaking of value of service before we go, I want you to tell everybody a little bit about what you do for your company, how you guys help people out and the services that you offer. So, so they know if they want to get a little help, they can reach out to you too.

[Dan Smokoska] (58:35 - 59:22)
Yeah. So really what it is, I have a newsletter. I think that is, is probably the most beneficial thing for anybody who wants to, uh, to get connected.

You can find that on my LinkedIn page, a lot of LinkedIn coaching. Um, and, uh, and so my biggest thing is to provide value to the, to the mortgage and real estate industries and to try to help like you win business with social. So, uh, the coaching and all of that stuff that we do, um, group coaching and things like that, it's all built to help you increase revenue.

And so, um, if, if you guys want like free, free, uh, conversations on how to do that, my newsletter is a great resource. Um, and if you want to go a little bit deeper, feel free to DM me, uh, or send me an email. So, yeah.

[Mike Mills] (59:23 - 1:00:37)
And Dan's great by the way, he's a great resource. Um, I've reached out to him a couple of times with some stuff that I'm doing and he's was like, Hey, call me. And we chatted and he's like, try this, try this, try this.

And you know, that was it. And you know, and it's, it's great. So I highly recommend, you know, especially if you think that, you know, this platform that LinkedIn could be an avenue for you that you want to start going down that road, um, you know, reach out, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, call somebody, talk to them, you know, create relationships, find out more because you know, whatever it is that you want to focus on.

Um, if once you decide upon that, then you've got to start doing your research and getting out there and finding these things. And like I said, Dan's a fantastic resource. So I, I certainly recommend that you reach out to him.

So Dan, thank you so much. I appreciate your time in, uh, you know, we moved this up a little bit earlier today. So, um, you know, thanks for being flexible with me, but, uh, you know, anybody that needs any help, reach out to him.

You can find him on LinkedIn, all his contact information's on his front, on his, uh, his profile page. Like he's, he, he, uh, practices what he preaches. So, um, go check it out and learn all you can, cause it's a great platform.

And there's a lot of opportunity here because a lot of real estate professionals are, are not tapping into it. So, you know, hit them where they ain't as they say. All right, Dan.

Thanks buddy. Appreciate it. Thanks for everybody that stuck around.

We'll see you back next week.