Photo by Innova Property

Are you tired of putting in endless hours on social media without seeing any real results? It’s time to stop scrolling aimlessly and start using social media efficiently to grow your HMO business!

Read below or listen to the full episode of The HMO Podcast for some tried and tested tips on how to maximise your time, efforts, and resources on social media to get the best possible results. We’ll cover six of the main benefits of using social media and six actionable steps to help you start using social media more effectively.

Note: I want to make it clear that I’m not a social media expert, but I’ve been pretty successful with it as a property investor. I’m predominately active on Instagram and Facebook, and I run The HMO Community Facebook Group, which has more than 7,000 members. So, while I’ll share my experience-led advice with you, there’s still so much more that you could do.

6 Benefits of Using Social Media As a HMO Investor

Why should we even bother with social media in the first place? What is it about social media that can be so valuable? Here are six things that you can really get from these platforms if you use them in the right way!

1. It’s a great way to expand your network.

Expanding your network can help you find inspiration, motivation, and encouragement when you need it. As you start to progress and grow your business, you’ll find yourself really needing and relying on your network. 

I’ve found a huge amount of comfort in finding people in the industry online. This really helped me feel more comfortable with what I was doing. It reminded me that there are other people out there doing the same thing, and it helped keep me on track. 

Things can get really difficult at times when building a HMO business, and it can be so painfully slow that at many times you may just want to throw the towel in! So, this support could end up being crucial to keeping you going.

2. It can allow you to take advantage of experience-led learning.

If you look in the right places, you can find great business and property education from social media. You have to be really careful about who you follow and listen to though as there is a lot of bad information and advice out there!

Of course, there are also a lot of different opinions on social media, and somebody’s opinion may not necessarily be right for you… So, you may need to apply their advice in a slightly different way to your own business. But there’s so much opportunity to learn from people on social media, especially Facebook.

3. It can help you build your power team of industry experts.

Social media can help you identify great industry experts to work with, such as brokers, architects, solicitors, finance experts, planning consultants, and tax advisors. For example, you can find Ellie, our partner mortgage broker, and Andrew and Mary, our partner architects and designers, on hand in our Facebook Group The HMO Community.

To find industry experts, you can go on Google, and you’ll probably find someone who can do the job. But will they be the best person? In relevant social media communities, you’ll quickly find that industry experts will come up in conversation and be recommended. You can then see examples of their work and follow them before you decide to work with them. 

4. It can help you curate and showcase your brand.

It’s really difficult to build a brand, especially in the property space. But social media is a great way to curate and showcase your brand. It allows you to get straight to potential customers and people you could do deals with. 

When it comes to branding, it’s not just about your logo and colour palette – it’s about your tone of voice, values, mission, and what you’re actually doing. People can follow you and observe you on different social media channels. They can then watch your brand evolve over time. 

When people become familiar with you and your brand, confidence can grow. And that friction that often exists between a business and a customer can then dissipate. So, it’s much easier if you’ve been spending time communicating your brand out to people on social media, and Instagram is particularly great for this.

5. It can provide an opportunity to raise private finance.

Raising private finance is a key way to help speed up the growth of your HMO business and do more deals. When you’re active online, there are SO many people who could be following and watching you, like that one person who could fund your next deal!

But that can only happen as long as you keep posting, sharing your journey, promoting your brand, and showing off what you’re doing. This will make it much easier to have that conversation about finance, and you’re much more likely to be able to have that conversation in the first place.

6. It can allow you to find opportunities to do deals and JVs.

You can also find lots of opportunities to do deals either to buy or sell on social media. And other opportunities, such as collaborating or doing a joint venture deal, could surface as well.

If you’re not active on social media, you’ll miss out on these, and someone else will be there taking advantage of these opportunities. But if you are active, you could be that person taking advantage of these and building new avenues that could lead to a bigger and better HMO business. 

Keep in mind that every time you post or share something on social media with intention, you’ll open yourself up to getting all of these benefits at the same time. And that is how you really level up your business!

6 Steps to Help You Use Social Media More Effectively 

Now let’s talk about how you can actually use social media to your advantage and reap the rewards of all of these benefits. Here’s six steps to help you to start implementing a successful social media strategy for your HMO business!

1. Plan and document your strategy.

For starters, you need to spend some time planning and documenting your social media strategy. Like anything in business, you have to have a clear strategy and execute it successfully.

So, don’t just scroll on social media aimlessly – this is the mistake that most people make. You need to be really intentional about what you’re doing and sharing. It’s really important that we recognise that if we’re not, we’ll get left behind. 

2. Pick the right platforms.

One of the mistakes I see a lot of people making is that they get on every channel and try to post content on all of them. And inevitably, it’s too. much. I’m predominately active on Instagram and Facebook, and I post some on LinkedIn and a couple other channels. I’ve found that’s the right balance for me, and it’s where I’ve had the best results.

So, you need to be honest about how much time you have to devote to this, what your skill set is more geared towards, and what you’re more comfortable doing and sharing. All the channels are so different, and you need to make sure it’s suited to you and your objective.

3. Set aside time for this and hold yourself to account.

There are some people that struggle to succeed because social media falls to the bottom of their list every single day, week, and month. They don’t post on their channels, and they don’t engage. So, of course, they don’t build a following. And after six or 12 months, they’ve lost all of the potential opportunities that come with using social media. 

While it’s tough to keep up with social media regularly, it’s really important that you set time aside every day or week to get on your channels and do what you need to do. To help me do this, I plan a lot of my content in advance. And in my diary, every single day, I have time carved out making sure I’m not only posting but also engaging and answering questions.

4. Be real and honest.

Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to pretend to be somebody else or more of an expert in order to find investors or opportunities on social media. If you just be yourself and share what you’re doing, you’ll build a following that are genuinely interested in you and what you’re doing!

When an investor wants to sign on the dotted line, they’re going to ask you to show them your track record. If you haven’t got that but you’ve been talking like you do, that’s going to be really disappointing. So, just be honest about who you are, where you’re up to, and exactly what you’re doing in the property space.

5. Don’t lurk for too long.

It’s okay to observe and lurk for a little while on social media. Some of us are naturally more comfortable and happier to be a part of the conversation, while some of us will need to step out of our comfort zones.

If you stay in the shadows for too long, you really will limit yourself, and you won’t get the full value from social media. People won’t end up getting to know you, and you won’t give them the opportunity to understand more about what you’re doing and who you are. 

6. Occasionally ask for what you need.

When we’ve been posting and showing people what we’re doing, we can often forget to ask for what we ultimately need. That may be support, help, or guidance, while other times it might be finance for the next deal. Whatever it is, don’t forget to ask! 

A ratio that I’ve found that works really well is for every nine posts I share that offer value or entertainment, I post one thing that will hopefully transpire into me getting a little bit of what I need. 

If you do all of this, you’ll be able to build a bigger and better HMO business, and you’ll be able to achieve great results much more quickly! But keep in mind that this won’t happen overnight… It takes time to nurture a social media audience and build an authentic and organic following. 

I hope this inspires you to do more and get more from social media. If you want to find support throughout your investment journey and ask any questions to fellow HMO investors, join The HMO Community Facebook Group. And if you’re looking to really scale your HMO business up to the next level, sign up for The HMO Roadmap!

About the Author:

Andy Graham is the founder and the lead trainer at The HMO Roadmap! He is also the co-founder of The HMO Mastermind and Smart Property, a specialist HMO property investment and management company. He writes as a regular columnist in different magazines about a variety of HMO topics and is the host of The HMO Podcast! Follow Andy on Instagram!